SOLVED Is my spirit box working correctly?

[kurtis1]

I built this spirit box, it turned out good. But I don't get any verb with the dwell all the way down? I thought the the depth was the "amount of reverb" and the dwell is recycles the reverb back for another pass. Shouldn't I hear some reverb with the dwell turned down?

Another issue that may be related. I did the mod where changing R5 to 17.8k gives you better volume unity. Only it didn't. I actually had to go down to an 8.2k (reducing R5 makes the pedal louder increasing it makes it more quiet) to get volume unity. I'm also changed R8 to get the dwell into ocilation.

The pedal sounds good, but the verb just seems a little quiet. I want more "wet" signal mixed in when I turn up the depth.

Here's a video and a gut shot.

spirit-box.mp4

drive.google.com

spirit-box.jpg

drive.google.com

 

[flemming]

Another issue that may be related. I did the mod where changing R5 to 17.8k gives you better volume unity. Only it didn't. I actually had to go down to an 8.2k (reducing R5 makes the pedal louder increasing it makes it more quiet) to get volume unity. I'm also changed R8 to get the dwell into ocilation.

I believe R4 is the one you really wanted to change to 18k, not R5.

Robert

 

[kurtis1]

I believe R4 is the one you really wanted to change to 18k, not R5.

Robert

This was confusing to me. I found multiple threads (here and reddit) with people changing either one (R5 or R4) to 17.8k and having success. Maybe I'll throw some sockets on R4 and give it a go.

Does anyone know if I'm suppose to have reverb with the dwell turned all the way down?

 

[Dan0h]

Whoa, the one I built sounds nothing like this. Your video sounds like the reverb I was thinking it should sound like, but the one I built sounds like a delay. Now I am wondering if I did something wrong. I like that you used your canyon for the looper, I always forget about that.

 

[kurtis1]

Whoa, the one I built sounds nothing like this. Your video sounds like the reverb I was thinking it should sound like, but the one I built sounds like a delay. Now I am wondering if I did something wrong. I like that you used your canyon for the looper, I always forget about that.

It really does sound great, Im just trying to get the reverb louder without it going into ocilation.

Yeah, the canyon really is an amazing pedal for its price. Extremely feature packed.

Can you please check your spirit box and let me know if you get reverb with the dwell turned all the way down?

 

[Dan0h]

It really does sound great, Im just trying to get the reverb louder without it going into ocilation.

Yeah, the canyon really is an amazing pedal for its price. Extremely feature packed.

Can you please check your spirit box and let me know if you get reverb with the dwell turned all the way down?

I will try tonight and let you know if I get effect when Dwell is turned all the way down.

 

[Dan0h]

It really does sound great, Im just trying to get the reverb louder without it going into ocilation.

Yeah, the canyon really is an amazing pedal for its price. Extremely feature packed.

Can you please check your spirit box and let me know if you get reverb with the dwell turned all the way down?

The only knob that causes no effect while at zero is depth. My dwell knob at zero still gives effect unless the depth is also at zero. Hope that answers your question. I also realized when my attack is at zero I get that reverby sound but anything above zero on attack sounds like slap back delay to me. Good luck.

 

[kurtis1]

The only knob that causes no effect while at zero is depth. My dwell knob at zero still gives effect unless the depth is also at zero. Hope that answers your question. I also realized when my attack is at zero I get that reverby sound but anything above zero on attack sounds like slap back delay to me. Good luck.

Yeah, that kinda leads me to believe that I'm only hearing reverb on the dwell circuit. It seems that I still should have reverb at 0 dwell. I'll try to sort this out but I'm open to suggestions from anyone who may have and idea what would cause this.

Thanks for checking that out for me man, I appreciate your time.

