Which PT2399 Delay project?

[march500]

Hey folks. Got a dirtbaby board on the way but in the meantime I'm looking for a delay to do on vero just for fun. There's a couple to chose from on here. Any thoughts?

[Synsound]

The Deep Blue and the Deprofundis are both great sounding delays. If you like crazy sounding stuff the Mid-Fi Clari(not) is lots of fun.

[Travis]

Agreed. The Deep Blue is a great sounding build with a lot of possibilities for mods

The Clari(not) is very fun and unusual

Haven't tried the deprofoundis but that and the echo bender seem fun as well

My vote is for the Deep Blue. It's simple to build and sounds great

[march500]

I was definitely looking at the Deprofundis. How does it differ from the DBD? I'm going to do a bit more research.

[cylens]

I've built a few PT2399 delays (I would recommend the Casper Electronics Echobender for f**ked up sounds).
I'd be interested in the cleanest delay possible with a PT2399 chip... any idea?

[Chris60601]

Yup. The DBD is a really nice device. I'm in the process of building the Zero Point Mini and intend on looking into both The CultureJam Neptune Delay and MadBean Cave Dweller.

Since my Nova Delay died on me, I'm building several DIY's

Cheers
Chris

[Travis]

Don't bother with the Cave Dweller. It's a piece of shit

[Beaker]

I've built the Echobender too. Not that great as a stand-alone echo, but for bonkers noise, it's amazing.

I need to build a delay too - Albru has just come up trumps, and done me a layout for a Dub Siren (it's in the requests section).

I'm going to put a delay into the same enclosure as the Dub Siren, so does anyone know which is the best delay for heavy duty Dub Reggae use? It will need to do the infinite regeneration thing!

That reminds me though - I need to find my Teac Echo 8 out of the cupboard, and find out why it has gone microphonic, cos that thing is awesome.

[Synsound]

For the dub siren I would still recommend the Deep Blue or Deprofundis. To take it further make the modulation daughter board for the Deprofundis. It can be added to either delay. Both are capable of regeneration into self oscillation. They both have a clean natural sound with nice decay. The Deprofundis provides a tone control which is not on the DBD. I have built both and they are very similar but the Deprofundis fit my taste a bit more.

[Beaker]

Thanks for that - I'll check them out.

[Muadzin]

The very thought of a simple PT2399 project seems boggling to me. Hell, the very thought of combining the words simple and PT2399 in the same sentence seems boggling to me. Dirtboxes are relatively easy to troubleshoot if they go wrong, delays on the other hand seem to..... put up more resistance in that regard.

[Heath]

Travis wrote

Don't bother with the Cave Dweller. It's a piece of shit

I've got one built from a Madbean PCB in a 1590A and it sounds pretty damn good, enough so that when I lent it out, I got a request to build one but in a bigger enclosure.

[skeletonghost]

I've built the Crap-fi delay (not so hot), noise ensemble (great noise maker! not really any kind of use as a delay. have a look at some of the mods!), and an echo bender (friend I made it for loves it, but admits it's almost a little too crazy to be useful). I'd go with the echo bender, or the Valve Wizard Equinox 2 which sounds great to me

[ξεναγος νεκροπολης]

+1 travis!
i've build both cave d's and the no2 is about to become parts again...the first one was a gift for a friend and i remember i kinda liked it, but nothing like a big deal.
echobender is fantastic,especially the wet-dry options, but i like to use it more as a chorus(to be honest more like noise maker.......).
dbd is my favourite till now, but i would like to build neptune some day and decide...

***look at contributions-layouts...there are a couple of badass pt delays there too..

[Travis]

It does sound pretty good, until you try any dirt pedal through it...

