Human Gear Animato

[Crowella]

Yeah, one customer got theirs yesterday, making it 3 business days. Even the post office made it really quick considering all the forms were hand written. Let me know how it goes.

[Cider]

How is it James? Hyper Muse-ic pls

[Crowella]

I'm eager to hear too considering you prefer the silicon first run over the animato.

 

Cider, the link I sent you of the track, I realised that was actually my first one I made into a case, aka, the prototype. I was still gigging that until this version.

 

Still need to do the Humster too. That and start working on something I need for my rack unit. MIDI controlled Parametric EQ

[james90]

Used most of my energy yesterday buying the tickets, but I'll get to it today. I did prefer the silicon version to the original, so I'll have to compare the three of them.

[james90]

ok

 

I didn't try the silicon one at the same time, but they're very close. I think the differences are that the animated is a bit quieter, a little less full in the midrange, and a little more fuzzy. not to mean it has more gain, but something in the high end.

 

I used Chris' settings (which make sense based on the sound) and had to dial in the animated in a different way to get it sounding the same. Mainly the distortion at 3 o clock instead of 11 o clock like on the original.

 

While there is a difference, it's certainly not a $300+ difference.... and the fact that it's quieter and you get the clean blend... well...

[Crowella]

Quieter? As in noise floor quieter? If it helps, the gate on all of them are off by default.

 

I wonder if you adjust the internal gain if you can match it closer to yours. The trim on the silicon really did squat compared to the current version and you can add more fullness using it. I finally matched it to my one I have at home but I have always had a sneaking suspicion that no two animator are alike either.

 

Glad they are very close at least. I would assume like I said all the issues you find will be just a tweak of that inside.

 

Also if you want silence, try the gate. Set it mid way and tweak it slowly until the background noise subsides. Changes the tone a little bit and loses some drive but there is a tighter, fuzzier sound

Edited February 9, 2017 by Crowella

[james90]

Yeah, lower noise floor. That's interesting, as the original had this hiss when the volume was cranked up, and there wasn't much noise at all on yours.

 

And that crossed my mind too. It's not so much that it doesn't have enough distortion, but most of it seems to come on towards the end of the control's range.

[Crowella]

New transistors and thought out design, with better floor grounding. ;-)

 

It'll be that then, feel free to tweak away. I'm actually going to note that for future reference.

[james90]

Nah the noise level is completely tolerable as is. I'm not sure if the original has more gain or not - I literally just set it to the magic settings, and then tried to match yours with it.

 

I might have to mess with the gate anyway, as I do think the high end on the original has more grind and less fuzz (if that makes sense?)

[Crowella]

If you need more grind, more gain from the first trimpot. That adds more treble boost, which is all it could be. :-)

 

Reviews have been pretty damn good so far.

[Crowella]

The FAT Humster arrived.

 

It's pretty shit.

[james90]

What are the plans at the minute? Do you think you'll bother tracing it, based on the fact that it sounds the way it does?

[Crowella]

I'm still going to trace it. No idea when though, probably next week once I've moved.

 

I'm interested to hear it though something other than my Yamaha practice amp. It seems to sound nicer the lower the bass knob was down on my Pedulla.

[matthijs]

Can it do an Invincible bass solo?

[Crowella]

I started breadboarding it to check if the layout works. It does, but it's made me really depressed. I *really* don't like the sound of the Humster. I figured it sounds better when I'm running less bass through my Pedulla and even then, only the higher strings and higher up sound tolerable, dare I say, good.

 

I'll have to tear it apart to measure those caps and then buy the parts. I'm missing a lot of parts since I've moved.

[james90]

Does the circuit resemble anything familiar?

 

Also, based on the little information out there, it was designed for humbuckers... but it was never said whether it's meant for guitar or bass. The listing I bought it from said bass though.

[Crowella]

And the mt'Lab FAT Humster is reversed. *sighs* It's still shit.

 

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=118679.msg1105506#msg1105506

[james90]

Need to register to see anything, but I did find the imgur album:

 

https://imgur.com/gallery/cjZWL

 

Are we sure it was used for that defector clip? I guess it suggests that, as it sounds like something's broken

[Jaicen]

Well, not much to it is there. could drop R5-7 to 10k to help reduce general noise. No need for 1M there.

[Crowella]

Ehh, here's the schem then if you aren't registered.

 

 

Completely agree Jaicen. I also think that if the transistor was lower gain, it'd actually help. Turning down the volume on both my bass and guitar made it sound tons better.

[Jaicen]

That transistor configuration actually makes more sense if it's a PNP transistor. As drawn, it won't bias correctly with the collector at v+. Swap it around with a PNP transistor and suddenly it's a gain stage.

[Crowella]

I was going through the list of components it could be and I found nothing would match it up unless it was a PNP, which is against what my little ESR reader suggests. I'll have to breadboard it all properly when I get a chance.

 

I made a little fix as well which I have to update here, forgot the second half of the DPDT switch, for the LED. On another forum, they mentioned the little bit of bleed with the bypass can be eliminated by using a 3PDT to short R9 for unity gain on the IC, which may even be a LM308. Might need to dig some old electrical notes out to measure the slew rate of the IC.

Edited September 23, 2017 by Crowella

[Crowella]

 

*shifty eyes*

[matthijs]

Good luck with that!

[Crowella]

Meh, it's not really anything fantastic or groundbreaking from a schematic point of view, just really, really well thought out filters that give it a unique tone. I'm more in it for the EQ and the balanced output. Even then, there isn't anything overly surprising, the most surprising is actually how the switching is done using CMOS and FET's.

 

For a summary (at least of the B3K) since I'm not going to write up the schematic for this:

 

Bypass with FET's and CMOS

Blend using unity gain opamps

JFET's configured like a Mu-Amp

Filtering (some HPF and LPF) and notch filter at 350ish Hz

More filtering, switch to change attack

Opamp gain with drive control

Switch for high pass filter

CMOS overdrive (honestly this alone sounds fantastic just on a breadboard and it's 70's era stuff)

A fuckton of opamp filter sections to reduce some more mids and overall shape

(I'm guessing insert EQ stage for BxK/Ultra etc)

Return to blend

 

This is basically how a good bass overdrive should sound. It's similar to how the animato works out really well with blend. I prefer this as more of a pushing past clean rather than a full on distortion.

 

Honestly the biggest thing I could think that would be a great improvement is to control the depth of that notch. It's so characteristic yet it can make things sound a bit empty, especially if you want to not use it for metal sounds. I can, 100% understand why this pedal ends up in studios with its frequency profiling, I even used one myself for our whole EP.

 

The switches are damn cool though, I will give full kudos for build quality and the thought going into it.

 

As a friendly reminder, this is what I'm doing, so cool your jets, I just enjoy being curious about this all.