Gravitation

[Alan W]

Build Rating

4.00 star(s)

I (re)learned an important lesson yesterday. I finished the pedal in the morning, and did a quick hook up to check that all was working. It was, but I was bummed out—all of the settings had a staccato choppiness to the echos—almost like a comb filter. I've had (but didn't keep) larger digital reverbs that had all sorts of reverb styles, and while this wasn't "shimmer" it did have that underlying quick vibrato quality. I really liked the enclosure design I had come up with, but realized that it wasn't a pedal I'd ever use—so perhaps it was better to just send it to my nephew, who is very happy doing his own decorating (he's a semi professional animator, and we talk about collaborating...).

Last night I played through it, and if I stopped and just listened to a chop strum, or other sharp sound, that same tremolo was there to annoy me—but if I played regular stuff, it's actually a very nice sounding unit. My first experience with Belton Bricks, and this was my main curiosity. So, I think it gets painted, and will get some use. Hard to say how much; my amp has really nice spring tank built in, with a tone control too. And as a reverb pedal, I have the Free the Tone Ambi-Space, which is as close to a great rack unit as I've heard; just crazy clean. (And on top of that, I don't tend to use that much 'verb.) But, Gravitation has good adjustability, the tone control is a nice thing to have, and I was quite pleased with the sounds, as long as I kept the mix at low settings.

The build went fine; really nothing tricky in it at all. When I first played it (and was disappointed) I wondered if it might be less choppy with less film caps in it; my tendency is to use film wherever I can, but just like carbon resistors, sometimes a lesser "perfect" component sounds better. The voltage regulator (for the Belton) is rated to 30 volts, so over the next few days I'll play with some higher voltages, to see what that does. The pedal is already good with not changing too much in my signal.

 

[jhaneyzz]

I really like the shielded cables.

I'm having a similar experience with a couple Belton builds. Still not sure they are for me..

 

[jhaneyzz]

Kinda funny that those sexy woven shields aren't actually connected though... You could connect them to the ground bridge on the 3PDT and just not use the ground pads at the top of the board. Not that it would make any difference whatsoever though.

 

[Alan W]

Kinda funny that those sexy woven shields aren't actually connected though... You could connect them to the ground bridge on the 3PDT and just not use the ground pads at the top of the board. Not that it would make any difference whatsoever though.

They are connected at the jacks. In theory the output should be shielded at the switch (best practivce is to shield at the send end) but it really doesn't matter internally.

 

[jhaneyzz]

They are connected at the jacks.

but the ground shields aren't connected at the switch end, are they,.. or are you just using them as RF shielding?

 

[jhaneyzz]

Where did you get that wire? I really like the clear sleeve.

 

[Alan W]

Where did you get that wire? I really like the clear sleeve.

I make it. I started doing this on stereo builds, where I was using solid core, sometimes silver, and hated dealing with short runs and messing with the braided shield wire.

Making custom short pieces of coax

After publishing several build reports, I've been asked about the shielded wire I use at my inputs and output runs. In all honestly, I have no idea if there is a benefit from doing this—Robert's boards are well laid out, with large ground planes on both sides, and we're dealing with a pretty...

forum.pedalpcb.com

 

[jhaneyzz]

I had no idea desolder braid was hollow... cool idea.

 

[Big Monk]

I make it. I started doing this on stereo builds, where I was using solid core, sometimes silver, and hated dealing with short runs and messing with the braided shield wire.

Making custom short pieces of coax

After publishing several build reports, I've been asked about the shielded wire I use at my inputs and output runs. In all honestly, I have no idea if there is a benefit from doing this—Robert's boards are well laid out, with large ground planes on both sides, and we're dealing with a pretty...

forum.pedalpcb.com

Yup. Totally stealing this idea…

 

[Alan W]

18 volts is very kind to this pedal. Part of me is so used to 072 overload distortion that I don’t get as aggravated with it as much as I used to, but even the step up to 12 volts helped in this regard, and by 18, you can still tell it’s a plucked string instrument creating the noise.

