AionFX Procyon Legacy (BJFE Honey Bee)

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.
Duh....you're absolutely right, C3130 is a single opamp. Don't anyone listen to me.... @Harry Klippton.... :ROFLMAO:
 
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.
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.
 
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 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,
 
@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.

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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