Hi All,
Here (http://home.planet.nl/~joep.remkes/mcmeat.html) you can find the McMeat, a clone of the Lovetone Meatball.
I'm pretty sure we debugged the layout, so it's released now.
Many thanks to Moosapotamus, for his great pre-work on this. Without him this project would not have been possible!
Good luck building,
Joep
How does it sound?
Cool!!! Thanks a lot!!!
Very nice!
Joep,
I can't get the pdf to open. Was Charlie's schematic (meatball_v2.png) correct?
Thanks,
Dan
Hi Dan,
Strange, I guess you need Acrobat 5 or higher to open it.
Actually the only thing wrong in Moosapotames' schem way the decay pot was wired. A lot of people (incl myself) were tricked by the way the envelope detector looks. That looks rather funny electronic wise.
Send me a PM and maybe I can send you the stuff in an other format or something.
Bye,
Joep
So cool!!! Not a long wait after all :wink:
Thanks a lot guys!!!
Best!/
Pelle Garpebring
Wow. How the hell am I gonna fit all those knobs on a BB sized box? :shock: Otherwise I won't be able to fit it on my pedalboard! :cry:
Roxxor! When work-alike is said, does it mean clone or something that works the same?
-Colin
Quote from: smoguzbenjaminWow. How the hell am I gonna fit all those knobs on a BB sized box? :shock: Otherwise I won't be able to fit it on my pedalboard! :cry:
If you used a 1590S, which is basically a deeper and tiny bit smaller BB, you could probably fit all of the knobs, but you'd have to use sub sub mini knobs, pots, and probably split the circuit board and use a jack and no battery. It could be done!
-Colin
Could be done but on my almost non-existent budget I can barely afford the mini mini stuff. In holland they charge you more the smaller it gets. :(
Joep, Thank you! I got them.
Hi Colin,
There a few minor differences with the original.
- No expresion pedal support
- True bypass
Bye,
Joep
Quote from: JoepHi Dan,
Strange, I guess you need Acrobat 5 or higher to open it.
Exactly. I have acrobat 4 and it didn't open, but worked just fine with acrobat 6.
Nice work, Joep. :wink:
Thanks
~ Charlie
I built mine with Joep's PCB, it works perfect.
Actually, I built mine with Expresion Pedals support too.
The only thing you have to do is wire the pedal1 and pedal2 jacks like this:
(Sorry it's in spanish, it's for an article I did for pisotones.com, that will be available in 2 or 3 days)
(http://perso.wanadoo.es/janelle/meatball-jack-pedal1.jpeg)
This way when pedal1 is not connected, tip of Decay is connected to ground, but when it's connected, it's disconnected to ground and connected to pedal1 (which connects to ground through the pot, anyway).
(http://perso.wanadoo.es/janelle/meatball-jack-pedal2.jpeg)
(self explanation)
Thanks to the GREAT work done by Moosapotamus and Joep, I built one too, working perfectly.
I wrote an article for Pisotones (in spanish, sorry) with photos and mp3:
http://www.pisotones.com/Meatball/psst/meatball-psst.html
Quote from: psstI wrote an article for Pisotones (in spanish, sorry) with photos and mp3:
http://www.pisotones.com/Meatball/psst/meatball-psst.html
Amazing! :wink:
Wow
Wowwowwow... both of those builds are amazing!
Psst - which PCB layout did you use? Moose's? and is that a Hammond 'D' box?
Joep - I love the silver knobs..
man - those builds are amazing... hmm, do I need an envelope filter?
"-)
very nice job gent's!!!!!! wish i could read spanish :oops:
truly great,
- tom
there are sounds at the bottom of the pisstones site.
C
Quote from: Chris R...pisstones site
"pisstones"???
Oh, boy! :lol:
heh.. oops ;p
thats pisotones :lol:
For those wondering how the heck they can fit all of *that* into a 1590BB or some other modest-sized chassis, might I suggest a "McMeat Lite"?
There are a number of functions that can easily be collapsed into more compact toggle-switch function, sacrificing only a little tone-palette and flexibility in the process.
1) The filter range switch that selects between 4 sets of caps to determine the range over which the filter sweeps is essentially intended to cover every base for every customer. You can easily replace it with a 3-position on-off-on DPDT minitoggle. Pick the 3 ranges you feel suit your needs, select a "default" cap value and use the two side positions to select caps to add in parallel.
2) I like variable attack and decay as much as the next guy, but often people end up setting the control to one end or the other of rotation or just somewhere in between. Here, again, a 3-position toggle (SPDT this time) can sub nicely for a bigger-footprint pot. For the attack control, leave the 100R resistor in place, stick in a 4k7 fixed resistor in series. The toggle can be used to either apply no path in parallel with the 4k7 resistor (max attack time), shunt it (fastest attack), or tack on another fixed resistor (I'd suggest 820R) in parallel for a medium attack time. Similarly, I'd suggest replacing Vr3 with a 100k resistor and a 3-position toggle for either applying no parallel resistance (max decay time), a shunt for fast decay, and a moderate resistor (e.g., 15kk) for medium decay. If you *really* need to conserve space, you can always consider using a DPDT 3-position toggle to create a "fast", "medium", and "slow" response time, adjusting both attack and decay simultaneously.
3) The external processing loop is a nice treat and adds to flexibility, but a lot of folks don't think much about using such things. There is no problem in simply bypassing the send/return loop, omitting the jacks, and running the send connection directly to the return pad on the board.
4) In some respects, the "intensity" control is helpful, but it is also a bit redundant (though not entirely so) with the sensitivity control, since both are related to sweep width. You can easily replace the Intensity control with an on-board trimmer, or even a fixed resistor if you want.
