Home Forums Vintage EHX PDF manual for SAD1024 Clone Theory? Need calibration advice.

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  • #86288
    Delicieuxz
    Member

    I recently bought one of these used. It sounds gorgeous, but it has some clock noise and I want to have it calibrated to hopefully fix it. But I don’t know how to.

    I don’t know if that information would be in the manual. But is there a guide someone that details how to calibrate the Clone Theory, like this guide on calibrating the Electric Mistress?

    http://www.metzgerralf.de/elekt/stomp/mistress/align.shtml

    If I take it to a tech, will they know what to do to get it in perfect calibration safely?

    #126119
    Scruffie
    Member

    I haven’t got a service manual for the pedal but it’s not too hard to work out what needs doing from the schematic and any tech worth their salt will be able to work out how to optimally bias them. There’s 3 trimmers, one sets the bias of both halves of the BBD, one sets the gain between BBD’s which in turn provides an equal 50/50 dry and wet mix and the final one balances the output section of the BBD, which is the one you’re probably most interested in as it will remove clock noise (just to clarify, clock noise as in a high pitched constant whine, not hiss or a chirping sound?).

    Assuming it’s the constant whine mentioned above, you can probably adjust the balance trimmer yourself if you’d like to avoid a tech, it will be the one marked ‘1k’ just power the pedal on (being careful to keep your hands away from the power switch contacts/transformer section as this carries mains electricity) with nothing plugged in to the input jack, put the edge ‘on’ (the brighter mode) the blend CW (the vibrato side) and adjust it for the least whine, there will be a small section around the middle where the whine gets quieter, tweak it carefully until all the whine is gone.

    Hard to say, a lot of “tech’s” will be DIYers who have no idea what they’re doing and will ask on pages like these for help, but there are some experienced folk out there. If you’re in the Americas, contact The EH Man on here.

    #126120
    Delicieuxz
    Member
    Quote:
    I haven’t got a service manual for the pedal but it’s not too hard to work out what needs doing from the schematic and any tech worth their salt will be able to work out how to optimally bias them. There’s 3 trimmers, one sets the bias of both halves of the BBD, one sets the gain between BBD’s which in turn provides an equal 50/50 dry and wet mix and the final one balances the output section of the BBD, which is the one you’re probably most interested in as it will remove clock noise (just to clarify, clock noise as in a high pitched constant whine, not hiss or a chirping sound?).

    Thanks for sharing that information, Scruffie!

    The clock noise I’m hearing is a soft ticking at each peak in the modulation cycle. It starts to become audible when the Depth knob is around 1/4 of the way up. And the more that the depth knob is turned-up, the louder and harsher it gets.

    Also, when the Depth knob is turned all the way down, there’s a soft high-pitched squeal noise.

    #126121
    Delicieuxz
    Member

    Here are a couple of audio clips demonstrating the clock noise and high-pitched squeal I am hearing as the Depth knob is turned up.

    https://mega.nz/file/g1lRmAKB#MKwZYmNFTOs63iGiTDJ_JPjhtVoQf-p_zoUhZ0KUNJ4

    #126123
    Scruffie
    Member

    Ah, ticking isn’t the clock, that’s the LFO, it might need the power filtering caps replaced or it could be as simple as one of the input or output wires running over the LFO section of the board, you can poke them around with a chopstick if you want. It could also be normal for these units, I’ve not played with this variant but the LFO Op Amp isn’t a low current variety according to the schematic which can lead to tick.

    You can try the balance trimmer for the squeal with the depth down as described above though.

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