Tuesday, 8 February 2022

King Tone The Soloist

 Requested quite a few times. Clémtent got hold of one for a repair and while he was at it he traced it and drew a schematic. He even built a clone and it sounds spot on.

Note that both 220nF caps are tantalums in the real units but film caps will sound identical.

 

 


26 comments:

  1. Hey Anders what about a Silvertone or Valco emulator like the Twin Twelve? Love that greasy tweed sound. But want more!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You might want to check out De Stijl, an old DIY design which was cloned by JHS.

      https://dirtboxlayouts.blogspot.com/2019/07/de-stijl.html

      I have yet to do a layout of the Supro emulator, Supreux Deux...

      Delete
  2. Yeah thanks man. I’ve def come across this one before. I’ll check it out once I find the volt doubler. Btw love the D*A*M stuff. Tried the Meathead and the Fuzzrong. What are some of their greatest hits?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Meathead of course. But I also have a soft spot for the Grease Box variations and the Super Bee!

      Delete
  3. Verified sounds good with red leds instead of BA282

    ReplyDelete
  4. may i ask what the W stands for for the tone pot? 25kW?

    ReplyDelete
  5. They’re basically an A taper and a C taper together. They’ve become a pain to find. Usually B pots will work okay until you find the right kind. Maybe you’ll have better luck locating them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I bet a 20kW pot would work, these are pretty common...

      Delete
    2. Sure, 20kW is what I use and the range is still very large. B taper will work of course but 90% of the tonal difference will be at the extreme sides of the pot. Almost no difference from 20 to 80 %.

      Delete
  6. Check 3Tone-R9-R7, there are two resistors on the PCB board, here one and completely different.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmm, which PCB should I check out? The layout matches a schematic that was traced from a real unit.

      Delete
    2. On the PedalPCB picture, from 3 Tones there are other resistors. I misunderstood the designations of the resistors? From 3 Tone you have 1k resistor to IC-6 pin. I made a layout according to their picture and did not understand why the difference. Sorry if so. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wix2kc3ilx9w75g/1King%20Tone%20Soloist111.jpg?dl=0

      Delete
    3. PedalPCB used the String Singer side of the Duellist for his PCB. I used a Soloist which is not exactly the same.
      The Duellist switch is FAT/STOCK/GLASS.
      The Soloist switch is GLASS/STOCK/EDGE.
      This is why you can find differences.
      And I can confirm that this layout is strickly correct if you want to get the Soloist sound. I've had an original unit to compare and they sound the same.

      Delete
  7. Can you post the schematic?

    ReplyDelete
  8. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just like to say, I love these layouts. I built this and the purple plexi, both pedals are awsome!!! Thanks for your work.

      Delete
  9. I can't find a 82uf cap.... what if I use a 100uf?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, another question (sorry, I m just trying to learn something new)....adding a 100n-ish cap between j13 and L13 should help the filter section to reduce noise, ore should be completely useless?

      Delete
    2. Add a 100n ceramic cap between K15 and L15 to reduce noise. In that position, the cap is filtering between the power supply and ground. J13-L13 is just jumping two different grounded rows.

      And please, always ask questions! It's how we all learn, and having to explain something is good practice for those of us who think we know something. ;)

      Delete
    3. Oh...ok It makes sense ahahaha...thank you so much, a day spent without learning is a wasted day

      Delete
  10. Hello, good afternoon, if someone can help me. I put the pedal together and it works, but when I lower the tone control to 0 I can't hear anything, even with the gain and volume at maximum.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've not built this one so any help I can give is basic troubleshooting only - so forgive me if you have all ready tried this stuff. As far as the tone control muting the volume, is it at all possible that you have inadvertently connected lug one of the tone pot to ground? I would definitely check the underside of your board for accidental connections: solder bridging between copper strips, little pieces of copper that are still connecting the cuts, etc.

      It also might be worth swapping out that tone pot for another one. If you don't have a W taper, B will work just fine. It also wouldn't hurt to multimeter the lugs of the pot with it turned fully clockwise and counterclockwise to make sure you are getting the right resistance from it. It will probably be around 2-3 ohms on lugs 1 and 2 at minimum and somewhere near 25k at maximum - there will of course be some part tolerance variation.

      also - did you use an actual C150k pot for the "body"? The only reason I ask is that it is not a very common value. You could use a 500k pot with a 220k resistor going between lugs 1 and 3 to create the proper value but it would be a steeper slope than a C taper.

      Beyond that, if you used a socket for the IC, you should try swapping it for a different one.

      Also - something that I have learned over LOTS of stripboard building is that if you get a bum passive component or have a building error that is just to buried to find, starting over often yields good results. I've literally stared at a nonfunctioning build for an hour, found no errors, then rebuilt a new board and had it work just fine.

      Good luck!

      Delete
    2. Thank you very much Chris Stelloh for your advice. I will review each point. I will now change the tone potentiometer to a 25kB one to see what results I get. Also, I have a question about the 220nF capacitor that is between the volume 1 and tone 1 terminals, since volume 1 goes to ground. Looking at the diagram in aionfx , I see that it indicates that it should go to +VB

      Delete
  11. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete