Sonic Titan - so good!

H

HamishR

Well-known member
I built a DAM Sonic Titan ages ago from the Tagboard Layouts layout on Vero. I liked it but it never became a mainstay. Recently while looking for the Music Man preamp schematic I found a new schematic for the Sonic Titan at EAE. Not sure if it's 100% to the DAM version or not but I don't care - it sounds GREAT! They call it the Mojo Titan and I think I saw that someone here had built one with their mojo parts. https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...94b377/1459035623661/mojo+titan+build+doc.pdf

So I drew up a Vero layout for myself from the EAE schematic and was looking for something to build today so I made one. It is a lot better than the one I built years ago - wow! It's a super simple circuit but has a big sound. Not super high gain (suits me) but what a big fat sound with much better definition than the Tagboard Layouts version I built before. Not a diss on Tagboard Layouts - I guess it all comes down to which schematic you use. I used no mojo parts - just used stuff I had laying around. I used a 20K trimmer for the J201 and at minimum I am getting 4.64V on the drain so I might use a bigger trimpot if I build it again. Fortunately it sounds amazing biased at 4.64V! If you get much higher it just gets cleaner. Still sounds good though.

The only change I might make other than that would be to change the tone pot from B100K to C100K. I have the tone at around 3.00 and a lot happens between 3.00 and 5.00.

Here's my layout - I used an LM386N4 rather than an N3 I have read that the N3 sounds better than the N1 or N2 so I guess the N4 will sound better too? I dunno! The 4uF caps are tantalum.

Sonic Titan Original.png
 
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From what I remember reading about LM386's a long time ago, I think the impression I got is that NOS JRC386 are good, and they were basically LM386N1's, but if you buy LM386N1's now, they act differently, and probably will have the bad sounding note decay. LM386N4's are supposed to work well.

I wouldn't bet my house on that being completely accurate, but I've used LM386N4's because of that and they seem to work fine, so
🤷‍♂️

As for the circuit, thanks for the layout and writeup, Matt Pike uses one I think (or has used - and his signature pedal is based on it too, partly?) so I'll definitely add that to the backlog!
 
I’m curious to hear of your findings @HamishR ! I only use them in higher gain circuits so who knows. I’ve also measured quite a few and found them to be a bit off as far as input impedance go but I’m not sure if that has any effect on the decay or not.

For science! 😂
 
@HamishR If you feel the itch to measure the input impedance, just measure the resistance with the chip out of circuit and unpowered. DMM set to ohms, red lead to pin 3 and black to pin 4. I believe nominal impedance per the data sheet is 50k, but I’d have to check again.


Edit: it is 50k, for the Texas Instruments LM-386N4/NOPB ive got a stash of!
 
Well, Mr @Nostradoomus : Measuring just the chip not connected to anything I get ~110K between pins 3&4 on the N4 and the N1. Putting the N1 into my Sonic Titan is interesting. Overall it sounds much the same but sometimes single notes quickly sustain into an octave higher and sometimes they just seem to say fuck off I'm done with you. As in sound kinda squeezed and then they die. Regular guitar playage is ok but I definitely prefer the N4. Fatter, gooder.
 
HamishR said:
Well, Mr @Nostradoomus : Measuring just the chip not connected to anything I get ~110K between pins 3&4 on the N4 and the N1. Putting the N1 into my Sonic Titan is interesting. Overall it sounds much the same but sometimes single notes quickly sustain into an octave higher and sometimes they just seem to say fuck off I'm done with you. As in sound kinda squeezed and then they die. Regular guitar playage is ok but I definitely prefer the N4. Fatter, gooder.
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Yeah that sounds familiar, it's not that it's unplayable all of the time, but it's definitely worse.
 
HamishR said:
Well, Mr @Nostradoomus : Measuring just the chip not connected to anything I get ~110K between pins 3&4 on the N4 and the N1. Putting the N1 into my Sonic Titan is interesting. Overall it sounds much the same but sometimes single notes quickly sustain into an octave higher and sometimes they just seem to say fuck off I'm done with you. As in sound kinda squeezed and then they die. Regular guitar playage is ok but I definitely prefer the N4. Fatter, gooder.
Click to expand...

This is what I’ve experienced as well. N4 always wins 😂

A bunch of mine measure 70-90k
 
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