In reading a build report (damn, I can’t even remember what sort of effect it was!) this past week, the builder referred to its having a “metallic” sound, which is not a bad word for my issues with the Gravitation. Again, mix set low, when playing a song through it, especially at a higher voltage, it’s sounds more than fine. I may start searching out another type of reverb pedal to build; I’ve got one FV-1 pedal (Unison) in the queue, and know that it’s a common ‘verb platform. I’ve basically got super nice spring, plate, and room covered. Before the AmbI-space I had the bigger Source Audio reverb, which sounded good (not in the AmbI-space league to me), and it had all of the wacky reverb styles available, – every time I’ve bought a pedal that had many options, I’d think “great, I can start to explore new sonic dimensions” only to be quickly disenchanted. In all fairness, this is more my issue than the pedal designers’.

 

[eh là bas ma]

. I may start searching out another type of reverb pedal to build; I’ve got one FV-1 pedal (Unison) in the queue, and know that it’s a common ‘verb platform

I like my Unison build very much, it's an amazing chorus, you can control delay a bit, but it's not a reverb. What do you mean by "it's a common 'verb platform" ?

I’ve basically got super nice spring, plate, and room covered.

You could try the 3verb, it's a great shimmer style reverb and i think it's sounds quite realistic and beautiful as reverb effect.

the builder referred to its having a “metallic” sound, which is not a bad word for my issues with the Gravitation

Gravitation sounds metallic ? I never noticed that, i like how it sounds, and I just use a 9V power supply. I find it more realistic than Spatialist.

I can't afford very expensive brands like Strymon and such, the best digital reverb I tried is EHX Oceans 11 (it's not very expensive, but the controls are a bit complex, with the mode switch) :

"No, there are definite limits to the FV-1. It only has a certain amount of memory and processing power, and programs can only be 128 instructions long. So it's a very simple DSP. It manages to do a lot more than the specs suggest because it's cunningly optimised for the jobs it was designed to do. It also includes on-chip stereo ADC and DACs, and RAM, all of which makes it exceptionally easy to use. It's still much better than a few PT2399's trying to fake reverb, and it's cheaper than a proper spring reverb tank.

But up against even a lower-end Analog Devices DSP chip with a bag of external RAM, like in that Oceans 11 pedal? No competition!"

Reverb build question - Page 2

Reverb build question - Page 2

www.diystompboxes.com

This thread above is interesting, if you care about reverbs.

 

[MichaelW]

The Gravitation is my favorite DIY reverb that I've built yet. Ironically I find the FV-1 type reverbs to be more "Metallic" sounding than the Grav. I have both Sproing's in queue, interested in seeing how they sound. Probably will build out the Deluxe one first.

But having said that I use very little reverb, just a touch unless I'm going for a more wet sound.
My dual delays generally give me all the "reverb" I need.

 

[Alan W]

Yeah, maybe ”metallic “ is too strong, or even the wrong idea, although there is definitely a hardness to the echoed reflections—but it’s not a tonal hardness, it’s a timing one (I think?) where the timing of the reflections is too coarse, and you get the “shattered” sound. (If I keep mix at up to just past 9, which is actually a bit more reverb than I’d normally have on, unless I wanted drip or something atmospheric, none of this is at a level that bothers me.) (And the overall sound through it is very nice; the basic circuit does a good job. I could accept this being about as good as a DIY pedal format reverb gets…)

Without specific knowledge, my assumption was than many time based effects pedals are built on the FV-1platform, and that there were a number of DIY reverbs available based on FV-1. As well as commercial pedals, which I suppose I could listen to demos of, to get a sense of what they sound like.

 

[jhaneyzz]

I use so little verb that I can get by with anything. I use delay as much as I do verb. Also, since i have it dialed down i don't notice the added modulation in belton bricks.

Currently I primarily use a Sproing Deluxe for verb with the verb dial rarely over 9:00 or some combination of Spirit Box and/or Seabed.

I've yet to try any FV-1 reverbs.