 

[ADAOCE]

So the mods for volume and dwell are from the fuzz dog site and the resistor numbers that need to be changed so not match pedalpcb. The schematic is the same though so you can see which resistors are changed on fuzzdog and then find the resistor in the same location of the pedalpcb schematic. The volume mod is R5 on fuzzdog and R4 on pedalpcb.

fuzzdog pdf

http://pedalparts.co.uk/docs/SpectreVerb.pdf

 

[ADAOCE]

I did the fuzzdog mods and to be honest it changes the pedal pretty drastically from the original intent. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing but it’s pretty trippy at extreme settings. I can get sounds from it that are complimentary of my SLO. To get a the simplest spring like echo I put dwell and attack pretty much all the way down and alter the depth to taste.

my Peavey bandit has a great sounding analog tank reverb in the circuit so I use it for more of an ambient style anyways

 

[Dan0h]

I did the fuzzdog mods and to be honest it changes the pedal pretty drastically from the original intent. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing but it’s pretty trippy at extreme settings. I can get sounds from it that are complimentary of my SLO. To get a the simplest spring like echo I put dwell and attack pretty much all the way down and alter the depth to taste.

my Peavey bandit has a great sounding analog tank reverb in the circuit so I use it for more of an ambient style anyways

That's interesting, I did not mod mine yet but I noticed it sounds very similar to my SLO as well. I thought the mod just fixed the volume drop? Currently my pedal sounds about 3-4db lower than unity. But honestly since it just replicated a portion of my SLO I haven't really used it and it sits with the other sad souls that seldom get play time....

 

[kurtis1]

I think I solved this...
Dan0h mentioned that there should still be effect with dwell down.

So R9 should be feeding the pc2399 (via R13) with dry audio.

I had no audio going in to or put of R9. But I had audio at C5.

I tried to reflow the joints but that didn't work. I'm think I have a broken trace going from C5 to R9. So I just ran a jumper wire.

Now I have audio on R9 like I should and I get reverb without any dwell added.

Now I gotta box it all back up without any destruction.

I'll report it back once I get to try it with a guitar and not the signal generator pen Im using.

 

[kurtis1]

Yeah, that was definitely the issue. No idea how I ended up with a broken trace... Now the reverb is much more pronounced and it sounds much more like a delay pedal... The "delayness" can be dialed back with the depth turned down and the dwell cranked up...

Thank you all for your help.
Here's a picture of the wiring diagram where you can clearly see that R9 is what supplies the pt2399 with its dry signal.

 

[ADAOCE]

That's interesting, I did not mod mine yet but I noticed it sounds very similar to my SLO as well. I thought the mod just fixed the volume drop? Currently my pedal sounds about 3-4db lower than unity. But honestly since it just replicated a portion of my SLO I haven't really used it and it sits with the other sad souls that seldom get play time....

Oh man I was just thinking the same thing about my setup. If I didn’t have a massive board I’d leave it off. As it is it’s nice to have when using the latching pad on dream mode with the SLO.

oh and the fuzzdog mods I saw are two separate mods. The volume was one and that worked great for me. The other was changing one resistor and the dwell pot value which makes it self oscillate. It does this ok but I don’t typically use it with that much dwell it can get a bit much.

I like the pedal a lot but I may end up selling to finance another couple builds (it is pretty though so I may keep it hah)

 

[Dan0h]

Nice, my build was used a grey enclosure too, and I had it right next to my SLO. LOL Strange world.
I might have to build a bigger board now, because I have several pedals that don't fit but yet I want to use them.
I thought about selling my ghost but I sort of like having it as a back up for the SLO.

 

[kurtis1]

Nice, my build was used a grey enclosure too, and I had it right next to my SLO. LOL Strange world.
I might have to build a bigger board now, because I have several pedals that don't fit but yet I want to use them.
I thought about selling my ghost but I sort of like having it as a back up for the SLO.

I'm in the same situation with my pedal board. No room left, maybe I can fit one more if I reorganize everything... I've decided im just going to run 2 boards. Theres too many pedals I want to build.

 

[ADAOCE]

Build one of these west coast pedal board types and integrate signal and power! It’s awesome to have the flexibility.

 

[kurtis1]

Build one of these west coast pedal board types and integrate signal and power! It’s awesome to have the flexibility.

I really should. They look like they'd be amazing boards. I also do like the simplicity of just some powder costed aluminum rails as a pedal board too.

 

[ADAOCE]

Absolutely I could see myself building a smaller simpler board out of aluminum. My brother in law has a machine shop with a cnc mill and we were prototyping some billet aluminum boards that were pretty cool but never really finished that

 

[kurtis1]

Absolutely I could see myself building a smaller simpler board out of aluminum. My brother in law has a machine shop with a cnc mill and we were prototyping some billet aluminum boards that were pretty cool but never really finished that

Billet aluminum boards from a cnc mill?? That sounds amazing! Dude, keep making those boards until he kicks you out!