That leaves us with 3 pots (sensitivity, blend, and colour), 2 or 3 toggles (range, attack, decay), two audio phone jacks, and a power jack. That should fit. Not quite the same beast in some respects, but if all you want is a meatball sandwich, and not the whole plate of pasta, you'll get pretty much all the sounds you've come to appreciate.
Looks very nice! And the sounds at psst's site are fantastic! What a project!
Thanks,
Doug
psst - WOW! Awesome! Fantastic job on the web page, too!
For the non-Spanish speaking folks interested in a translation (of sorts)...
http://babelfish.altavista.com/
~ Charlie
BTW, about the box:
It's bigger than the 1590BB, actually mine is 125x175x45mm, smaller than the original but definetly bigger than that typical Hammond.
It's very interesting what Mark Hammer said about Meatball-lite, actually I thought of suggesting he idea in my article, but I forgot to do it.
It could be a nice option for certain people...
About the PCB, I used Joep's but I'm pretty sure Moosa's one works too...
Is there any way that it's preventing it from being a true bypass?
I just built my own envelope-filter with the Mu-Tron III instructions from geofex. I made some changes to it, which were just about the same as the meatball: attack, decay, range and sweep. I'm pretty surprised to notice that these are done almost the same way. I also put the envelope detector and the filter itself in different enclosures. Maybe I'll use the envelope detector for something else fun also...
Thanks a lot to Moosapotamus and Joep !!!!!!
This is definitively going to be my next stompbox.
Just a question (maybe a stupid one): :?:
The pots in the schematics are labelled e.g. 10kb-Blend. What does the "b" mean? Piher pots are labelled with a "b" when they are log pots and they have an "a" if they are linear ones. However, in this case I suppose it means something different. Because otherwise all the pots except the decay pot would be logarithmic ones.
So is it correct that only the decay pot is logarithmic?
Sorry for asking so circumstantially. I just want to be sure to order the right parts.
Thanks to all in advance.
Markus
B means linear. Looks like fun!
B means linear on the Alpha (american) pots. On Piher, B means log.
The schem assumes Alpha pots. I you use Piher switch A and B around.
Regards,
Joep
Cool looking pedal!
regards, Jack
Thanks for your help.
Another (stupid) question:
in Joep´s schematics there are two pins labelled "E" and "F" (close to the range switching caps). What are they for?
Markus
The Sonidos tipo phaser sound is mucho dulce de leche - looks like it's one for the breadboard!
Hi Marcus,
C14, C15 and C16 are on one side connected to Sw3 and other sides should be connected together and to E. The same goes for C9, C10, C11 and F.
The six capacitors are directly mounted to the switch and not on the PCB.
Bye,
Joep
Hey guys,
How about some MP3's??
(I think I'm gonna have to build one of these...)
- Mark
Joder tÃo!!!!
los mp3 te quedaron buenÃsimos!!!
Guys, everybody should check out the mp3 on the bottom of this page. They are SO cool.
On the second, Mike Eizingers would surely drool...heheheh
http://www.pisotones.com/Meatball/psst/meatball-psst.html
Quote from: snorkyHey guys,
How about some MP3's??
There are 7 mp3s at the end of the Meatball (http://www.pisotones.com/Meatball/psst/meatball-psst.html) page. As you might already know, my Piso-tones (//www.pisotones.com) page is only in spanish... there are some kazillion different pages in english so it was about time for one in spanish :wink: :P
But due to the popular interest in this wonderful collaboration by my friend Alvaro (psst) I'll try to translate here the seven mp3's descriptions and links so you can dig the sounds of this wonderful tone machine:
- Short Decay (http://www.pisotones.com/Meatball/psst/meatball-1.mp3)
- Longer Decay (http://www.pisotones.com/Meatball/psst/meatball-2.mp3)
- "Down" position, deep and quick (http://www.pisotones.com/Meatball/psst/meatball-3.mp3)
- Phaser like sound (http://www.pisotones.com/Meatball/psst/meatball-4.mp3)
- "Ambient". Lotsa ramp-up (http://www.pisotones.com/Meatball/psst/meatball-5.mp3)
- Another one with great ramp-up (http://www.pisotones.com/Meatball/psst/meatball-6.mp3)
- "Lasers". Much better if you add delay (http://www.pisotones.com/Meatball/psst/meatball-7.mp3)
[/list:u]
Hope you like it! 8)
Hi Joep,
thanks for your answer. I have added the caps to the PCB layout and simply forgot that in your layout the caps are mounted on the rotary switch.
Regards,
Markus
Stupid question of the day,where's connection point A?.
Thanks
Aharon
In my description of the Meatball-Lite I foolishly neglected one of the more important switches, and that was filter mode.
Since the suggestions I made were to reduce the size of the physical package without reducing too much in the way of functions, some choices need to be made with respect to the mode switch. The stock Meatball has a chicken-head pointer and 3-position switch at the lower right hand side, for selecting between highpass, lowpass, and bandpass modes. (As Craig Anderton showed way back in EPFM, a state-variable filter such as this also can produce a notch filter if you mix high and lowpass together, but this option is not used in the Meatball or McMeat.)
Reducing this to a toggle switch will not be possible, unless one is willing to sacrifice one of the filter modes and use a regular SPDT toggle to select between two filter modes. For those who want to use this as their main swept filter pedal, and so want "normal" sounds, my own vote would be for selecting bandpass vs lowpass and leaving highpass unused. On the other hand, if you're building it yourself then you may well have other swept filters built or in your sights. The majority of such filters are bandpass filters or have bandpass capability. So, if you want something for experimental purposes, the use the toggle to select highpass or lowpass, and leave bandpass unused.
QuoteStupid question of the day,where's connection point A?.
There is no A....
Joep