Quackin' Kraken

[dawson]

Hello!

This is my MADBEAN Kraken: an envelope filter similar to a Mu-Tron Micro V, but with added controls and a smaller footprint.  This is one of my favorite envelope filters out of the handful I've built mainly because of its' reliability- I prefer certain sounds I can get out of my SWAH, but only after a lot of fine-tuning.  The Kraken sounds just fine with all knobs at "noon" then can be improved from there with extra tweakery.

Some really solid and useable lead tones can be had when following the Kraken with some sort of Tube Screamer, but the most fun I've had is running the low octave of a Parasit 0415 into the Kraken with the frequency switch set to "Lo.." what a wild relationship- melodies get huge and plucking the muted strings sounds like a robot popping bubbles.


It's built onto a 125B back-plate to work with my modularish stuff- here it is in my wooden box with some neighbors:



Now alone in a "dummy" box:




Guts:




Thanks for looking!

[Bio77]

Man, that looks great!  Is that a solar panel in the middle of your expression pedal?    Also, where did you get that flat toggle switch?  I've been looking for some of those.

[matmosphere]

This is so cool man! I really like how the whole system came out. It's a brilliant design.

Bio77, I had bought a bunch of those switches from Radio Shack, back when they existed. Maybe you can still track some down.

[jjjimi84]

That is such a cool design, I really want to hear what robots popping bubbles sounds like. Nice work

[Thewintersoldier]

Beyond cool, I love the modular pedalboard. You could probably just buy enclosure bottoms only from here on out.

Sent from my moto z4 using Tapatalk

[mjg]

Very cool.  I've always been curious about that circuit, I'll have to give it a try.

[cooder]

Super addition to it! Well done again.
I guess the screen in Ernie Ball is inbuilt tuner?! I think I have seen them somewhere offered as modded upgrade. Very nifty.

[dawson]

Man, that looks great!  Is that a solar panel in the middle of your expression pedal?    Also, where did you get that flat toggle switch?  I've been looking for some of those.

Solar panel? HA!
Nope, believe it or not it's a tuner/volume pedal:
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/VPJRTunerSlv--ernie-ball-vpjr-tuner-volume-pedal-silver

It's a really useful combo since I don't want to build either of those things and I need both of them- just one piece of store-bought gear and I get to build everything else.

Flat switches were on eBay from China.  They look so good that they actually make you sound better.

Very cool.  I've always been curious about that circuit, I'll have to give it a try.

I'd say if you're at all into envelope filters, absolutely build a Kraken.  The parts aren't a crazy investment and MADBEAN's new 2020 layout is really great.


Everyone else- it really means a lot to get feedback from such accomplished builders, thanks for taking the time to look and comment!
I'll be posting reports on more of these builds soon but a lot of these circuits are new to me so I'm still getting to know them as individuals as well as learning how they interact with others.