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Re: TC Electronic - Dark Matter

Posted: 16 Mar 2012, 12:29
by Nicht Bernd
any news?

Re: TC Electronic - Dark Matter

Posted: 16 Mar 2012, 18:45
by Ice-9
Nicht Bernd wrote:any news?
Sorry no news yet as I have been too busy with other shit life throws at you for a few weeks. I promise to get back to it tho ASAP.

Re: TC Electronic - Dark Matter

Posted: 25 May 2013, 20:49
by johnnyoarat
Hi guys!
Any opinions about the resemblance of this pedal (circuit) in relation to others?

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter

Posted: 21 Sep 2016, 20:54
by pb+j
I just got this pedal and I totally love it. I'm mostly interested in jazz and I've been looking for years for a darkish tone with some hair on the low end, sort of Kenny Burrel/Midnight blue. Not a high gain tone, but jazz with some funk on it. This pedal really delivers that without losing dynamic sensitivity. Most pedals leave me feeling like there's something in the way that I'm playing through. This one feels like I'm playing an amp. I'd really like to know what they did here

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter

Posted: 21 Sep 2016, 20:56
by pb+j
pb+j wrote:I just got this pedal and I totally love it. I'm mostly interested in jazz and I've been looking for years for a darkish tone with some hair on the low end, sort of Kenny Burrel/Midnight blue. Not a high gain tone, but jazz with some funk on it. This pedal really delivers that without losing dynamic sensitivity. Most pedals leave me feeling like there's something in the way that I'm playing through. This one feels like I'm playing an amp. I'd really like to know what they did here

OOPS! Stupid me! I meant the TC Electrnics MojoMojo--that's the pedal Im loving. I'm assuming the Dark Matter has the same drive circuit.

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter

Posted: 30 Sep 2016, 18:45
by quantum
IC2.1 looks like a Sallen-Key Butterworth Low Pass Filter as buliding block for the voicing.
http://www.calculatoredge.com/electroni ... 20pass.htm

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter

Posted: 30 Sep 2016, 23:05
by Warpeggio
quantum wrote:IC2.1 looks like a Sallen-Key Butterworth Low Pass Filter as buliding block for the voicing.
http://www.calculatoredge.com/electroni ... 20pass.htm
Nice! Is this a fairly common way to achieve low-pass filtering? Where else might i see this?

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter

Posted: 01 Oct 2016, 22:40
by Ice-9
Warpeggio wrote:
quantum wrote:IC2.1 looks like a Sallen-Key Butterworth Low Pass Filter as buliding block for the voicing.
http://www.calculatoredge.com/electroni ... 20pass.htm
Nice! Is this a fairly common way to achieve low-pass filtering? Where else might i see this?
You could check out schematics for a lot of pedals that use BBD delay lines which quite often have similar filtering, the likes of the Boss chorus, flanger and delay pedals as well as many others. You will also see this type of filtering used in cab sims as well as many other circuits.

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter

Posted: 01 Oct 2016, 22:47
by quantum
Warpeggio wrote:
quantum wrote:IC2.1 looks like a Sallen-Key Butterworth Low Pass Filter as buliding block for the voicing.
http://www.calculatoredge.com/electroni ... 20pass.htm
Nice! Is this a fairly common way to achieve low-pass filtering? Where else might i see this?
Not too common in distortion effects , more common in octave down effects like the boss octaver and the dod octaplus. However a moded Anderton "tube sound" fuzz used one at the end for filtering. That is where I would expect to see an active low pass filter. So the dark matter having one at the input is rather unique. The dark matter is advertised with an active filter for tone , so this is probably where this filter w/the voicing circuit comes into play. Major tone shaping before the distortion stages.

http://www.geofex.com/FX_images/mhtsf.gif

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter  [schematic]

Posted: 07 Oct 2016, 13:05
by rcustoms
let me help you guys,from my cellar,just for look how is work, not for comercial use.

enjoy dark schematics
materia oscura 2.pdf
(444.04 KiB) Downloaded 1674 times
Rcustoms

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter

Posted: 11 Oct 2016, 07:51
by Chugs
Thanks.

