anyone build a vibe in a wah enclosure?

[powerplayj]

I haven't looked at the PCB footprint yet but I was just curious how possible it was to do and what are the caviats.

Thanks,

Jason

[petemoore]

   I did up a Small Stone In a Wah Case.
  I have an EZ Vibe with footcontroller for speed control, the treadle is just a piece of wood, the 'hinge' is a dowel rod between two old chrome, forged metal toilet seat fittings...they were EZ to bolt on securely and raised the hinge point for pedal travel, and look wierd, no-one has guessed the source of these stylized pieces yet...lol.
  Caveat is that the value of the pot you want to control isn't 100k, you'll have to fudge the value, or 'wrangle' up a pot turning device...I've done a few.
  The EZ Vibe one was the EZ est also, having found a 'CCW pot return spring' [pulls the pot to CCW 'direct drive'...the spring is on a dowel so it's axis is the same as the pot  or spring ----><--- pot, then I just hooked the treadle to the pot using a string...
  I used screws to split and expand the dowel rods for 'pedal tension' so it stays where I set it, and doesn't move with a slight touch.

[nils]

I've thought aboutr moving my Phase45 to a dead crybaby's enclosure, but decided against it for one single reason: every time you kick it on you mess up the speed setting. I went with making an expression pedal out of the empty wah instead. Seems to be much better for any kind of modulatoin pedal.

[R.G.]

If you are serious about this, the Neovibe fits in a crybaby box if you use a dremel to remove the cast-in mounting stud for the original board. I've done one of these.

[sir_modulus]

http://www.lynx.bc.ca/~jc/pedalsUnivibe.html 

Good ol' J.C. Malliet...anyone know what's he's been up to lately?

Cheers,

Nish

[The Tone God]

I have built one in a rocker pedal case. It was a vibe of my own design that I built it on the fly. I started with a big piece of perf cut to fit the case, drilled out holes for the screws where necessary then built away. You could probably fit a vibe modded phase 90 or an easyvibe in there if you are willing to perf it.

Andrew

[Eb7+9]

thnx fr the heads up Nish,

FWIW ... my PCB board was designed specifically to fit inside a VOX wah shell - and with enough room for a film canister to go around the bulb/cell quintet (easy cheap isolation) - I didn't build too many of those // kinda got sidetracked into modding the preamp and a few other things - I still have some boards for anyone interested  but you have to be quite "into it" to tackle this tight build ... there's no choice but to work inside out and debugging can be a little challenging ...

my first attempt at doing a Vibe goes back to '86 (very crude perf-board / bulb, not great cells but it worked) ... and again alternate variations  in '92 when I experimented with bypassing the bulb circuit and drive LED's off of a multi-tap current mirror off the un-used collector current of the oscillator Darlignton pair ... interesting idea but didn't give the real thing - lacking the sagging component brought by the thermal inertia of the bulb ... I'm not saying non-bulb clones can't sound great // check out the latest from SweetSound (!)

... here's something I came up with  in June - a true Stereo Vibe based on Maggie480 and Uvibe oscillator // it does both in/out synch Phasing and Vibrato using two bulb (2-stage) filter circuits and a balanced inverter ... each side provides just under 180degrees of shift, so when in differential operating mode you get almost 360degrees total side-to-side ... same as the mono (4-stage) Univibe circuit except now it's spatial - "somewhat" more like a real Leslie ...



... six cap ratio settings on both filter channels // independent intensity control on bulb drivers for balancing ...



24/29vdc supply - 25mA/1.5v bulbs ... there's many advantages in Fumio Mieda's technique over Bonham's non-linear resistor coupling: less complicted drive circuit, easier isolation of control/audio, no need for balancing, etc ...



... all discrete class-A signal path and control ... front-end FET preamp with Gain (< x5) and Presence/TrebleCut ... LED monitors on master oscillator and  bulb drivers ...



... rhs drawing from Don Bonham's 1961 patent which influenced this conception


~jc

[moosapotamus]

Damn! That looks awesome, jc!

