Systech - Harmonic Energizer  [schematic]

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grizzlytone
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Post by grizzlytone »

fuzzca wrote:Man, I am having the toughest time trying to get this working!

I started off early in the thread and built a vero layout based on the original schem that Grizzly posted on page 3 of this thread. "Systech_Harmonic_Energizer_CompLayout_and_Schematic_RevB.pdf " All I had on hand was dual opamps so I built around that. I find it's a pretty epic vero build when there are two opamps (I can't believe how compact Grizz's quad layout is!) but I persevered and took my time, things seemed good. Fired her up ... signal passes but not much happening except the gain works a bit. I reevaluated my layout against the schem. Seemed OK. I checked this out several times over the week

Now it was forensic "CSI" time. I went back to the original pics Joe posted, traced them out. Noticed a couple of things. To me it looks like that the 2K2 from the output (pin 1) of the second opamp feeds back to the input(pin 2) of itself, the second opamp, not the first opamp. Additionally it looks to me that the pin 1 on the bandwidth pot doesn't go to ground via 10uF but connects to the first opamp in (pin 2). Aha, I thought, now she will fire right up,... nope, same deal as before, gain works a bit and that's all.

I measured the voltages and they are looking completely f*cked. I might just give up on this tangent. But hopefully I've missed something simple, that would be nice!

If anyone can make sense of this, throw me a life jacket!

Using 9.12 V battery
Power NPN: E-7.3V, B 8V, C - 8.5
Buffer JFET: D-7.3V, G-0V, S-1.4V
IC1: 1-3.6V, 2-3.6V, 3-3.6V, 4-0V, 5-3.6V, 6-3.6V, 7-5 V and rising, 8- 7.3V
IC2: 1-3.3V, 2-3.6V, 3-3.6V, 4-0V, 5-3.6V, 6-3.6V, 7-3.6 V , 8- 7.3V

Sorry to thow this mess into the mix but if someone can spot a fatal flaw I would be all ears.
Cheers
Fuzzca, Judging from your measurements it seems to me there may be something screwy going on with the feedback on the second op-amp of IC1 and maybe on the first op-amp of IC2 as well. 2nd op-amp on IC1 behaves like it has a huge amount of gain (like if there were no feedback at all...) and is amplifying its on small error offset voltage -the rising 5V -check to see that the 47nF cap (nF not uF, right?) is really connected to leg 6 and 7 of IC1 and that you get no low ohm reading to GND at any of these points (...power off, reading >10k). Then do a similar check on the feedback chain between leg 1 and 2 on IC2 and check resistance to GND as well. Don't give up...

Cheers and Cheer up/ MB

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Post by fuzzca »

Hey! It works!

Awesome debugging pointers there Griz! I had soldered 0.47uF caps where the 47n (0.047uF) were supposed to be. A zero makes a difference...

I only had 10 minutes to test her out and I am wondering if it's doing what it is supposed to. All controls are working more or less as expected. I definitely am getting a wah like tone out of it and lots of cleanish gain. Is it supposed to add distortion too? Judging by Joes clips I can't tell if he is mixing the Systech with a dirty amp or pedal.

With a clean tone I seem to be getting a cocked wah sound with perhaps a bit of envelope filter attack. When combined with distortion I do hear some nice extra harmonic action. Notes sing in a cool way. I notice a fair bit of noise added with the dirt on, more than I would have expected running some dirt with a humbucker.

I am really happy that it's starting to come together. I'm done for today though. I will have a bit more time tomorrow to double check everything.

Thanks again Griz for your encouragement and help.

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Post by joegore »

The Waits track could be mixed with other stuff. The Action Plus track should be simply SHE into a clean amp. That's definitely "the sound." --Joe

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Post by grizzlytone »

Hi Guys (and Gals?),

Here's two pics of the threadle pedal version of the Essential Harmonic Energizer that I built.....
Grizzlytone_Essential_Harmonic_Energizer_Pic1.JPG
Grizzlytone_Essential_Harmonic_Energizer_Pic2.JPG
And just to wet your appetite, as a booster for those of you in progress, and as a question to Joe who's familiar with how it should sound I recorded a sound sample today but strangely enough I'm not allowed to upload the mp3 file on to the thread , I just get the comment "the extention mp3 is not allowed". ???? Maybe someone could be so kind as to fill me in on this matter?

