Madbean Total Recall

[cloudprofessor]

Finished this guy up about two weeks ago and have been having an absolute blast with it.

I've previously built a pt2399 delay (Zero Point Mini) which was fine but building a real analog delay with BBDs has been a goal of mine for awhile. I decided to take the plunge a few months ago after I accidentally ordered this giant ass-blue enclosure from tayda (1590XX). I thought I was ordering the tall version of a 1590BB and didn't think to double check the measurements. After pondering if I should build two or more circuits into it or do one giant build I remembered that Madbean sold a DMM PCB and figured it would be a good challenge after building so many basic drives and fuzzes. My largest build before this was the walrus julia clone next to it in the pic but the Total Recall PCB is like twice the size of it. The most annoying thing about the build was gathering the parts. The two Xvive MN3005s and the NE570 ended up costing me almost $100 CAD, and then there's a couple very specific resistor and capacitor values that I had to dig a bit to find, but also I had to order a 24v centre positive supply for it.

It ended up being not as hard of a build as I was expecting. Like it's huge with a lot of esoteric parts but overall the build itself was pretty straightforward and also ended up being one of my cleaner builds overall. For biasing I busted out the old scope and got my dad on video chat to walk me through the steps to bias it. This was a nice full circle moment for me since my dad helped me build my first DIY pedal like 7 years ago (also a madbean build, kingslayer specifically), showing me how to solder and explaining components. At first glance the process was a little confusing but mostly because parts of the instructions were hard to decipher. In the end it was not nearly as involved as I thought it'd be since the actual range of settings on the trimpots was quite small. After I walked through the scope calibration I was messing around with it and found it's quite easy to find the least noisy settings on the bias trims for each BBD chip, and then adjusting the two gain trims so that the repeats are about the same volume as the dry signal when the level and blend knobs are at noon.

Now about the actual pedal, this thing sounds fucking amazing. It's absurdly clean sounding for an analog delay. I dunno if its the headroom from the 24v PSU or what but I'm so used to darker and grittier analog delay sounds from previously using a Rubberneck and an Ibanez ES-2. I wired it for true bypass but the preamp sounds pretty nice by itself. The two modulation options are nice, I really like how the vibrato sounds since it can get that kinda fast and deep motion on the repeats. It maxes out at 550ms though so I might want to complement this with another delay that can get a bit longer.

Overall very happy I built this thing, hoping I can get into the screen printing studio sometime in the next few months so I can get some artwork on it.

[KMRO]

Looks great!  Nice build and confidence inspiring write up. 

[Thewintersoldier]

Turned out great. I also felt that the build was not as daunting as I thought it would be. What are you thinking for graphics?

[cloudprofessor]

Turned out great. I also felt that the build was not as daunting as I thought it would be. What are you thinking for graphics?

Not sure yet! I was thinking about some kind of mountain range and then the white knobs can be little clouds in the sky, but I was considering doing something kinda vapourwave-y as well.

[Thewintersoldier]

My first one was in a 125bb but the second one I built went in a 1590xx  cause I wanted the big box dmm layout.

[cloudprofessor]

My first one was in a 125bb but the second one I built went in a 1590xx  cause I wanted the big box dmm layout.

Yeah actually when I was researching this build I saw your post where it looked like you had built it into a 1590xx.

[Thewintersoldier]

I think it adds to the over all look. I know everyone wants small pedals but I miss the big box EHX stuff, so cool!

[zachlovescoffee]

Hey awesome build and sounds fantastic. Will this board fit in a 1590BB? I cannot find 1590BB Tall anywhere and I don't want a massive 1590XX if I can avoid it.

[danfrank]

Great build! The Total Recall is a great clone of the DMM, one of the top two analog delay projects available. What is the other one you may ask? ... Lectric FX's DC Echo. Look it up.

[madbean]

Hey awesome build and sounds fantastic. Will this board fit in a 1590BB? I cannot find 1590BB Tall anywhere and I don't want a massive 1590XX if I can avoid it.

The board will fit in a 1590BB but the jacks won't!
You can use this one for a very easy fit: https://lovemyswitches.com/1590c-enclosure-bare-aluminum/

I think the BB Tall is what Mammoth or PedalPartsPlus called the "C" a few years ago. Or maybe they are slightly different. But, anyway the C will make the job easy.

[zachlovescoffee]

Hmmm! I hope I didn't hose myself. I ordered a GORVA S90 (1509BBM), which is 1.54" tall. I guess if it doesn't work I'll have to order the 1590C. I managed to track down all of the parts and I had a spare EHX 24v center-positive from a QTron+ I have.

Noodling my graphix while the parts are on the way.

[danfrank]

It will fit a 1590BB but several components have to be soldered on the underside of the PCB and low profile jacks have to be used also. The "German" ones that are actually made in Japan, I can't remember the name.