Some Moodring mods, pretty useful!

[timbo_93631]

Disclaimer/Suggestions: 
   I don't think these mods do everything that has been asked about the Moodring, but I did find them to be useful for making it quite a lot different than the stock build, way more into the ambient noise direction.  Keeping T1 set lower seems to help a lot with the "white noise" issue I have read about.  Perhaps ditching the Muff tone stack and going to the Rub-A-Dub Deluxe or Tenebrion style tone control would allow you to run it even lower for less hiss.  Enjoy:



Starting at IC1A, an input level control, lifted straight from the Dirtbaby build doc, 1M will give some boost and grit, 500k is about unity gain at 95% rotation in my build, a hair of boost beyond that.

Next up, don't connect lug 3 of the dwell pot to the PCB pad 3, run a wire with a 1k5 resistor to the signal side of D3 and D4, now you have a delay line feedback loop as you'd find in a normal PT2399 delay circuit, yay!  Don't forget to put a 47nf capacitor across lugs 1 and 3 of the pot.

Replace the Space pot with 25kB for longer delay times if you want, you can go 50kb but there will be a lot of PT2399 pssshhhhffffttt on the longest repeats.  Also a good idea to put a 1k5 resistor between lug 3 of the pot and pad 3 of the PCB here.

Lastly, create a new "Dwell" control by building the little circuit between points A and B as shown.  I built mine off the pot and shrink tubed it all together.  This is lifted straight from the Tenebrion, which was lifted from CJ's Box-of-Hall IIRC.  Makes a nice post-reverb buffered feedback loop, gets fun with droning self oscillation.

[selfdestroyer]

Very cool work Tim, look forward to your build to compare to the original. I have yet to take mine off my board to mod some.

Cody

[Lubdar]

This looks pretty interesting.

[timbo_93631]

I think c14 can be adjusted too, Jon has 56nf as the value in the Hamlet, might be a little better as I am running the moodring tone control pretty bassy to keep the PT2399 noise less pronounced

[Boba7]

Thanks for all the ideas! I'm gonna build one as soon as the pcbs are available.

Just thinking of another possible mod. Do you guys think it'd be possible to have the wet signal distort in a nice way? I'm thinking of the recent Caroline Meteor that seems to belong to the same reverb family.

[neandrewthal]

Has anyone else tried these mods? The OP seems to not be around any more.

If anyone knows, does the new Dwell control sound pretty similar to the stock moodring as long as the pre-reverb feedback control is all the way down?

I'm about to build mine and I'm looking to get as much flexibility and crazy ambient sounds as I can, but not if I have to sacrifice too much of the original character of the device.

[Boba7]

Nope, I haven't build mine yet. Can't wait though.

I plan on adding a 2nd footswitch (momentary) to have infinite feedback or mix or both, but that's it I think (and socket a couple caps around the PT2399 chip, should it be too noisy)
Oh yeah socket R31 in case I want more feedback.

Also I just thought of something: it should be possible to add modulation to the PT2399 with a simple veroboard (like the mod part of delay circuits, Multiplex or De Profundis etc.) I wonder how it would sound! Any thoughts about that?

[neandrewthal]

So I built my moodring stock a few weeks ago and have been experimenting with these mods since and I decided to take it one step further.

I liked the delay feedback mod and the replacement dwell knob but the successive repeats of the delay werent as distinct as I expected. Of course I shouldnt have expected them to be more distinct based on the setup of the circuit because after the first couple they get smeared over by the reverb but I didnt think of that.

So I made an on-off-on switch to inject the straight delay into the output mixer via trimpots to set 2 different levels for delay volume. If I was building this from scratch I would have a knob for the delay volume copied from the Ring knob  with a bigger resistor after it but I dont have space and I have to make do with a switch.

While I was at it I changed the dry kill switch to on-off-on and added another trimpot for a partial dry kill to attenuate the dry signal to the level set by the pot. Attenuating the dry raises the relative volume of the reverb and doubles the amount of relative dry-delay volume ratios available.

Im super stoked about having the straight delay signal for several reasons.

1: You can turn off the reverb and use it an almost fully functional tradional delay

2: The Straight repeats can be added to the reverb to give even more ambience or cacaphony.

3: Setting the delay (with repeats or not) somewhere between 0 and the amount of delay given by the reverb brick  allows you to shorten the time between when you play a note and when the pedal responds with its own sound. Normally the minimum time is fixed to what length of reverb brick you have and you can only add to it with predelay, not subtract.

4: I often like to kill the dry for an even spookier sound but the delay between when I play something and when I hear it really screws me up. Now I can kill the dry and use the delay signal as my new ``dry`` and set the delay time to (almost) nothing or a delay short enough that my brain can compensate for the timing. 

[Jebus]

I plan on adding a 2nd footswitch (momentary) to have infinite feedback or mix or both, but that's it I think (and socket a couple caps around the PT2399 chip, should it be too noisy)

Hey,

Did you end up adding a second footswitch? I'm currently populating my Moodring and this would be interesting. Some kind of "infinite" reverb would be awesome. I always like oscillation stuff. 

[Boba7]

Hey,

Did you end up adding a second footswitch? I'm currently populating my Moodring and this would be interesting. Some kind of "infinite" reverb would be awesome. I always like oscillation stuff. 

Yes I did! I used a momentary dpdt to short lug2&3 of both the feedback pot and the mix pot. The internal trimpot helps get the exact amount of volume/feedback you want.

I changed the tone section a bit (to get a slightly flatter response), so it affects the way the feedback pot behaves.

[Jebus]

Yes I did! I used a momentary dpdt to short lug2&3 of both the feedback pot and the mix pot. The internal trimpot helps get the exact amount of volume/feedback you want.

I changed the tone section a bit (to get a slightly flatter response), so it affects the way the feedback pot behaves.

Nice! Any chance you could make a quick demo of it?

[Boba7]

I dont have much time right now, but when I do I'll try to record something!

[Jebus]

I dont have much time right now, but when I do I'll try to record something!

Awesome, thanks!

[Boba7]

Hey, I'm sorry I recorded a clip yesterday after adding modulation to the predelay PT2399 (which sounds just AMAZING to me!), but I totally forgot to record a clip with the slam switch. 

At the end of the video though you can hear it oscillate. I'm not sure I'll keep the slam switch, I'm not sure I'll use it, I may as well put the modulation on a footswitch.

Anyways, here's my early build report: http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=23642.0

[Jebus]

Hey, I'm sorry I recorded a clip yesterday after adding modulation to the predelay PT2399 (which sounds just AMAZING to me!), but I totally forgot to record a clip with the slam switch. 

At the end of the video though you can hear it oscillate. I'm not sure I'll keep the slam switch, I'm not sure I'll use it, I may as well put the modulation on a footswitch.

Anyways, here's my early build report: http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=23642.0

Thanks!