BR-600 discussion

[guitarron]

a little circuit bending and ya never know

[64Guitars]

I'm surprised that it has multiple pots in it. 

I do remember a knob on the side for centering I believe but thought it was mechanical to the pot itself for physically moving it.  Must be the second pot I think now.  Interesting - fine tuning maybe?

The 10k pot is a Minimum Volume control. See the EV-5 Owner's Manual at midiguitar.net. You can omit it if you don't think it will be useful to you.

[Geir]

Thanx for the EV-5 schematics !!!

I do believe I have a couple of old volume-pedals I can rewire.

Do you (or anyone else) know if the pots are linear or logarithmic? my guess for an expression-pedal for a digital system would be linear, but volume-pots are normally log as far as I can recall.

[64Guitars]

Do you (or anyone else) know if the pots are linear or logarithmic? my guess for an expression-pedal for a digital system would be linear, but volume-pots are normally log as far as I can recall.

Good question. I'm not sure but I agree that volume controls are usually logarithmic. I think I'd try log pots for both and see how it works.

If I get some time, I'll take my EV-5 apart and see if I can find out what it's got in it. Not sure if I'll get to it tomorrow but probably soon after.

[64Guitars]

I've just been doing some Googling and almost every page I can find says they're linear pots. So it looks like my guess that they're log was wrong. If I figure out what's in mine, I'll let you know.

[64Guitars]

Just found this Roland EV-5 service document via Google:

http://elektrotanya.com/roland_ev-5_fv-60.pdf/download.html

It says the 10K pot has a "Special taper". I don't know if that means log taper or something a bit different. But I wouldn't think it's a linear taper since there's nothing "special" about linear.

Tapers are sometimes designated with letters such as 'A' or 'B'. But, according to the Wikipedia page on potentiometers, these designations aren't very standard so you can't always rely on them. The pots in the EV-5 have a 'B' taper, though I assume that the circled 'S' next to the 'B' in the parts list of the above service document means that it's a special variation of the normal 'B' taper.

I removed the bottom plate of my EV-5 and had a look. Without disassembling it further (which I'd rather not do), I can't see any part numbers or other markings. But I can tell you that the pots in my EV-5 are manufactured by ALPHA. Here's their website:

http://www.alphapotentiometers.net/

And here's a page that describes the various tapers of ALPHA pots:

http://www.alphapotentiometers.net/html/taper_curves.html

It shows 6 variations of the 'B' taper (B, 1B, 2B, 3B, 4B, and 5B). Since 'B' is linear and '3B' is a volume control (log, I assume), this doesn't help. But, as I said before, there's nothing "special" about linear taper, so I'd assume it's one of the others. Maybe you should try a log taper for the 10K pot (the special taper one) and a linear taper for the 50K pot (minimum volume).




One thing I noticed about my EV-5 is that the mechanical design prevents the pot from turning fully through its rotation. In fact, I'd estimate that it's only turning about 100 degrees or maybe 35% of its full rotation.

[Geir]

Thanx once again 64G !!!

I have an old FV-60, according to the schematics the pot there is 500k S. So I'll dig out my Ohm-meter and see if I can find anything special about it. It could be just that the full range is over a narrower sector to allow for less movement of the pedal to span the whole range. (if that made sense)

[64Guitars]

I have an old FV-60

Why not use that as an expression pedal for your BR?

[Geir]

I have an old FV-60

Why not use that as an expression pedal for your BR?

the impedance of the pots on the FV-60 are 500k logarithmic , and the EV-5 is 10k linear. I may give it a try anyway, but think it will be difficult to control.

[hardlock]

Anyone using the BR-600 have any tips on recording drums?  I'm in a bedroom and am currently using a couple cheap mics in a stereo setup.  (probably a lot of the problem).

Have experimented with different mic locations - hi/low, close/spread, etc and think I have that covered.  

My big issue is with effects and EQ to get the tones right.  When compared to the canned tones, they come out weak and mostly midrange and with that "garage" sound we all can relate to I'm sure....

I've tried vocal effects like comp and eq during and after recording, line multis after recording, etc. and just feel I'm missing the boat with it all somehow.  

I need a recipe I think from someone that's been there & done that!

Here's a short sample of my "best" tones so far along with the canned rhythm track to compare to.  (canned has 40 rev. set BTW)

Any suggestions?  Thanks much for any help!