Tone God Vanishing Point (v1.0 with filter included and v.2x without filter)

[notnews]

Hey All,

I've had my eye on a sequencer+filter design, something in the vein of the Seek Wah. I came across a few designs, but the one that looked the most interesting is Tone God's Vanishing Point:

Vanishing Point 2.x:
http://www.thetonegod.com/tech/downloads/Vanishing_Point.zip

Vanishing Point 1.0:
http://www.thetonegod.com/tech/downloads/Original_Vanishing_Point.zip

Both these .zip packages have schematics and pcb layouts. Before I dug deeper and starting considering a vero design I was hoping to get some feedback from this community. Has anyone spent any time playing with the sequencer+filter combination? Built anything in this vein? Tone God's designs are pretty rigorous, with random modes, patterns in the sequencer... which are very cool, but I am a big filter guy. I was hoping we could expand on the filter section of this circuit, maybe with the DBA Evil Filter design that can sweep super wide... something similar to that maybe?

Hope everyone is well. Best regards,
Alex

[Neil mcNasty]

Funny thing is that I've been looking at this recently and made a layout for it.
I have not built it yet, since I allready built the Baby-8 Sequencer that is very similar, but with a simpler LFO/Oscilator.

This layout is a 8-step version with rotary switch to select the desired number of steps.

NOTE THAT IC2 IS MOUNTED UPSIDE DOWN! (rotated 180)

UPDATED LAYOUT July 2016:

[notnews]

WOW! Thank you.

The green wires coming out by the LDR are the output of the effect, right? Is each wire one half of the waveform? Or a stereo output?

Do you know of any resources that talk about how a sequencer interfaces with an LFO? The more equations and the more technical (and technically correct)  the better

[Neil mcNasty]

The layout above has been updated.
Sorry for posting an incomplete layout.

The updated layout does not include the optocoupler, but has the information needed to hook it up to the LED side of an optocoupler.
This way you can use this sequencer as an LFO to any LFO baesed curcuit you like...
Just remove the original LFO and hook up this instead.

Note that this is not an effect in itself!
It is a Sequencer that functions as an advanced/8-step LFO.
There are no sound input or output in this circuit, it only runs an octocoupler!

At the moment I am about to make myself a multi-effect "Wobble Machine" out of my Baby-8 Sequencer, where I can choose between 5 different effects via a 4P5T rotary switch that connects the different effects LDR sections to the sequencer/optocoupler + connecting the in and outputs of the effects to the bypass switch.
That way I can switch between Tremolo, Vibe, Envelope and two (very different) Wah cuircuits.

[notnews]

Hey Neil,
edit: nevermind, cookie blockers got involved for some reason out of nowhere. fixed now. layout looks great, thank you.

If you don't mind me asking, what is it about the Baby8 as opposed to the VP which made you choose which sequencer to use?

[Neil mcNasty]

I actually did not choose between them...
I simply buildt the Baby-8 before discovering the VP.
I did not do anything with it for a long time, but recently I decided that I will try to use it as a seek-style LFO.
I then discovered the VP while researching stuff about the subject, and I actuall noticed that I've had the schematic for the VP on my laptop the whole time, I just did not understand what it did when I downloaded the schematic...

I'll probably build the VP as well, since it got the random feature, but first I'll use the Baby-8 for testing out stuff since it's allready ready for use...

[SonusFluxa]

Really looking forward to trying this out, especially the random feature. I built the baby 8 a while ago and love it.

A quick question: what would I alter if I wasn't using a rotary and just using all 8 steps all the time?

[nocentelli]

SonusFluxa wrote

A quick question: what would I alter if I wasn't using a rotary and just using all 8 steps all the time?

Permanently link pin 9 to pin 15 on the 4017: I think you can just wire the reset switch lug 3 to the blue wire at the top marked "step 9 (to Step Selector SW 8)" and ignore the other rotary switch connections.

I can't see on the diagram where the reset switch lug1 should be connected. It seems from the tonegod schematic that it should be +9v, so in one direction the reset pin 15 (via lug2) is connected to pin 9 (8 steps) and in the other direction the sequence is reset and held ready to restart at step one of eight steps by being held at +9v or vcc as per tonegod (though beware the tonegod schematic labels the switch lugs differently to the tagboardfx convention!).

[SonusFluxa]

Never got around to building this when I originally planned, but think this will come in handy with my current synth interests. I do have another question. Where does stage select 5 connect (A, A on the vero layout)? Can't figure out myself but I'm in an allergy haze currently so excuse me if it ends up being obvious!

Has anyone ended up building this yet?

[Neil mcNasty]

The Layout has been updated!
(error correction, added missing pieces and I did a cleanup for clarity)

Note that there is 9 step leads, and that the 9th step is only used to re-trigger the 4017 (when selecting a 8 step sequence).

So if you want it locked to 8 steps only: connect the "Step 9" lead to "Step Select Common" and ignore the rotary-switch wiring for the rest of the Step leads (leads then goes directly to the breakout board)

[SonusFluxa]

Thanks for updating! I had already populated the previous layout, so I ended up fudging it and making it work with the corrections. Have all 8 steps on the rotary, which is a nice option to have when using with synth stuff.

[Neil mcNasty]

Sorry for posting a faulty layout mr.Fluxa
I'm glad to hear that you managed to get it to work..
I'll be building this sometimes during this week so that we can verify the layout a 100%

[Sergio]

Hallo, seems like a great lfo utility! Could you explain us wich vactrol or led ldr combination did you use? And what about the pots? Are linear working full range or log antilog could be better here? Did you use it with some phaser / tremolo / wah / or added delay modulation?
 Thanks in advance
  Sergio

[SonusFluxa]

I ended up taking the voltage straight from the wire at the bottom of the pots baby board labelled LED anode, because I'm using it as a sequencer with the modular system I'm building.

 I've never purchased a legit vactrol, usually just do the led/ldr from eBay in some heat shrink and that seems to work. I might try switching this up and playing around with the diy vactrol method as well.

I used linear pots, they seem to be doing the job just fine.

[Neil mcNasty]

The LDR/Vactrol required depends on the effect that you are hooking up to it...
It has to be adjusted/selected according to your effect's requirements.
IOW: There is no definitive answer, so you'll have to experiment...