Sea Horse Mods

[Chuck D. Bones]

How much max delay do you want? In other words, what is the max setting you use now with the B50K pot? From that we can decide if you want to replace it with a 5K, 10K or 25K pot. We only want to do this once because replacing pots is hard on the board.

Changing R7 & R11 make the DEPTH control work better and not interact so much with the TIME control.

 

[teal]

The pedal starts to have an old vinyls kind of noisefloor with animate (and delay mod 50K) between 8 and 9 o'clock.
I did all your mods, so the delayed signal is filtered.
I wish to have as less noise as possible, so it is not the length of the delay in the first place that I want to change.
The delay still sounds more pleasant than the one on the Dark Rift. The Dark Rift sounded too cold and gloomy for my taste.
But I feel it still can have a little more warmth than it has now and less noise.
Would it be possible to tweak the filter a little more to achieve that?

 

[teal]

What impact have the capacitors on the sound?
I see you use different ones than provided.
In my kit from Musikding there are a lot of electrolyte capacitors and C5 and C6 are ceramics on my pcb. Maybe I should change them into better ones like you did

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

The pedal starts to have an old vinyls kind of noisefloor with animate (and delay mod 50K) between 8 and 9 o'clock.
I did all your mods, so the delayed signal is filtered.
I wish to have as less noise as possible, so it is not the length of the delay in the first place that I want to change.
The delay still sounds more pleasant than the one on the Dark Rift. The Dark Rift sounded too cold and gloomy for my taste.
But I feel it still can have a little more warmth than it has now and less noise.
Would it be possible to tweak the filter a little more to achieve that?

If I understand correctly, you are only interested in chorus, reverb & vibrato tones. If that's the case, then B5K is what you want for the TIME (ANIMATE) pot.

I have the filters set to be pretty neutral. You could open up the bandwidth a bit since you are using less delay, but more filter bandwidth means more noise. You might be better off using a pedal after the Sea Horse to tweak the tone. If what you're after is a low noise delay, then an FV-1 board will be more to your liking. Try the Octagon.

What impact have the capacitors on the sound?
I see you use different ones than provided.
In my kit from Musikding there are a lot of electrolyte capacitors and C5 and C6 are ceramics on my pcb. Maybe I should change them into better ones like you did

Film caps are better than ceramic. You could change C5 & C6 to film, but you might not hear the difference.

 

[teal]

If I understand correctly, you are only interested in chorus, reverb & vibrato tones. If that's the case, then B5K is what you want for the TIME (ANIMATE) pot.

Then B5K might be the deal for my pedal! I will try that.
I'm excited about the F V1 Delays. I purchased a kit for the Hydra Delay some days ago.

Film caps are better than ceramic. You could change C5 & C6 to film, but you might not hear the difference.

I put some different capacitors on the LPF2 (C6) of the PT2399 Chip and it seems to be a point where it has a lot impact on high cut frequencies and the noise related to the modulation.
The higher the value of the capacitor, the more high frequencies are cut.
I compared the LPF2 stages of different delays with each other.
The Sea Horse has 470pF on LPF2.
The Faux Delay has 1nF on that stage and the Blue Delay 2,2nF.
In my ears the Faux and the Blue still sound really great with longer delay settings.
Of course they sound more like an alalogue style Pedal. But that's what I think the PT2399 is best in

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

That'll work. C5 is one of two capacitors that tunes the input filter LPF1. The 6.8nF cap that I add in my filter mod is the 2nd cap. R3-R5 also influence the filter's tuning. Adding the 6.8nF cap changes LPF1 from a 1st-order filter to a 2nd-order filter. Higher-order filters have a sharper cutoff, i.e. they attenuate more of the unwanted signal above the cutoff freq. C6 is one of two capacitors that tunes the output filter LPF2. C11 is the other cap. I did not feel the need to retune LPF2.

With time-sample systems, filtering is a trade between bandwidth and noise. Let too much high-freq content in and it gets aliased, which sounds dissonant & noisy. The output from a sampled system contains quantization noise and sampling images that are also dissonant & noisy. Filtering reduces that unwanted crap. The filtering requirements are dependent on sample rate, which in the case of most delays is variable. Filtering that sounds good with short delay settings may not sound good at longer delay settings.

