AionFX Procyon Legacy (BJFE Honey Bee)

MichaelW

Well-known member
Build Rating
5.00 star(s)
Does anyone remember me saying I was planning to slow down in 2023? Or did I just dream that? :ROFLMAO:

So I've been on a Bjorn Juhl kick lately and have been trying to build all the projects that I could find.

This one is from AionFX and is his "legacy" board before he went down the path of the "125B Only" and the expanded daughterboard.
I've really grown to dislike the breakout board design, if you have a bad footswitch or something, you're basically hosed.
I was really glad to come across the Procyon still available in his earlier 1590B format so I ordered it to continue my quest to build all the BJFE designs I can find.

The Honey Bee has been around for a while and is credited with kicking off the whole "transparent drive" thing. Of course I had no idea it even existed until recently, so for me it's a "new" pedal:)

Like all of the BJFE designs, this pedal is a pretty unique circuit with some of his hallmark circuit design choices like the "Nature" knob which I'm still trying to wrap my head around what it's actually doing. And his choice of opamps (CA3130), clippers, etc.

It uses 1N4007's as clippers along with red leds.

I made a couple of substitutions based on recommendations from Aion. Some of the component values are from the BearfootFX collaboration era and a couple are Aion's own recommendations to "open up" the pedal a bit more to address the "boxiness" of the original. Since I really have no frame of reference, I decided to follow these recommendations and it definitely does not sound "boxy" to me.

This is a low to medium gain pedal with some quirkiness. Like the drive knob basically tops out around noon on my build after which there is no increase in gain.
But there's that trademark "thick and chewy" breakup that I've found to be common across all the Bjorn Juhl pedals I've built so far.

In testing this pedal, I had it out with first all the other BJFE pedals I've built so far (Skylight Drive-Mad Prof Sky Blue, Resinite Drive-Mad Prof Amber Drive, Splendiferous-Mad Prof Royal Blue) and just for giggles, I threw in the Mojito Deluxe, that has a few BJFE design elements in it.
I also compared it side by side with my all time favorite low gain drive, the Mach 1-Greer Lightspeed.

As a low gain, edge of breakup kind of drive it doesn't have as much low end as the Mach 1, and it also doesn't have that Mach 1 sizzle (that I actually find a bit annoying and usually dial out). While it kind of fits into that same sonic space, it's got it's own thing going on that's not a Timmy or Timmy-derivative.
I keep coming back to the phrase "chewy" even at low gain settings, there's a thickness to the gain that I find absolutely delightful. It's like I can feel it under my fingers when I play through it.

If I set the gain to noon and goose it with the Maleficent Mids it can get into medium gain territory and stacks very well. It also stacks well with some of the other Juhls pedals as a dirty boost. There's some overlap between the Honey Bee and the Royal Blue but they are also different and their own animals.

Really looking forward to a couple more BJFE boards I've got coming from @Robert as well as a Sweet Honey board from @jimilee. The Sweet Honey is a later variant of the Honey Bee and from what I can find out, is supposed to sound a little different. Really looking forward to building that one out! Stay tuned....

This is one of my $3.75....but now $7.00 SmallBear enclosures (dang inflation!)

IMG_4211.JPG

I had to do a little jiggering to make the board fit in a 1590B and took some thought since it wasn't a PPCB board. So I started by drilling my top jacks and mounting them, then worked from there to make sure I had clearance in order to locate the pots.

Not my favorite way to wire up a footswitch nor my cleanest work. But everything is grounded and the pedal works!
I also subbed an MMBF5457 for the original 2N5952 jfet and used a 1n4004 for the reverse polarity diode. (Original used a 4002, which I didn't have).
After I soldered it in it occurred to me that I could have just used a 1N5817, duh...

I'm usually on autopilot when it comes to drilling enclosures for PPCB projects, so having to think through what I was doing for this one probably took the most brain power heh, but otherwise the build went smooth and went pretty quickly. Fairly low component count. I did socket a couple of the film caps at the recommendation of the build docs, but it sounds so good, I'm leaving it the way it is.

Love how this thing sounds!! Really looking forward to comparing it with @jimilee 's "Honey Bear".

IMG_4213.JPG
 
I had never heard of BJFE or Bjorn Juhl until I started hanging around here, and I'm still not really sure what his deal is, but it turns out I have a board for a honey bee in my stash. It's the Effects Layouts blue bee. I bought it several years ago cuz a friend said it was supposed to be good and I said fuck it ya know? Anyway, recently I remembered I had it and was looking for info. I found here that it's supposedly based on a supro amp, but I hadn't seen that mentioned anywhere else. But I do love old supros. What say you?
 
I had never heard of BJFE or Bjorn Juhl until I started hanging around here, and I'm still not really sure what his deal is, but it turns out I have a board for a honey bee in my stash. It's the Effects Layouts blue bee. I bought it several years ago cuz a friend said it was supposed to be good and I said fuck it ya know? Anyway, recently I remembered I had it and was looking for info. I found here that it's supposedly based on a supro amp, but I hadn't seen that mentioned anywhere else. But I do love old supros. What say you?
It doesn't sound like an old Supro to me. But then there were a lot of models of Supro's. It sounds more like a sweet low-medium gain overdrive, a bit on the funky trashy side as opposed to smooth and suave. You might dig it.
 
Depending how you set “nature” and what components you build it with, it can get that small combo close-ish to meltdown feel, but it’s definitely its own thing.

I built this same board, @MichaelW and I really wish all of Aion’s projects were still the “old way.” I suppose there’s nothing stopping me from building any Aion project the old way though hmmmm

I LOVE this circuit. The more I play it, the more things I find it does well. Very nice build btw - not easy to fit this one in a 1590b with top jacks for sure!
 
I do like the circuit. It’s one I really miss playing right now. The Honey Beest is a Honey Bee with a boost, which becomes the Mojito with tweaking.

I love the Bee with a Rangemaster type as the boost (my fav is the Chickenhead to tune the bass). It also stacks nicely with a Timmy and a semi hollow guitar for a smooth mid gain tone.
 
That’s a cool build and a nice sounding pedal indeed. I’ve build that a while ago on the legacy board as well. It might be interesting to compare some of the values and components I used after experimenting because I get plenty of low end on my build:

- I used 2x green 5mm leds
- 220nf instead of the 4n7 on the left.
- 1uF instead of 220nf
- 15nf instead of 10nf on the right side
- 390k instead of a 360k resistor

H C00E9333-10C3-4852-BFFF-527C20AE5328.jpeg
 
That’s a cool build and a nice sounding pedal indeed. I’ve build that a while ago on the legacy board as well. It might be interesting to compare some of the values and components I used after experimenting because I get plenty of low end on my build:

- I used 2x green 5mm leds
- 220nf instead of the 4n7 on the left.
- 1uF instead of 220nf
- 15nf instead of 10nf on the right side
- 390k instead of a 360k resistor

HView attachment 41042
I think you must have used the stock values?
I went with the suggested values from the build docs.
 
The Mojito is cool. Think of it as a Honey Bee with a ton more gain and low end. Chuck also split the "Nature" into dedicated controls. Oh and a very usable added boost.
 
I love the honey bee. Its one of my favourite pedals and the aion legacy board is fantastic. I didn't realise he still had any.
 
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.
 
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