~ Charlie

[petemoore]

  Amazing work there Eb7...
 
  every time you kick it on you mess up the speed setting.
  I'd have to say having the Bypass switch on the side is nice. Having the speed 'tuned in' when kicking in the phase is important...it can sound wierd if it isn't matched to a rythm...and takes a bit of thinking about to set it because you have to first judge from the feedback you get [listen to the speed it IS doing], then calculate how much and which way to adjust the pedal, then adjust it and see if that's close enough to the target speed...a BP button on the side is preferrable IMO. It's what I have, probably because it was easier for me to do it that way...

[David Deen]

Hey Jason,
I've done the EZ vibe as well into an old crybaby housing. Fits great when all the mounting stubs are carved off (I used one of those wood cutting bits that mount into a drill press and are guided by a center guide through a previously drilled pilot hole). Anyway, I think the bigger problem is mounting the dual-ganged pot that the conventional univibe circuit uses for the LFO speed control. It may take some routing out of the hole made for the originally used single ganged pot. Of course an alternative is to change the circuit a bit and use the single ganged pot variation controlling an LED-LDR assembly (Aron, site host's idea I think). Then you wouldn't have to worry about mounting issues.

Another thing I did that I thought worked very well was I used a contact lens case that I sawed in two for the light shield. Then you just have to screw on and off the cap whenever you're adjusting or working with the LDR-Lamp assembly. Just a suggestion. It's also smaller than a film canister and will fit on the EZ-vibe board quite nicely.

I still don't like the oscillator in that circuit. I've wondered about some ideas for making it a little more reliable at the lower frequencies.

Good luck on the build, it's a fantastic effect.

-David

[R.G.]

Of course an alternative is to change the circuit a bit and use the single ganged pot variation controlling an LED-LDR assembly (Aron, site host's idea I think)

Actually, that was mine. I came up with it trying to make the smallest possible 'vibe board. I stood all the resistors on end and it got... small...

There is a moderate problem with that. The LDRs dark-adapt and when you cut all the way back for s.l.o.w. speeds, the LDRs can keep getting higher resistance until the LFO quits. I had to mess with it bit to make sure it would stay running at high LDR resistances.

[sir_modulus]

Eb7+9:
You're JC Malliet?!? I never made the connection! I have always been a big fan of your work, and your site, as well as Charlie's site, and R.G. Keen's site are like my three favourite books, I just read through them endlessly! Your nosegrinder was even one of the first distortions I built (right after my big muff!).

Cheers,

Nish

[RedHouse]

JC,

Where are you sourcing your 25mA bulbs?

[Nasse]

I once just used the wah circuit but added quite fast lfo drive on it, so it was not really a vibe

I was a kid then but more than 30 years ago I just hooked a LDR across wah pot and used a simple lightbulb driven by two transistor tremolo oscillator as ldr modulating device. I just drilled a hole for 3,5 mm jack on the wah case and the tremolo circuit was in separate box, only lightbulb and ldr was inside the wah

Not really much vibey sounding but quick and dirty, I was lucky the ldr was so high resistance when not lighted so no switches were needed, when I plugged 3,5 mm off, the wah was back in original sound.

[David Deen]

Actually, that was mine. I came up with it trying to make the smallest possible 'vibe board. I stood all the resistors on end and it got... small...

Oh man R.G. I apologize for the miscredit. I really like that idea too!

-David

[Eb7+9]

I get asked about these quite a bit ... the local canuck RadioShack was doing good for me until last spring when they ran out of the old size mini bulbs ... last month the bulb on the right was on the shelves as the new kid in town following the name change - bummer ...



they're carryin the 6v/25mA in the old size in the new packaging - these are ok for Vibes too - but the 1.5v/25mA have less thermal inertia and can operate at higher speeds ... for those into extending the range of the Vibe oscillator it's a better bulb ...

http://www.orbyxelectronics.com/ is the  supplier ... are the US stores still carrying the old style ?

~jc ...  MAILLET

[moosapotamus]

It looks like they are available online.

~ Charlie