Analog delays (BBDs) are also time-sampled and benefit from the same filtering. Tape delays use filtering on the input and output to reduce tape hiss. The filtering, or lack thereof, contributes to the characteristic voice of the various delays.

I mentioned the FV-1 earlier. Like the PT2399, it is a digital sampled system. What makes the FV-1 so much clearer (more bandwidth and lower noise) is its higher sampling rate and resolution.

 

[teal]

That are very usefull informations!
Would be great having a Sea Horse based on a FV-1 one day

Now if my pedal does not have the very long delay settings anymore, I think it can get rid of the ultra slow Rate mod settings and becoming a little bit faster again.
Is it enough to change C20 from 1uF to a lower capacitor, let's say 0,68uF?

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Or go back to the original 470nF. At some point, it's "good enough."

 

[teal]

So true, but Rate was too fast for me in the original and not slow enough. I will try a way of the middle kind of thing
It's good to know now which part it is!

I checked out the pedal with the bass too and it works great in any frequency now.
The original was only really responsive in high notes, that was very strange some times, especially with the bass.

But it also was an advantage that the effect reacted on how you attack the strings and the created overtones.
I wished to have a way of the middle there too, but I don't know which parts are responsible.
I guess it has to do with the filter mod? You mentioned before that I can open up the bandwidth if I'm only using shorter delay times.

 

[teal]

I tried it out: 5K pot works really great for animate, if you like to maximise the delay time without increasing noise, but 10K pot is still good.

R7 can easily be turned down to 1K, if you like to have a drier chorus sound (less echo) with animate set to zero and also increased reverb sound with the Dimension knob in that setting. Less than 1K are not recommended, because the PT2399 can make problems then

 

[SimonSudd]

Good morning. I just completed the sea horse with all recommend mods. I'm not getting any power or effect. Should I have jumpered the removed resistors and capacitors? Thank you.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

I see you are new here. How much experience do you have building pedals?

The mods have nothing to do with power, so if you're not getting power you need to check all of your work.

This is a troubleshooting problem and should be posted to the Troubleshooting forum. Read the troubleshooting threads to see how we do troubleshooting here.

 

[SimonSudd]

I'm sorry. I thought because you answered the other guys question in this thread that this would be the best place to ask. So, no jumpers? Gotcha.
I'm still under ten builds. This is number nine. Last was the super hetrodyne. I posted a trouble shooting thread for that, but didn't get any tips there. Sorry again, still just navigating through everything. Thanks again.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Unless I say "jumper" in the mod instructions, there is no jumper.
If you want help getting this fixed, then the Troubleshooting forum is the place to go.

 

[Ale_jellybelly]

Feedback Mod
This mod limits the signal amplitude when FEEDBACK (DIM) is maxed and the delay goes into self-oscillation. These diodes are built-in on the Dark Rift. Recommended.
Add 1N4148 diodes back-to-back from DIM-1 to DIM-2.

LFO Rate Mod
This mod changes the LFO speed range to 0.1Hz - 10Hz and improves the RATE control sweep. The slower rates are desirable when using longer delay settings.
Change R25 from 10K to 22K.
Delete R22 & R23.
Change R26 & R27 from 10K to 33K.
Change R34 & R35 from 100K to 10K.
Change C20 to 1uF film.

I'm interested in these two mods since I just built my Sea Horse and I'm very happy with it, but I just wish the Rate knob had more ausable "slow" range. Would this rate mod help it?

And the feedback mod is for sending the pedal into feedback or to limit the signal when in feedback? Because my build doesn't go into feedback even if I max the controls

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

I'm interested in these two mods since I just built my Sea Horse and I'm very happy with it, but I just wish the Rate knob had more ausable "slow" range. Would this rate mod help it?

Yes.

And the feedback mod is for sending the pedal into feedback or to limit the signal when in feedback?

It's to limit the feedback signal in order to prevent overdriving the PT2399.

...my build doesn't go into feedback even if I max the controls

Mine has the Filter Mod and it oscillates when DIM is dimed. Maybe someone who has a stock Sea Machine can comment.

 

[maertz13]

R7 can easily be turned down to 1K, if you like to have a drier chorus sound (less echo) with animate set to zero and also increased reverb sound with the Dimension knob in that setting. Less than 1K are not recommended, because the PT2399 can make problems then

would that make it less slap-backy at with Dim turned all the way down?