The dry signal is not properly buffered, and any dirt pedal I tried through the Cave Dweller turned into a muffled whale call. Very poor design with limited usability. Once you get frustrated by super muddy dry signal you may be temped to add in a proper mix control. At this point you have a meh delay with some silly repeat controls that no longer fits in a 1590A

Just my opinion.. Start with a design that hasn't been completely compromised to fit in a small enclosure

[Muadzin]

Chris60601 wrote

Since my Nova Delay died on me, I'm building several DIY's

Quoted from:
http://guitar-fx-layouts.42897.x6.nabble.com/Which-PT2399-Delay-project-tp17241p17249.html

Personally NO DIY delay even comes close to a good commercial delay like the Nova Delay. The options, the range, its just no contest. Don't get me wrong, I like building one and they make for nice little one trick ponies who certainly have their usefulness, but there is just no comparison. If my Nova Delay died I would eat dry bread for months if need be to get a new one. Replace it with a DIY delay? Not in a million years!

[Chris60601]

Travis wrote

Just my opinion.. Start with a design that hasn't been completely compromised to fit in a small enclosure

I don't think it's compromised at all. I feel (my opinion) that the design of the CD was exactly what it ought to be used for ... A small device for a clean sound.

Sometimes I think that we lose track of what some circuits are/were designed to be used for.
After all - you wouldn't take a high end luxury auto off road (and I'm not comparing any device to either, just a reference that some devices are better suited for clean, while others for dirt, while still others can do both equally well).

[Travis]

I agree to disagree

It was designed to fit in a 1590A. Not for sound quality.

Edit: well obviously madbean designed it with sound quality in mind, though it should be clear that the primary concern was to fit it in a 1590A and compromises were made to achieve that.

Also, madbean never said that this was intended for cleans. The fact that it only works for clean sounds is a result of it's compromised design. Nothing else

[Heath]

(not sure why it says it was in reply to the post above, it's just a reply to the thread in general...)

I don't recall trying the Cavedweller out with a dirt pedal so I can't comment on that.  

I did build a Dirtbaby (PT2399 delay built to resemble an EHX DMM) from Madbean a few days ago.  Aside from medium to hot pickups causing some "drive" in the sound (I might just need to adjust something), it's quite nice.  I ended up playing around with it for a long time and really enjoying it.  I plan on boxing it and putting it in my "to use" set of pedals.  I like it a lot.

The DBD is cool.  I like the simplicity of the controls.  I wouldn't hesitate to include it on a pedal board, but it doesn't blow me away.  I include this in the pedals I actually plan to use.

I built a Zero Point SDX from Madbean and it's... got a lot of knobs and switches...  Lately I've found that I prefer something that sounds really good without having to mess with 10 controls.  It sounds fine but dialing it in is a long process and my brain cannot keep up with the actual impact of all the switches.  As it is now, it's more of a "show off" piece than something I plan to use.

I built a Multiplex Echo Machine from 1776effects.  I haven't got the tape speed warp stomp working yet, but other than that, it sounds pretty great.  4 knobs + 1 Rotary switch is within reason to me.  I could see this one getting a lot of real use if I can figure out why the tape speed switch is not working.

I built a D'lay (guitarpcbs version of the Rebote Delay.. 2.5?) with a taptempo stomp.  I remember being unimpressed with it.  I plan to give it another audition since I spent a LOT of time and a respectable amount of money on the thing.  Probably not going to get boxed.

I have yet to make a working version of the CaveDweller Dub Editon (2 pt2399s) so no idea.

I have a cheap-ass plastic Danelectro Fab Delay which is surprisingly almost as good as any of them.

I have an Aquaboy Deluxe board waiting to be populated.  I have great hopes for it :)

=======

One of my favorite sounding pt2399 "delays" is actually a Danelectro Fab Chorus that I modified and re-housed to do an "echo" of sorts.  It's kind of wild, but not as versatile as a real Delay.  It's similar to a really clean Clari(not).

Mod thread on diystomboxes:  http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=69263.0

Sound Sample - Don't judge too harshly, it's just some completely impromptu goofing around recorded from across the room on a cheap pc mic.



If we could get a schematic of the Fab Chorus and add the mods, I think that would be a cool project, but I haven't found one yet.