Saturday 9 September 2017

Caline CP16 Mark 4

Apparently mimicing Mesa MKIV head's distortion. Hadn't seen this type of distortion control in a pedal before, so i thought this might be a nice addition. Has nice amount of gain and there's room for tweaking.
Update 12.9.2017 - Don't know what was going on in my head with the original layout revision. It had tons of profound errors in it. Now fixed per schematic and let's try this verification thing again...



46 comments:

  1. If I can get the honey do list done in time this week end Im going to try to build this. Great lay out. Thanks Mirosol!

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  2. I had one of these. A very rich smooth distortion, but not enough treble.

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    1. I have one since years. Socketed D3, D4 diodes and having a red led and an orange led there. I have plenty treble with everything else stock. Also pedal volume increased plenty, slight above half volume mathing the bypassed colume.

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  3. I just Built it and it works very well ! As Dylan said, not enough treble. Thanks for this nice layout as usual.

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    1. Cheers. I'll tag it right away.

      For the treble, lower the value of 6n8 or take it out completely. That should affect highs enough.
      +m

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    2. At the time these seems to sell for 25 €/$/£ shipping included. So i might just buy one and swap the cap + mod the visual aspect :)
      +m

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  4. got it done as well.. sounds great to my ears.

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  5. On a side note, there is a typo on the layout, right diode should be D5.
    Thanks Miro I'll give it a try very soon

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  6. There is no D5 on schematics, only two D4's

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    1. From the comments "D5 is 1N5817", it's the polarity protection diode on the right ;-)

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  7. I was wondering if there was a link to a schematic?

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. I found the schematic but there seems to be some omitted parts. The reason I ask Is I get a cool distortion but the gain 1 is not having any big effect on the signal. And it is not as intense as most of the videos and the output needs to be at about 3/4 for unity. The descriptions say Gain 1 is treble and gain 2 is bass. The parts I am curious about are: C2, C6, C10 are 220n, R1, 3, 6 are 1k, R5 R12 100k. But maybe you made some changes for personal preference as you are quite the wizard. Thanks man, have a great day!

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    1. Now that i look at the layout i'm like whaaat. Yes. Sataurday was quite strong hangover day for me. There are obivious errors at the moment and i'll fix the layout later tonigh once i'm back at the couch...

      Sorry for the inconvenience.
      +m

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    2. Good to hear, I built it yesterday evening and was not very happy with it ;-)

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    3. From what I see :
      - 100µf filtering cap is missing (I had motorboating on mine)
      - C2 & R3 from pin 2 to Vref are missing
      - C8 is misplaced : positive leg to Vref and negative to 1k from pin 6

      Socketing the 6n8 cap is indeed interesting, or even adding a bright switch with f.e. 1n

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    4. Lots of wrong in there :) Fix is coming in next 24 hours...
      +m

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    5. I made the changes on my board, what a difference !
      Great thick and tight distortion, a ton of gain, but noisy as hell ! It might get a little better when boxed but will probably remain very noisy (but that could be my build).
      With gain 1 fully opened, I reduced gain 2 until the noise disappeared. Still a great amount of distortion, sounds just a little clearer, mess messy which isn't bad.
      This is tipically the type of pedal on which the gain stays cranked, so I consider replacing gain 1 with a fixed 250k resistor, gain 2 with a fixed 80k resistor (value for which the noise disappears) and only keep 2 controls : level and a bright switch which I may put on a rotary swith with 3 ot 4 positions.
      With my amp, 3n3 sounds very well balanced instead of 6n8

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    6. so what controls did you leave? level and gain 2? plus a switch?

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    7. No I only intend to keep level and an Eq switch. Gain will always be set the highest possible without noise, in my build that's gain 1 250k and gain 2 80k fixed resistors

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    8. Redrew the whole thing and removed the verified tag for now...
      +m

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    9. Thanks Miro
      BTW I realize I built mine with B250k pots instead of 50k...dunno why...
      I'll change them and see if it tames the noise

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    10. :) That's five times the gain from each gain stage, so some of the hiss may be coming from those..
      +m

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    11. Right !
      I changed the pots, indeed no more annoying noise but distortion looses some of its spirit compared to what I had, less humpfff :-)
      I think i'll keep my idea of Gain1 fixed 250k and gain 2 fixed 80k and just play with level and tone caps

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  9. Tag it. A little hissy but for high gain acceptable. Thanks so much for all the help!! DVFX
    Ps I added a on off on with a 3.3n middle, 3.3n and a 1n and sounds killer. May up both caps. It is a bit bright with the Lower caps but would be useful with a dark amp. Have a great day!

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  10. holy hell Im getting my ears checked. Sounds so much better than before. Ty for the update!

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  11. Could you help me? Where is the output?

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    1. It says pretty clean on the layout notes: Volume 2 to output.

      This means that you take the output wire from volume pot's middle lug to you bypass switching scheme.
      +m

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  12. Has anybody added a tone control or a clipping diode switch? This seems to be a great but simple circuit, but it could need a bit more flexibility...

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  13. Just built the revised version. Really liking this, thanks miro!

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  14. hi folks! need a little help. built this one today and gain1 isn't doing nothing. my first thought was a bad 50k pot but after replace it the issue is the same. tried various fixed resistors and nothing. any ideas?

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  15. sorry for the dumb question, but what are the blue "cuts"?

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  16. Can you make 4 gain stages with TL074?

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  17. Hi i have problem, can you help me? Everything works fine, but, afther few minutes of playing the volume and gain of pedal has drop down...until it is completly silent. When I change opamp, everything is ok....but for few minutes too...where is problem? (Sorry for my english) I try few lm1458 and many tl072 - everything is same. Is problem in opamp?

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  18. I know that this is an old circuit but I just built it as I had all of the components - or at least was able to get close the all of them. This might be where it has gone wrong so just wanted to check whether anything specific might be causing my problem - basically it's not distorting, barely driving at all.

    D5 I replaced with a 4001, then with a BAT46 - no change.

    10k resistors replaced with 2 x 4.7k in series.

    6.8nf replaced with 4n7 as per recommendations on here

    2.7nf replaced with 2.2nf

    Gain 1 replaced with 47k resistor and gain 2 uses 47k pot as I only had one pot in my box.

    That's it. There's barely any overdrive at all so curious whether any of those changes would have had a significant impact on the sound?

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    1. Oh, and 1uF replaced with 1uF non-polar electrolytic

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    2. could be a faulty op amp. I've had that problem a few times with different builds not distorting. Check for solder bridges n such and if everything is testing out ok and still no drive....try a different ic.

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    3. I've replaced the IC and added a socket just to be sure it wasn't a heat issue when soldering. It's worth another go I suppose, I've got plenty of 4558's kicking around...failing that I'll just buy the original :D

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  20. This pedal sounds pretty fuckin great..
    TLO72 and no 6.8 cap sounds even better.

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  22. Changed the 6.8 to 15n (or 20n?) and added a 50K pot in-line with it, pot at 50K blocks the cap so it is full treble, pot at 0K is treble rolled off. Huge usability improvement. Also added a framus mid cut knob because this pedal sounded all midrange to me, but with that, sounds very balanced from low to high. Used LM1458, so works well with that IC too.

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