Are the parts with a cross through them not fitted on the circuit board?

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter

Posted: 11 Oct 2016, 12:51
by rcustoms
Chugs wrote:Thanks.

Are the parts with a cross through them not fitted on the circuit board?
looks like

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter

Posted: 12 Jan 2017, 15:49
by batflash
Hey there,

has anyone came across any good suggestions for mods for this or the Mojo Mojo?

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter

Posted: 05 Aug 2017, 03:13
by AuditoryDriving
i think there is no schematic available for the mojo mojo..

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter

Posted: 01 Jun 2018, 17:06
by jhergonz
rcustoms wrote:
materia oscura 2.pdf
Rcustoms
This is Dark Matter, right? just curious, What are D5, D6, D7 and D8 are for? please teach me.

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter

Posted: 08 Sep 2019, 10:44
by manolonte
Hi, this is a quite old topic, but I have opened today the mojomojo and took some pictures. D5, D6, D7 and D8 are absent (I suspect the PCB is the same as the Dark Matter). Tracing the clipping section (D1, D2, D3, D4 + OPamp) it is the same as the schematics posted above for Dark Matter. Does someone have a picture of the Dark Matter PCB to see the differences? Maybe it is already posted and I didn't see it, sorry then.
IMG_20190908_114713.jpg

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter

Posted: 01 Jun 2020, 18:06
by UncappedOptics
Well, I just finished tracing this pedal to find there's already a schematic available (and they beat me by 4 years!), guess I should have checked here first :lol:

Still, this was my first time tracing a pedal so I learnt a lot.

Here's my schematic, I tried to keep it tidy so I haven't included any of the test points, missing components, or zero-ohm links.
It's also laid out so the signal path is a relatively straight line through the schematic. I also left the component numbers the same as the circuit board to make them easier for me to find and to make any mods a bit easier.
TC Electronic Dark Matter - Clean.png

For bonus points here's an LTSpice file of the effect, you'll need the potentiometer library as well as the spice definition of the MC33178.
It's even set up to accept a .wav file as input and spit out a .wav output.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kakym1xngm31w ... r.asc?dl=0

I'd be interested to see if anyone builds a clone of this, I found the pedal to be more of an overdrive than distortion with my Strat's single coils. Putting a boost before the pedal makes it more of a distortion so I think increasing the gain of the boost stage should fix this.

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter

Posted: 03 Jun 2020, 10:36
by jhergonz
UncappedOptics wrote: 01 Jun 2020, 18:06 Well, I just finished tracing this pedal to find there's already a schematic available (and they beat me by 4 years!), guess I should have checked here first :lol:

Still, this was my first time tracing a pedal so I learnt a lot.

Here's my schematic, I tried to keep it tidy so I haven't included any of the test points, missing components, or zero-ohm links.
It's also laid out so the signal path is a relatively straight line through the schematic. I also left the component numbers the same as the circuit board to make them easier for me to find and to make any mods a bit easier.
TC Electronic Dark Matter - Clean.png


For bonus points here's an LTSpice file of the effect, you'll need the potentiometer library as well as the spice definition of the MC33178.
It's even set up to accept a .wav file as input and spit out a .wav output.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kakym1xngm31w ... r.asc?dl=0

I'd be interested to see if anyone builds a clone of this, I found the pedal to be more of an overdrive than distortion with my Strat's single coils. Putting a boost before the pedal makes it more of a distortion so I think increasing the gain of the boost stage should fix this.

wow! I'am planning to redraw the schematics so that I can understand the "voice" switch, but you already made a clear copy of it. thanks a lot.

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter

Posted: 03 Jun 2020, 13:58
by Ben N
Considering how cheap they are, folks probably wont be much up for building clones, but it's a great sounding pedal, with great touch, as well. Some interesting stuff in there, to be sure, like the voicing switch and the gain control, and the level control being before the EQ. I don't know that I have ever seen that before.

Re: TC Electronics - Dark Matter

Posted: 03 Jun 2020, 14:10
by Ichabod_Crane
Thanks for sharing it, UncappedOptics.

I guess the Bass pot is reversed.