drgonzo1969
Well-known member
This pedal is pretty wild. I always wanted one of these EHX tube pedals back in the day.
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EHX Tube Zipper
- Thread starter drgonzo1969
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Bricksnbeatles
Member known well
Laundryroom David
Keyboard Cowboy 🤠
Don’t forget Jeff!
drgonzo1969
Well-known member
The wiggler and muff'n don't really impress me much. But the Tube Zipper seems really fucking cool.
vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
I actually have pdf schematics of every single tube pedal in that line, but for some reason never built a single one. Weird. I spent a few hours one day scouring the internet to see how many I could find, and did pretty well. I wonder where I put those...
@C2C Electronics says he signs on here every couple days to check in, but I'm not sure I believe him. It seems like he's not really into forums/social media and stuff. I'll let him know we want to bother him more though
Shows he was last in on Tuesday.I actually have pdf schematics of every single tube pedal in that line, but for some reason never built a single one. Weird. I spent a few hours one day scouring the internet to see how many I could find, and did pretty well. I wonder where I put those...
@C2C Electronics says he signs on here every couple days to check in, but I'm not sure I believe him. It seems like he's not really into forums/social media and stuff. I'll let him know we want to bother him more though
Bricksnbeatles
Member known well
vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
Yeah I think the Black Finger was actually the first one I was looking at in the series, someone had pointed me to it a while back. I heard mixed things about the mic pre, but to average them out it was basically they sounded good but the power supply was noisy. Basically the same thing people say about the Soldano GTO.
drgonzo1969
Well-known member
The Black Finger was the one that caught my eye back in the day. I dont even think I knew what a compressor was at that point hahaha. I just liked the look of these pedals. Lately I have been interested in weird envelope filters and so the Tube Zipper came to mind. It definitely has it's own thing going on with the moving filter.
vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
I was pretty sure I had all these files sitting on my computer at work, but I finally came into the office and I can't find them. I scoured the internet and was able to find a bunch, but not all of them. This is where I'm at:
drgonzo1969
Well-known member
Nice! you found the tube zipper!
vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
Yup, that one was in a funny exchange on FSB. Someone had posted schematics of Tube Zipper and Tube Wiggler, and the original designer jumped on and said "Your Tube Wiggler schematic has some mistakes, and your Tube Zipper schematic violates my copyright."
Pretty good indication the Tube Zipper schematic is correct
Laundryroom David
Keyboard Cowboy 🤠
That’s a tell for surePretty good indication the Tube Zipper schematic is correct
drgonzo1969
Well-known member
What does the tube do in the tube zipper circuit? Would it be possible to make one without a tube in it?
vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
The tubes are effectively doing a preamp-y thing, but the beauty of the filter is that it's directly tied into the V2 cathode. The circuit is so novel the original designer was actually able to get it patented, which is incredibly rare for analog guitar pedal circuits. But the patent expired a few years ago and wasn't renewed, so if you're planning on doing a commercial endeavor based on his work, you're in the clear now.
All that being said, you could absolutely accomplish a similar thing using transistor gainstages and varying the emitter (or a FET and the source) in a similar way and you could accomplish the same thing smaller and more efficient. The envelope section is already running 12V, so all you'd need to do is get a similar enough gain structure to make it work.
drgonzo1969
Well-known member
could you post the schematic? I may try and breadboard something if its not too much of a monster.
vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
Keep in mind EHX's schematic is the intellectual property of New Sensor Corp and is therefore protected by copyright. Fortunately this was drawn by me and is subject to no such protections.
Obviously there are some differences between this and the original, notably that this uses an SMPS for the high-voltage instead of their backwards 12V transformer and a rectifier. Also the depth pot is optional, if you want fixed depth you can omit the pot and install R49 and jumper R46. The original Vactrols (VTL1-4) are of an unknown variety, but I used VTL5C3 and they work well. Envelope ground and signal ground are electrically connected, but it's best practice to keep them separate and tie in only at one location, which is why a 0Ω resistor was used here.
I think that's all the notes I've got for now.
vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
Quick bump on this one, I was debating doing something based on the Tube Zipper as a finished pedal, but as I played through the prototype I decided you guys would appreciate it more than my pedal customers, so I'm throwing together a layout for this one. There's a lot going on, targeting a 1590XX.