/MB

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Post by joegore »

Not sure why you can't post mp3s, but if you want to email it to me, I'll post it in the same folder as my files. --Joe

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Post by fuzzca »

When you get a chance Grizzlytone can you tell me how these voltages look?

Battery 8.9V
NPN (2N3904) : C-8.2V, B-7.4V, E-6.5V
JFET (2N5457) : D-6.6V, S-0V, G-1.4V
ICs (LF353), ...still waiting for TL022 and TL074
A- 1-3.2V, 2-3.2V, 3-3.2V, 4-0V, 5-3.2V, 6-3.2V, 7-3.2V, 8-6.6V
B- 1-3.2V, 2-3.2V, 3-3.2V, 4-0V, 5-3.2V, 6-3.2V, 7-3.2V, 8-6.6V

I am getting quite a bit of noise, it could be that the circuit isn't in a shielded box. It does seem to be getting the tone though. A nice stinky type of sound that would sit in a mix nicely. It seems to me that you could achieve a similar tone with a decent wah pedal. I still have the feeling it's not quite dialed in yet.

Looking forward to your sound clips!

Cheers.

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Post by grizzlytone »

fuzzca wrote:When you get a chance Grizzlytone can you tell me how these voltages look?

Battery 8.9V
NPN (2N3904) : C-8.2V, B-7.4V, E-6.5V
JFET (2N5457) : D-6.6V, S-0V, G-1.4V
ICs (LF353), ...still waiting for TL022 and TL074
A- 1-3.2V, 2-3.2V, 3-3.2V, 4-0V, 5-3.2V, 6-3.2V, 7-3.2V, 8-6.6V
B- 1-3.2V, 2-3.2V, 3-3.2V, 4-0V, 5-3.2V, 6-3.2V, 7-3.2V, 8-6.6V

I am getting quite a bit of noise, it could be that the circuit isn't in a shielded box. It does seem to be getting the tone though. A nice stinky type of sound that would sit in a mix nicely. It seems to me that you could achieve a similar tone with a decent wah pedal. I still have the feeling it's not quite dialed in yet.

Looking forward to your sound clips!

Cheers.
Joe, I'll email the mp3 file to you so you can put it up on your server. THANKS!!

Fuzzca, First I'd like to hear both you and Joe's comment on the sound in the sample to get a baseline for determing what to expect...
The voltages in your chart seems perfectly fine to me but I think the listed voltages for the NPN is really the voltages for the JFET and the voltages for the JFET is really the readings from the NPN, right?
Yeah, mine is pretty noisy too, I could think of a couple of possible reasons and combinations thereof:
1) Inheritly noisy design; the main feedback (via the 2k2 resistor) for the first stage consists of a very filtered signal that is either very attenuated or very amplified in the 3rd (center freq pot) stage, all white noise produced by the op-amps themselves will be added to the summed signal. Do you find your original H.E. noisy Joe?
The first thing to do if you'd like to chase this problem would be to substitute your your dual op-amps or TL074 (not designed especially for lo noise) for NE5532's (the same common DIP-8 dual op-amp pinout as common to most other types) or some lo noise high bucks Burr & Brown op-amp and determine the results (preferably by comparing before and after recordings with the exact same settings)....IC sockets is really a very good thing provided that they're of the costlier high quality type....
2) There's a huge amount of gain available at the output stage and since you're likely to have that control on maximum gain in order to overload your amp you'll also amplify the noise.
3) If you're using the original 10M resistor it generates a thermal noise all by itself V = 1,29 x 10e-10 x Sqrt (BW x R) = 1,29 x 10e-10 x Sqrt (20 000 x 10 000 000) = 57,7 uV RMS
...while a 1M resistor genarates a thermal noise V = 1,29 x 10e-10 x Sqrt (20000 x 1 000 000) = 18,2 uV RMS.
These are values calculated for a 20 kHz bandwidth witch is not really relevant for signals amplified by any standard guitar amp that would not put out very much frequencies above 5kHz but the figures are usefull for a comparison. the 10M resistor puts out G = 20log F = 20log (57,7 / 18,2) = 10,0 dB more thermal noise (white noise).
Ok, this far into my essay I'm starting to realize that I'm overestimating the impact of 10M input resistance but I'm going to leave it in for the sake of an honest dialog with open minds and free thinking (free your ass and your mind will follow as Funcadelic put it...) Also, most of the thermal noise will be shorted to ground through the instrument pickup impedance, so....I leave it here and up to you to ponder.

