Tone Bender MK. I (Tone Vendor)…

[Coda]

I bought this PCB a while back, and decided to throw this together finally. AC128’s in a self-painted 1599BB enclosure. My MK. II is in a similar enclosure/layout, only that one is black. The hammered finish didn’t work as well as it usually does, due to the heat, I imagine.

I originally had the transistor in lowest to highest (62, 69, 104). However, there was a tone of background noise. So I swapped Q’s 1 and 2 and now it’s much quieter. I’m gonna try to record some clips tomorrow, because we need more sound clips around here…

Oh, and the pictures should be rotated to the right one turn. Things always post side-ways around here…

 

[JamieJ]

Nice build! Looking forward to hearing the clips. What is the leakage like on those AC128s?

 

[Coda]

Nice build! Looking forward to hearing the clips. What is the leakage like on those AC128s?

On these particular ones? I have no idea. I imagine they are leaky enough, since the pedal works great, with way more gain on hand than I thought there would be. I was expecting dry and scratchy. This pedal is crunchy, a bit raw, and has an almost Big Muff-esque feel on the neck pickup. Singing sustain, but creamier than the MKII…

 

[Blooze]

Looking forward to hearing the sound clips! Where does one go to even find legit AC128’s?

 

[Coda]

Looking forward to hearing the sound clips! Where does one go to even find legit AC128’s?

They are pretty easy to find…once you join the Yakuza…

 

[Blooze]

They are pretty easy to find…once you join the Yakuza…

Yeah, I’m to old and fat to join. I won’t even survive global warming. As usual I’m about 20 years late getting into something.

 

[Harry Klippton]

Looking forward to hearing the sound clips! Where does one go to even find legit AC128’s?

I got some from stompbox parts last year

 

[Coda]

Clips: There are three sections to the clips. The first one is with the Attack at zero, second one is attack at noon, and the third is the attack maxed. Unitiy volume is about 2 o'clock.

https://soundcloud.com/user-255050770%2Ftb-mki-test%2Fs-EiTdyk7GFP3

Les Paul > TB MKI > BillM modded Blues Jr.

 

[fig]

That sounds great! Tasty licks too!

 

[Coda]

That sounds great! Tasty licks too!

Thanks, I like to play. I was prepared with Bowie riffs, but Yardbirds happened instead.

Comparing my build with other versions of the circuit, it seems mine is a bit smoother, with less gate. I think that may be because Q3 isnt quite as leaky as it should be (I have no idea).

 

[Bret608]

That's the funny thing with this circuit--more leakage in Q3 is actually what will give you more smoothness and sustain. Less leakage is what will get that rawer gated sound going. It's a matter of taste I'd say. I like how your build sounds!

 

[Coda]

That's the funny thing with this circuit--more leakage in Q3 is actually what will give you more smoothness and sustain. Less leakage is what will get that rawer gated sound going. It's a matter of taste I'd say. I like how your build sounds!

I've messed around with the circuit since posting this thread. As of right now, I ditched the AC128's for Q's 1 and 3, and have a pair of MP40As in there. The gain is waaaay lower, but the sound is equally as loud, and a bit more gated. You can get more buzz/fizzy gate than before, though it is still smoother than some examples I have heard. I'm convinced now that with this circuit, playing "by the numbers" is almost pointless. The best thing to do is to just start putting random transistors in until it sounds how you want it to sound. I can imagine now why the MK1 wasnt around for that long...having to tune it just right must have taken a tremendous amount of time...

 

[Bret608]

Yeah, I think that's true! I don't think any of the originals sounded exactly the same from one unit to another. I'd like to do a vero of the Zonk Machine version soon in order to try out some of my remaining germanium stash...