Nature Dweller [90% successful ...] and Ghost Note (3-knob Afterlife)

[midwayfair]

Nature Dweller - Cave Dweller with some forum mods.



I wanted to get this perfect before posting a build report, but I would call this a 90% successful mod job.   A demo is uploading now.

I incorporated a couple changes from around the forum. The best is the 15K resistor across lugs 1 and 2 of the dwell knob, which spreads out the repeats in the middle of the knob and moves the oscillation to the last nudge of the control. I used the stock pot value otherwise.

The second change I made was an attempt to correct the tonal change. The original cave dweller darkens your overall tone when it's on and also has a tiny bit of a volume drop. I used a 68nF input cap and 470K input resistor, which cuts some lows but increases the total volume. It's not ideal. I think better/ideal values would have been 47nF or 56nF and 510K, but I didn't have a 510K 1/8W resistor. I also decreased C3 to 3n3. Any lower and it starts hissing too much. Honestly, I think it's better to live with darker repeats and brighten the total effect. Brian was right that this circuit's special nature is filling in underneath the dry signal. So I will probably be bumping C3 up.

But before I start desoldering more stuff, I'm getting a (very) small amount of motorboating. [EDIT: It goes away when I've got another pedal in line before the 'dweller but sometimes comes back at certain settings on, e.g., a boost.] Does anyone have a fix for that? Or is it somehow tied to the mods I did (especially C3)?

Ghost Note - Afterlife with Sensitivity knob.



Brian suggested that fiddling with R7 could change the sensitivity. So I put a minimum resistance of 24K on a 50K pot. Stock settings are near the center. CCW is more dynamics and headroom before it squishes, and CW is squishier with a hint of bloom. I highly recommend this mod if you use multiple guitars with different pickup outputs.

[whitebread47]

Ooh, I really love the paint job on the Nature Dweller! 

[mgwhit]

Agreed.  The Nature Dweller paint job is fantastic.

[midwayfair]

Thanks guys! I hsve to say, it was pretty excruciating having it sit around for almost a week without knowing exactly what I wanted the art to be. I figured out I wanted to do with it last night, but I didn't have time to paint it - I had a show opening for the songwriter John Gorka, so I kind of had important things to do involved actually playing music ...

[nzCdog]

Very cool... I wanna see a shot of all your 1590as together... the 'baby board'!

[gtr2]

Great build.  The motorboating is most likely the pt2399.  Try subbing in another.

Josh

[midwayfair]

The motorboating is most likely the pt2399.  Try subbing in another.

Oh bugger. It's soldered (even though I would have had enough vertical space this time). Ah well. It's not a huge issue -- I don't hear it while there's actual notes going on, just when the amp is turned up and there's nothing else going on, and even then it's not usually above a whisper with the echo knob way up (it seems to be tied to the "minimally filtered" part). I had really good luck with no "bad" chips the last four PT2399s I used, but lesson learned about always testing them in a working build first.

I do think I'll eventually go through one last round of changes to the Dweller, to cut the input cap some more and bump c3 back up to the original value to kill some noise but keep the dry tone brighter.

[bigmufffuzzwizz]

Love your paint job! Good notes of mods available.

[k.rock!]

Man all these baby board builds are giving me a Gollum/Smeagol coveting type feeling that I must build me some baby boards! haha

They look awesome man! I hope you can figure it out and get the dweller running 100%...wish I can be of more help, but I would first try Josh's suggestion of swapping the PT...


-K

[midwayfair]

Just a quick update in case any runs across this post in the future ... the PT2399 chip has been replaced and the motorboating is far quieter, though there is still some. Basically, I destroyed the original chip and desoldered its pins one at a time ... then cleaned out the holes and put a socket in. I will be using sockets all the time now for PT2399s. And you should too!

[alanp]

If you plan on making more PT2399 based boards in future, perhaps you could use the Nature Dweller as a testbed for the PT2399 chips you plan on using, to see if they motorboat before hard soldering them in?

[midwayfair]

If you plan on making more PT2399 based boards in future, perhaps you could use the Nature Dweller as a testbed for the PT2399 chips you plan on using, to see if they motorboat before hard soldering them in?

Yeah, and I marked the bad ones after testing every one I have on hand.

I have a Neptune with a socket, too. I just got overconfident after soldering an untested on into my first Cave Dweller. Lesson learned.

[Vallhagen]

Mr Midway! I have followed many of your boxes here, even though i havent typed in all threads. The Nature Dweller is my favourite of your artwork so far. You really nailed it this time. Very nice!

[midwayfair]

Mr Midway! I have followed many of your boxes here, even though i havent typed in all threads. The Nature Dweller is my favourite of your artwork so far. You really nailed it this time. Very nice!

Thanks, I've been enjoying your builds, too. You have a real knack for clean graphics and readable but not bland lettering. Seems good for actually knowing what the knobs do from a meter and a half away.

[Rethfing]

Sorry for necroposting but I would like to comment values posted by Jon in the first post here.

I just built it using:
C1 - 4.7nF (used this instead of 47nF by mistake, but it sounds soo better).
R1 - 510k
C3 - 3.3nF
R9 - 5.1k (to decrease volume boost)

I must say it sounds now very transparent! It sounds very, very natural and with this mods I believe it should be named Nature Dweller 100% There is a slight volume boost. The more you lower R9 the less is decrease the volume boost. So there is a big difference if you replace stock 100k with 51k, but the more down you get the less difference your hear. With 20k the volume boost is acceptable and I believe it wont be audible on higher volume levels (as human ear detects volume differences best when they are low, the higher it gest the more difficult to hear them).

Also there is a little issue with distortion that shows up when you hit strings really hard. Of course I know its because of value changes but also because of my active pickups. Anyway its a great built with these mods and I think they should be replaced or at least pointed in the project document.

Thanks Jon, and thanks MadBeanPedals for this awesome build!

P.S. I have sockets on the values I've posted, so Im still able to make some changes. I suggest you do the same when you build it. Its much easier then to desolder sockets and solder in proper values than resoldering every single part. Just use DIP6 socket and break it in half with side cutter.

Update:
Well... It sounds transparent on clean, when I use distortion before it it still darkens the tone heavily. I guess its impossible to solve?