Fuzzca, If the noise is not of the "mains-hum-with-overtones" -type or the cell phone disturbance type but the standard "in-beetween-radio-stations" white noise type I don't believe any electrostatic or electromagnetic shielding encosure will do any difference at all....

In answer to your previous question -No, the H.E. were not designed to produce any clipping distortion in itself but were designed rather to have as high an output as to overdrive the input stage on most guitar amps.

Gotta go, Later/ MB

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Post by joegore »

Okay, Grizzlytone's file is up in Systech Folder at my site:

http://idisk.mac.com/joegore-Public?view=web

Sounds like this is pretty accurate, though I'm unaccustomed to hearing it with a wah treadle. Like Grizzlytone said, there's no overdrive component as such, but the output of the high-resonance sounds inevitably bludgeons the amp into overdrive. He said he was playing through a hot amp, and I can't exactly ID what overdrive comes from what source. But there's a good example of what I think of the SHE signature sound about two-thirds of the way through the example.

It's a nasty, abrasive tone. Hearing it reminded me of how I regularly used it on dance remix sessions about a decade ago. Heard in isolation like this, it's unforgivably harsh. But damn, can it cut through loops and synths!

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Post by grizzlytone »

joegore wrote:Okay, Grizzlytone's file is up in Systech Folder at my site:

http://idisk.mac.com/joegore-Public?view=web

Sounds like this is pretty accurate, though I'm unaccustomed to hearing it with a wah treadle. Like Grizzlytone said, there's no overdrive component as such, but the output of the high-resonance sounds inevitably bludgeons the amp into overdrive. He said he was playing through a hot amp, and I can't exactly ID what overdrive comes from what source. But there's a good example of what I think of the SHE signature sound about two-thirds of the way through the example.

It's a nasty, abrasive tone. Hearing it reminded me of how I regularly used it on dance remix sessions about a decade ago. Heard in isolation like this, it's unforgivably harsh. But damn, can it cut through loops and synths!
About the recording:
This recording was done less then 48 hours ago on a 15 minute break in a recording studio, the guitar is a Dearmond with humbuckers that was lying around and it goes straight into the pedal and then straight into a 72 Fender deluxe amp cranked up pretty loud. I'm not sitting in the same room so you're not hearing any acoustic feedback. The amp is miked with a SM57 that goes straight into a Digidesign Digi003 interface and then recorded on Pro Tools. I'm trying not to play anything really premeditated but instead feed of whatever inspiration the sound may offer and I'm trying to be really versitile. Since the "Center Frequency" is controlled by the treadle on my pedal I'm using it like a wah pedal but the gain and bandwitdh remains fixed at maximum during the whole recording. I noticed afterward that I tended to play softer when the pedal was in the treble position.

Joe, Glad to hear your affermative comment on the sound. Yeah, it's a really abrasive tone that you can't ignore. I can easily imagine Steve Albini using the HE on his recordings. Just imagine a Travis Bean aluminum guitar into a Harmonic Percolator into a Harmonic Energizer into a combo amp miked with a ribbon mike picking up every earpiercing teethshattering transient...

Fuzzca, I need to correct myself once again; Forget what I've previously said about the NPN and JFET measurements, I glanced very briefly on your voltage chart and the voltages for the NPN and JFET seems perfectly fine but what I meant to say is that the G and S measurements seems to be switched. G would be 0V and S would be +1,4V instead of the reverse. Sorry about confusing again...

