andare
Well-known member
You're always there to help me out. Thank you!
Electrovibe (Big Monk)
- Thread starter Big Monk
- Start date
Big Monk
Well-known member
No sweat! I’m rarely useful so I take the opportunity to help very seriously!
Big Monk
Well-known member
I had the opportunity to riff on “Breathe” earlier with the Good Vibes and the ElectroVibe.
Firstly, the Good Vibes and the ElectroVibe have the classic Univibe layout. Where the Good Vibes has expression control for Speed, the ElectroVibe has 2 speeds.
The Good Vibes, in general has more mods and bottom end, but not excessively so. It’s just enough so that it has a touch more oomph, and an accentuated throb (the favorite Univibe adjective of all amateur vibe reviewers). It also has more Speed on hand and more Intensity, although for an apples to apples comparison, that is irrelevant.
The ElectroVibe has, and I’m uncertain yet whether my mind is playing tricks on me, or if differences in how I have the both biased is to blame, a more organic or natural sounding overall tone. It could be that this is a result of a touch less mods and bottom need compare to the Good Vibes.
I was able to pretty equally match them and it’s going to be tough to decide which stays. Obviously the form factor on the ElectroVibe saves me board space, as I’d need to have the Expression pedal to acces speed control on the Good Vibes.
The Good Vibes, however, has more range on both Speed and Intensity and threat different frequency range in the mods and bottom working for it.
I will say this: Whether I keep it or not, the Good Vibes is a sleeper Univibe pedal for sure. I’m unsure why it’s caught such a bad rap, likely because everyone thinks they like vibe but “it doesn’t throb enough”, etc., but it is really close to the vintage Univibe sound and the expression control is a life touch.
Firstly, the Good Vibes and the ElectroVibe have the classic Univibe layout. Where the Good Vibes has expression control for Speed, the ElectroVibe has 2 speeds.
The Good Vibes, in general has more mods and bottom end, but not excessively so. It’s just enough so that it has a touch more oomph, and an accentuated throb (the favorite Univibe adjective of all amateur vibe reviewers). It also has more Speed on hand and more Intensity, although for an apples to apples comparison, that is irrelevant.
The ElectroVibe has, and I’m uncertain yet whether my mind is playing tricks on me, or if differences in how I have the both biased is to blame, a more organic or natural sounding overall tone. It could be that this is a result of a touch less mods and bottom need compare to the Good Vibes.
I was able to pretty equally match them and it’s going to be tough to decide which stays. Obviously the form factor on the ElectroVibe saves me board space, as I’d need to have the Expression pedal to acces speed control on the Good Vibes.
The Good Vibes, however, has more range on both Speed and Intensity and threat different frequency range in the mods and bottom working for it.
I will say this: Whether I keep it or not, the Good Vibes is a sleeper Univibe pedal for sure. I’m unsure why it’s caught such a bad rap, likely because everyone thinks they like vibe but “it doesn’t throb enough”, etc., but it is really close to the vintage Univibe sound and the expression control is a life touch.
Harry Klippton
Well-known member
The good vibes seems a bit brighter overall than the electrovibe
Bricksnbeatles
Member known well
If you prefer the sound of the good vibes but don’t dig the whole form factor of a full expression pedal, have you considered the OBNE expression ramper? It’s a 1590a sized unit that lets you switch between two expression values with an adjustable ramping time between them.
Big Monk
Well-known member
There’s that but in the room it also has a little more “oomph” for lack of a better term.
With that said, it’s also much more pronounced when switched on than the Electrovibe, which means the Electrovibe blends better overall into a mix of effects.
I still have some tweaking to do. I need to play with the bias a bit more on each.
Big Monk
Well-known member
You’ve mentioned that to me before. I have to take another look.
Since I have to build a new pedalboard anyway, I’m not too concerned about the expression pedal size.
Right now I’m just trying to decide which one to keep.
The next test will be to play the both with other effects and see how they sound.
Big Monk
Well-known member
So I ran them together in my “Breathe” chain:
Guitar -> Vibe -> Vick Audio Overdriver (Light Boost) > El Cap (Short Time - 2 repeats- Fresh Tape) -> Flint (70s mild Reverb) -> Roctary (medium blend - slow speed)
The Good Vibes has more presence when mixed with other pedals, although it’s admittedly slight. Just a little extra something given it’s brightness and more pronounced mids and bass.
Guitar -> Vibe -> Vick Audio Overdriver (Light Boost) > El Cap (Short Time - 2 repeats- Fresh Tape) -> Flint (70s mild Reverb) -> Roctary (medium blend - slow speed)
The Good Vibes has more presence when mixed with other pedals, although it’s admittedly slight. Just a little extra something given it’s brightness and more pronounced mids and bass.
Big Monk
Well-known member
A few more things today and I think I can close her up now:
1.) Changed R4 to 2.2M. Does not offer a ton past Unity but it guarantees any setup can get there;
2.) I changed the LEDR for the Bi-color, as it was noticeably brighter. Stock was 4.7k, changed it to 2.2k (my Standard value) but went back to 4.7k.
