Tuesday, December 13, 2022

GHOST EFECTS: Sounds of Today

The Sounds of Today is Ian Sherwood from Ghost Effects adaptation of the MKI Tone Bender.  It's all explained by Ian here, with photos.  There are also plenty of photos of these in various stages of construction Instagram too, so you can see a few variations along the way.

Short story: The attack has been replaced with a fixed resistor.  The resistor in Q2 collector is now a bias pot, and the drive pot restricts the level into Q3.

GHOST EFFECTS SOUNDS OF TODAY - TAGBOARD LAYOUT

As you can see, there are a few unknown values - and if you build this kind of thing, I'm sure you will be confident enough to try a few things and work out what you prefer.  It is an MKI after all, and these often take some tweaking/transistor tests to get sounding good.

GHOST EFFECTS SOUNDS OF TODAY - TAGBOARD GUITAR EFFECT LAYOUT





11 comments:

  1. I love this, just today I received a tagboard and I was thinking what to do with it, this could be a good project or do the same structure but applied to the Zonk values... I have to think about it!

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    1. I have a tag board layout for the Fuzz Sound FS-77 that’s pretty cool. Something a little different too.

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  2. I will take a look at this too! But I'ma a bit on a MKI/Zonk mood. I have a MKI and a Supa MKI ready for the box that are addictive to play with!

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    1. True - have you checked out the D*A*M FZ-673? It's a ZONK / MKI variant with an input cap blend. Easy to adapt the blend pot to any build.

      https://vero-p2p.blogspot.com/2020/11/dam-fz-673-fuzz-015-vero-layout.html

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  3. Yes, from the FZ-673 is where I take the idea of my toanz pot for my Zonk you! It adds compression and SAG. I love how DAM makes useful adds to the circuits without putting a lot of new pots and switches. This week I will finish a Christmas project, a Jordan Bosstone with a starve pot called drunk Santa and the MKIII, and starting to testing the transistors for the Carlsbro. Really I have a lot of work in the unfinished list... Hahahahaha

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  4. I tried the gain mod in a Zonk Machine and it works fairly good.
    Some things I took notes:
    -It works better with an antilog 100k, less space at the CCW end of the pot without sound and more variation in sounds between overdrive and fuzz.
    -The Zonk has to be set more on the smooth side than in the gated site to have useful shades from overdrive to fuzz.

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    1. Cool - despite spending most of yesterday playing with a MKI on the breadboard, I forgot to try this…. It was a very successful day, so I guess I got distracted.

      I wonder what the gain control would be like set up as a variable resistor (like a MKIII).

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    1. I gave it a try yesterday. It works - a 50k was also good wired in like a MKIII

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  6. I'm going to try it tonight or tomorrow's night! Yesterday I was fighting with a doomish Rosac Nu-Fuzz (finally I won). How was the sweep with the pot wired as a MKIII, it goes from overdrive-ish to fuzz or it's a gated mess?
    In any case, have a happy new year Eve and I wish you a nice and full of effects 2023! If I can ask for something a RAT study will be awesome!

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    1. Happy new year! It went from fuzz fuzz to smoother / less aggressive fuzz. It didn’t gate.

      I saw the Rosac on Instagram - looked good 👍

      I thought there might already be enough out there on the Rat? I’m not sure I have anything to add in that area.

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