Peace out/ MB

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Post by fuzzca »

grizzlytone wrote:
Fuzzca, I need to correct myself once again; Forget what I've previously said about the NPN and JFET measurements, I glanced very briefly on your voltage chart and the voltages for the NPN and JFET seems perfectly fine but what I meant to say is that the G and S measurements seems to be switched. G would be 0V and S would be +1,4V instead of the reverse. Sorry about confusing again...

Peace out/ MB
Yeah, this is a bit of a head scratcher. I triple checked the wiring of the input section and the voltages I posted are the voltages I am getting. I read on your notes that there should be 2V+ on the source. I am not getting that. I tried flipping the G & S pins to see what would happen and the pedal doesn't pass signal when the pins are switched.

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Post by analogguru »

:hmmm: I am really concerned about the question:
Should I build..... or should I buy ?:
https://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Systech-Ha ... 240%3A1318

Anyhow, I think that I should read the original description (attached below) first.

enjoy,
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Post by noelgrassy »

AG, your humor can be positively delightful! :D

That auction netted the seller $2K+ for his efforts. :shock:

The buyer must be planning on doubling is money in a few years or stupid-wealthy.


Thanks to Grizzlytone for generating this thread. :thumbsup
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Post by joegore »

Jeez. I started this whole thread. And I wouldn't pay more than a couple of hundred bucks for this piece of crap. :)

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Post by lolbou »

joegore wrote:Jeez. I started this whole thread.
+1 That's what I verified later... redde caesari quae sunt caesaris et quae sunt dei deo :)
- Are you a mod or a rocker?
- Uh, no, I'm a mocker.

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Post by joegore »

lolbou wrote:
joegore wrote:Jeez. I started this whole thread.
+1 That's what I verified later... redde caesari quae sunt caesaris et quae sunt dei deo :)
Redde caesari quae sunt caesaris et quae sunt EBayi EBay.

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Post by lolbou »

Ebayo?

looooooooooooooooool :D :D :D :D
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Post by theehman »

Do we have a definitive schematic for this yet?
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Post by fuzzca »

theehman wrote:Do we have a definitive schematic for this yet?
I just got my TL074's and I can say that Grizzlytones layout and schematic for "the essential" Systech Harmonic Energizer" works very well. I followed his layout, including using the tantulum caps (which I rarely use) and it sounds quite decent. Does it sound like the original? I am not able to say.... I've played this pedal a bunch and I really can't say that it is exactly like the sound samples Joe posted. The essentil idea is there...

$2000 decent?, I don't think so...Basically, this is a parametric EQ with a bunch of not so noisy boost on tap. What I like about it is, when adding it to an already dirty tone it "focuses" the frequencies in a nice singing way. A good thing! Basically it's a fixed wah with the ability to adjust the bandwidth of frequencies that get boosted. Cool for recording if you want to slot a bit of guitar in amongst other instruments with similar frequencies etc. This thing can get freaky if you want some weird thin cutting skank in the mix!

I had hoped to get some audio samples when I was at the studio this week but the SHE wasn't relevant to the tracks we cut.

Either way, a big thanks to Joe ("Did you get yours built?")and Grizzlytone for their help.
Cheers!

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Post by graemey »



Have a look at the above clip of U2 at yesterdays Brit Awards.

Sounds like The Edge is using a SHE style effect about 0.22 secs in for a bar or two, then he kicks it out and returns to a more 'regular' tone.

I know he has a very busy signal chain managed with a Bradshaw switching system. Then again, he might just be stomping on a wah!

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Post by rwalborn »

Someone I worked with at Systech sent me the Ebay listing for the Systech Harmonic Energizer. I designed the Harmonic Energizer and all the other Systech pedals. Unfortunately, that was 35 years and about 200 designs ago. Until I looked at the reconstructed schematics , I could not even remember was in the thing. From the comments it does act liek a static wah-wah pedal with variable Q( peaking) and gain.
The original SN72L022 op amp was a very low current device( for battery operation) and is no longer made I see that hte original schematic on Apocalypseaudio had the power supply mis wired but the later schematics on this forum had it corrected.

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