3.) I added a 3mm rate LED:
I used the values from the Madbean Harbinger 1.5. Basically a 10k in parallel with the LED, Anode In series with a 10k in series with the positive side of the 10 uf cap before the Intensity control and the Cathode tied to ground. I’ll eventually tighten that up and grab a 3mm bezel but it works fine for now.
4.) I ended up using the Madbean Harbinger writeup to tune the lamp and I’m getting some very lush sounds. I also tuned my Good Vibes as well.
1.) Changed R4 to 2.2M. Does not offer a ton past Unity but it guarantees any setup can get there;
2.) I changed the LEDR for the Bi-color, as it was noticeably brighter. Stock was 4.7k, changed it to 2.2k (my Standard value) but went back to 4.7k.
3.) I added a 3mm rate LED:
I used the values from the Madbean Harbinger 1.5. Basically a 10k in parallel with the LED, Anode In series with a 10k in series with the positive side of the 10 uf cap before the Intensity control and the Cathode tied to ground. I’ll eventually tighten that up and grab a 3mm bezel but it works fine for now.
4.) I ended up using the Madbean Harbinger writeup to tune the lamp and I’m getting some very lush sounds. I also tuned my Good Vibes as well.
andare
Well-known member
The Electrovibe sounds killer, very chewy and fat. With these mods it's really going to be amazing. I'm taking notes for when I do my build, which unfortunately will have to wait a bit now due to unforeseen circumstances.
Thanks for this thread.
Bricksnbeatles
Member known well
Awesome! I was planning on doing the rate mod as well, but I’m doing it to the bi-color rate-knob indicator. Could you show a quick vid of how the rate led looks at some point? I saw it mentioned elsewhere that it gets considerably dimmer at slow speeds
Big Monk
Well-known member
Before I drill for a bezel and finalize it, I’m going to try and lower the series 10k to see if that makes it a little brighter. At least I think that will brighten it up.
I did the Madbean mod and put a 10k in parallel with the LED and it’s the same brightness all the way down.
Big Monk
Well-known member
@Bricksnbeatles
I went in tonight and drilled a hole for a 5mm LED bezel and redid the rate LED.
What I found is that the parallel resistor matters little so long as it’s there. I kept 10k. In an effort to get the rate LED brighter, I set up the breadboard to do some trial and error with the resistor:
I stepped down from 10k all the way to 680 ohm. What I found is that the lower you go, the LED gets marginally brighter but also starts to lose distinction with the rate pulses. 680 ohm was pretty bright (still not as bright as the main LEDs) but lack almost all definition with respect to the pulsing.
I tested a number of values in between and found that 6.2k had the best balance of brightness and full pulses. I then set up the rate LED itself and prepped for install:
Here are my rough draft and final videos showing the rate LED:
And finally, here it is re-assembled:
I think tomorrow I’ll go in and redo the main LEDs off board so I can get them seated better in the bezels. While I’m in I’ll adjust the LEDR values for those to get the brightness of all three matched.
I went in tonight and drilled a hole for a 5mm LED bezel and redid the rate LED.
What I found is that the parallel resistor matters little so long as it’s there. I kept 10k. In an effort to get the rate LED brighter, I set up the breadboard to do some trial and error with the resistor:
I stepped down from 10k all the way to 680 ohm. What I found is that the lower you go, the LED gets marginally brighter but also starts to lose distinction with the rate pulses. 680 ohm was pretty bright (still not as bright as the main LEDs) but lack almost all definition with respect to the pulsing.
I tested a number of values in between and found that 6.2k had the best balance of brightness and full pulses. I then set up the rate LED itself and prepped for install:
Here are my rough draft and final videos showing the rate LED:
And finally, here it is re-assembled:
I think tomorrow I’ll go in and redo the main LEDs off board so I can get them seated better in the bezels. While I’m in I’ll adjust the LEDR values for those to get the brightness of all three matched.
Bricksnbeatles
Member known well
Very cool! Thanks for sharing
Big Monk
Well-known member
I went it today and made some changes to the LEDR values. I ended up with 47k on the bi-color and the bypass LED. The bi-color fared well but the bypass LED is still a bit bright compare to the others. I'll probably just leave it. Anymore soldering and I'm bound to break something.
Looks terrific!
I'm very interested in your experiments with the rate LED. Did you use 6.2K for both resistors of the LED?
Also, would you be so kind to point me to the location of C14?
Thanks a lot!
Big Monk
Well-known member
Check out the mods thread:
ElectroVibe Modifications Thread
UPDATE 8/16/2023: I no longer recommend a lot of this stuff. In my opinion, there are better levers to pull and I have documented them here: The Monk Face: A Modernized Univibe With that said, let's discuss what I think are the most impactful and basic mods: 1.) Change R4 to 4.7M and Change...
forum.pedalpcb.com
I updated the screenshot with the C14 location.
Check out the mods thread:
ElectroVibe Modifications Thread
UPDATE 8/16/2023: I no longer recommend a lot of this stuff. In my opinion, there are better levers to pull and I have documented them here: The Monk Face: A Modernized Univibe With that said, let's discuss what I think are the most impactful and basic mods: 1.) Change R4 to 4.7M and Change...
I updated the screenshot with the C14 location.
Thanks!
Checked it before and wasn't updated yet.
So If I got it right you kept the parallel resistor at 10k and you decreased the series resistor to 6.2K. Correct?
