AionFX Procyon Legacy (BJFE Honey Bee)

This entire thread is awesome. I love the Mojito and also wish to build all of Bjorn’s stuff. Chuck has a couple breadboard threads with Bjorn stuff that are on my todo list. Obscure crazy pedal builder… hmmm sounds familiar.
 
HamishR said:
The Nature control is kinda bass to the left and treble to the right. I always found it annoying - what if I want more bass and more treble? So I split the Nature into bass and treble which makes more sense to me.

And that's why it's split on the Mojito, which was based on a BJF Model G. The Model G is quite similar to the Honey Bee except is supposed to sound more like an old Gibson amp. I don't know how much like an old Gibson it sounds but it's a slightly tougher take on the Honey Bee. I had modified various things on the Model G but sent it to Chuck to ask for help because he knows way more than I do. I felt proud that I had worked out how to split the Nature control by myself. I may not know as much (or even a thousandth as much!) about this stuff than Chuck does but that bit was mine!!

The Honey Beest is a Honey Bee with and extra gain stage added before the IC, because the CA3130 is a single op-amp chip. In the Honey Beest it is not available as a separate boost but just as a way of getting more level out of the pedal because a Honey Bee sounds great but isn't very loud. So what Chuck did was add the extra gain stage from the Honey Beest to the Model G to make it betterer.

FWIW you can't swap the CA3130 for a 4558 because they have different pinouts, one being a single op-amp and the other being a dual op-amp.
If you squint you might see that the Honey Bee is actually a very modified Rat pedal. The CA3130 is Bjorn's choice to replace the LM308N. So just as I have built Rats using the CA3130 recently I built a Honey Bee with a NOS LM308N tin can chip. It works just fine. And I really like Chuck's bass pot mod for a Rat, which isn't all that different from the way Bjorn did the bass side of the Honey Bee.

Did Jimilee come up with a Honey Bear too? I have a pedal I called the Honey Bear which is simply a modified Honey Beest with the spilt Nature control. I gave the Pre-gain knob a set value where it sounded good to me and left it off the front of the pedal. That kept it as a 4-knob pedal, having Gain, Volume, Bass and Treble.

The Sweet Honey really is quite a different circuit from the Honey Bee, using a dual opamp chip and having vastly different EQ.
Click to expand...
Duh....you're absolutely right, C3130 is a single opamp. Don't anyone listen to me.... @Harry Klippton.... :ROFLMAO:
 
Dan0h said:
This entire thread is awesome. I love the Mojito and also wish to build all of Bjorn’s stuff. Chuck has a couple breadboard threads with Bjorn stuff that are on my todo list. Obscure crazy pedal builder… hmmm sounds familiar.
Click to expand...
Two designers that I never heard of until @Chuck D. Bones started talking about them that I've really fallen for, Bjorn and Skreddy.
Of course anything Chuck designs is worth building!
 
sorry to revive a zombie thread, but I have a question about the first cap, labelled 47n on the schematic in the build document.

I built it (there is another thread around) but I've found too much bass and a harsh opamp clipping.

Looking at the PCB Mojito I see a much lower input cap, 10nF, compairing also to the MP Sweet Honey schem (which is supposed to be a refinement for larger production) the input cap is even 4n7 (and with a lower Res, 6.8K in place a 15K) .

Since I don't see in the picture in this thread a 47nF a question suddendly appears to me: am I missing something? were they different versions?
I'm planning to try a 4n7 soon but I'm curious about it.
 
nooneknows said:
sorry to revive a zombie thread, but I have a question about the first cap, labelled 47n on the schematic in the build document.

I built it (there is another thread around) but I've found too much bass and a harsh opamp clipping.

Looking at the PCB Mojito I see a much lower input cap, 10nF, compairing also to the MP Sweet Honey schem (which is supposed to be a refinement for larger production) the input cap is even 4n7 (and with a lower Res, 6.8K in place a 15K) .

Since I don't see in the picture in this thread a 47nF a question suddendly appears to me: am I missing something? were they different versions?
I'm planning to try a 4n7 soon but I'm curious about it.
Click to expand...
@nooneknows are you building the AionFX "Legacy" board?
You should take a look at the build docs for his current version of the Procyon
and also this article "Revisiting the original Honey Bee FSB Trace".Interestingly, there was a mistake in the original trace that got propagated over time until most of the PCBs and circuits based on the BJuhls Honey Bee contain that mistake.

When I read all this, I decided to re-build the circuit on a GuitarPCB Super Bee board I had lying around with the corrected values and I have to say it REALLY sounds better. I was so impressed that I asked my good Kiwi buddy @szukalski to do a layout with the corrected schematic and lo and behold he already had done it!

I give you the Sheepy Love "Honey Lamb".

IMG_8022.JPG
It's a great low gain stand alone overdrive but it really shines pushing an overdriven amp. I like using it for that purpose much more than a TS or Klon or Rat.

If you're building the legacy AionFX Procyon you can use the correct values from the CURRENT Procyon build doc.
Or if you're interested I have a couple of extra Honey Lamb boards with the faceplates. I can pop one in the mail to you.

I sent a Honey Lamb board to @jimilee and he liked it a lot as well.

DM me if interested.

Cheers,
 
MichaelW said:
@nooneknows are you building the AionFX "Legacy" board?
You should take a look at the build docs for his current version of the Procyon
and also this article "Revisiting the original Honey Bee FSB Trace".Interestingly, there was a mistake in the original trace that got propagated over time until most of the PCBs and circuits based on the BJuhls Honey Bee contain that mistake.
Click to expand...

Hi Micheal,

I used an Aion Procyon V2 board (from musikding.de, I'm in Europe) but I see both in legacy board doc and in v2 doc , C1 is marked 47n.

Anyway, since I was frying thinking about it, yesterday I tried a 4n7 in place of the 47n and, wow, what a difference!

I still had some harsh distortion, I think the problem could be with my CA3130 opamp, it could be defective, so I put a TL081 in place and the harshness has almost completely gone (I tried a TL071 too but the TL081 sounds a little better, much rounder, even if it is said to be just the same chip of the TL071 with just a worse noise figure, the difference is clearly audible) .

The pedal now sounds the way I thought it must had sound , dynamic, organic, reactive, inspiring I'd say. With the bass reduced it now can push the amp really better.

many thanks
 
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