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Two nights ago, a fellow musician brought a mint condition 70ies or 80ies Minibrute IV to a jamsession. Or at least I think it was that model: only bass and treble controls, no mid pot, 15" speaker, great reverb.
I have very limited experience with Polytones but man, this one in combination with my ES-125 was tonal heaven! All the other guitarist in the room agreed and two of them begged me to use my guitar on the Polytone because the sound was soooo good! It was just THE classic old school jazz sound that I have embedded in my brain!
So I am very interested in this pedal!
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10-23-2015 10:24 AM
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Interesting pedal!
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So for anyone interested in the low cut... I did some more tests and this should be an active design, using an opamp like an OPA2134 to serve as buffer and "make up gain". As it is, passive, it looses too much gain. I use so many pedals this artefact was not evident...
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So how would a person not skilled at building things like this obtain one of these pedals?
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Here
Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
I strongly recommend an on / off switch for the low cut AND making it active. Or not adding it if you don't feel the need!
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There is thousands of DIY builders making clone pedals and designing their own pedals in DIY Stompboxes, The Gear Page etc forums. Try to find there someone who could build this to You. I'll bet You'll find there one who lives in Your neighborhood! Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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Haha!
I actually had the same idea after recording my polytone from the line out (output of preamp) and loving its sound. I really wanted to check if a polytone-in-a-pedal could bring the 'polytoneness' to a regular fender amp found in a jam session for example. I love what the polytone preamp does to my sound it's just something special.
I started a few months ago and stopped halfway through creating the PCB due to time constraints and priorities shift.
My version is based on my 82' Mini brute 1 and includes the mid pot. I also included the charge pump (great minds think alike).
i really have to finish the design of this PCB and start building it, but i have so many useful pedals projects in parallel already (special buffer, analog delay, mixer pedal, django electric sound type overdrive, bypass loop with mix (mix any distortion with clean signal), other wierd stuff or tests .. ) that i can't keep up.
Pedal building is fun and addivtice but also SO time consuming and it's sometimes hard to finish complete projects (at the moment with no place to drill and varnish at home) and a new house to paint and to work for..
Anyway, i'm glad that someone tried this and that it worked.. i'll start this project again and probably put it in priority
Last edited by add4; 04-29-2016 at 09:25 AM.
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add4, do you have a schematic of your version with the mid pot? Care to share it? I've been looking for a schematic of a Polytone (Baxandall) preamp with a mid-pot but haven't found one I found useful. Thanx!
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mine comes from the schematic that i found on the net, that i verified as similar to my mini brute 1
(it's actually the complete schematic with reverb and distortion, but crossing this schematic with the ones posted earlier in this thread i created my version (unverified yet), similar to the one in my amp . i basically removed the distortion and reverb driver, and used the last stage from the other schematic)
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Jay do you know Chris (Franz1997)? He's a really nice guy and he has added a 400hz mid pot to his old Poly I believe. PM him! Originally Posted by Little Jay
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Hi Arnaud, I would love to hear your thoughts on the pedal when you build it. Good to see you're still building stuff, luckily I am unable to solder Originally Posted by add4
Haha!
I actually had the same idea after recording my polytone from the line out (output of preamp) and loving its sound. I really wanted to check if a polytone-in-a-pedal could bring the 'polytoneness' to a regular fender amp found in a jam session for example. I love what the polytone preamp does to my sound it's just something special.
I started a few months ago and stopped halfway through creating the PCB due to time constraints and priorities shift.
My version is based on my 82' Mini brute 1 and includes the mid pot. I also included the charge pump (great minds think alike).
i really have to finish the design of this PCB and start building it, but i have so many useful pedals projects in parallel already (special buffer, analog delay, mixer pedal, django electric sound type overdrive, bypass loop with mix (mix any distortion with clean signal), other wierd stuff or tests .. ) that i can't keep up.
Pedal building is fun and addivtice but also SO time consuming and it's sometimes hard to finish complete projects (at the moment with no place to drill and varnish at home) and a new house to paint and to work for..
Anyway, i'm glad that someone tried this and that it worked.. i'll start this project again and probably put it in priority
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you should start it's the easiest part actually!!!
think of all the crazy stuff you could try..
Seriously thanks for your kind message. i'm building stuff on and off. I still try to prioritize playing, and even that has been slowed down a little lately.
I've had this huge breakthrough in my guitar playing and now that i manage a lot of situations really better, i have less drive for working all that stuff out as i used to do. I geuss it's just a momentary thing. I also started playing more and practicing less, and writing some music too .
and also started doing sports again . my free time always was divided between music and sports and apparently after a few years focused on music, i much enjoy doing sports againLast edited by add4; 01-17-2017 at 07:03 AM.
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If anyone ever gets this to the point of being willing to make one on commission for a reasonable price, I'd love to buy one. I don't want to just drop onto an unknown website and ask. But if any of you guys ever build one of these (I like the mid range knob too) and can quote a price, I'd love to be your test market!
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I know it's easy but I need to focus on music... I have to stay from pedals and studio stuff, I like them too much Originally Posted by add4
you should start it's the easiest part actually!!!
think of all the crazy stuff you could try..
Seriously thanks for your kind message. i'm building stuff on and off. I still try to prioritize playing, and even that has been slowed down a little lately.
I've had this huge breakthrough in my guitar playing and now that i manage a lot of situations really better, i have less drive for working all that stuff out as i used to do. I geuss it's just a momentary thing. I also started playing more and practicing less, and writing some music too .
and also started doing sports again . my free time always was divided between music and sports and apparently after a few years focused on music, i much enjoy doing sports again (- 10 kgs in 2 months)
Yeah, too much stuff we like to do... no time for everything!! Keep me posted on your Polyclone pedal progress!
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Lawson as I said I can't solder, I just have ideas (too many ideas)! If I did I would gladly build you one and send it to you - some guys here can and will help you for sure! Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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Haha! Originally Posted by lawson-stone
for me there will never be a market! building a pedal takes about 8 hours for me (building the circuit 2h, offboard wiring 2h, drill box according to the board specificities 1h, apply artwork on pedal 2h, find the usual small problem in a build and solve it 1h) and it's not counting the time spent on designing the pcb, producing it, creating the artwork and the drill template, ...
so i'm selling some to friends in the belgian jazz scene who really want some stuff they heard (i modded a rat used on the LG jazz collective album, and have 3-4 guys using a few pedals from me, one even had half of his boad built by me ... but i'm practically giving them to him since hess my best friend and i want to see him succeed in music ) for it, and most are for me (my pedalboards are too small ).
What i mean is that if i wanted to make you pay for it it would probably be closer to a boutique price than a chinese factory price if i wanted to have a little something for my hours. This is probably where you'll say you prefer something else
Even worse: i have a few orders (for friends as i said) in the backlog and i might take months before i can actually give you something..
That's why i'd avise you to contact Jorge's friend who apparently found a way to build pedals on demand and rather cheap
If you absolutely don't find an other solution i can maybe do it but within the limitations i gave you .. don't hesitate to contact me if the rest doesn't work (i mean .. i HAVE to order the pcbs by multiples of 3 so i might have 2 sleeping in a cardbox)
hope that helpsLast edited by add4; 04-29-2016 at 11:01 AM.
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Jorge's ideas are usually veru good in terms of pedals and sounds! Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
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Hey guys,
I stared working on this again and here is the schematic i plan on using in case it can help someone
this is basically the polytone mini brute preamp with the mid pot, and the charge pump (i actually choosed to use the charge pump to provide -9volts and +9volts, it's closer to the original polytones than using +18v). the results should be the same from the audible point of view.
i'm still thinking on adding or not the low pass filter discussed here, and where/how to add it if i do.
i'll try to finish the circuit for today
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Hi add4,
Did you ever continue working on the preamp? I'm curious about cuz I'm having like a lot of gigs in a place far from my place and they have a backline but no amps.
CLast edited by Cris Gomez; 01-11-2017 at 03:30 PM.
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Hi Cris,
Sadly, no.
The good news is that i recently had a few pedals ordered and i then discovered someone who can help me with the enclosure preparation so i now can build pedals a good bit faster, and with a far better enclosure quality. So i'm currently working towards making small batches of pedals and sell them. The polytone preamp could be one of those if i can find a few people interested that could be worth investing some time in. I'll put it back on my (already gigantic) list of things to try and test.Last edited by add4; 01-11-2017 at 04:17 PM.
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Eager to hear results! And as a many year Polytone user I would not worry about low pass filters. Or Joe Pass filter! Originally Posted by add4
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I'll try to do that after the booster project I'm working on right now.
Some images (because im proud of these
) 
Envoyé de mon iPhone en utilisant Tapatalk
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Wow! And for a reason! If these sound as good as look they sound fabulous! Originally Posted by add4
I'll try to do that after the booster project I'm working on right now.
Some images (because im proud of these))
Clones or original designs?
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This booster is based on a RC booster with two main changes: earlier break-up so that passed noon the drive starts to break-up slightly but it's more like a light growl or added harmonics than overdrive. And I changed the frequencies of the treble and bass knobs to my personal taste.
There is a limited number of possibilities to amplify a signal anyway so my idea here is to use the architecture of a pedal with the sound quality I am looking for top get a specific effect. Here, I think that combination being a decent guitar player
With an ear for sounds and an understanding of how to make these signs happen is the added value. For instance i made myself a rat based pedal with a few mods to get it more useful for jazz (including a pot to stimulate the volume control of the guitar at the input. To me the rat really shines with the guitar volume on 5-7 but I like to play with my volume 10 on clean so I can now just turn the pedal on and have both the volume down and the effect on. Simple but useful addition
Using the same idea you can use the tubescreamer circuit to get wildly different sounding pedals. Or the big muff circuit can go from scooped fuzz to mid boosting overdrive.
Here, Interestingly, the RC booster circuit is not so far from the Polytone preamp: bandaxall tone stack, op amp amplify stage,...
I also have some 100% original designs in the work, but not for this booster
Envoyé de mon iPhone en utilisant TapatalkLast edited by add4; 01-12-2017 at 07:13 AM.
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Just to clarify - the filter on the Polyclone is a low-cut (high-pass) filter that now has been upgraded to active and has an on / off switch, so it can be removed from the circuit. When off it has no effect on sound and it can be quite useful when playing with boomy archtops / cabs / rooms - lowering the bass knob will make your sound thin, the low-cut will not.
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