Magnavibe Pedal

[plexi50]

Has anyone tried the Magnavibe pedal? Man if my ears arent decieving me it sounds like heaven and as close to any maggie ive ever heard. Almost purchased a few minutes ago but thought i might ask first. Listen to the (At Last) sound clip and especially the last chord of that clip. It sounds to have that beautiful smooth pitch decay.

http://www.bigfootfx.com/sound-clips.html

[jazbo8]

Just like the Maggie? really?! It looks like a pretty simple LDR type vibrato. The whole project is available here: http://freestompboxes.org/download/file.php?id=18082

Jaz

[plexi50]

Forgot my user id for that forum. Exceeded attempts. Will try again tommorow

[six_eight]

I've built that circuit before.  I must add the caveat that I have never played an actual Magnavibe, nor do I know for certain that the circuit is indeed the same as the Magnavibe.  It does a very good job of recreating the sound of the 410 or 213, but if you are expecting it to sound more like the M10 or 280 or 260, you'll be disappointed. It's only a single vibrato stage like a Magnatone 410 or 213, so it's not going to sound as lush as an M10 or 280 which had two stages.  Also, like the 410 or 213, it does not have the phase inverter in the LFO, so the two varistors are essentially just one (I would assume they did this to get the desired resistance taper) which is pretty much exactly what's going on with the LDR in the Magnavibe.  Whereas, on the M10 or 280, the varistors were working in a push-pull manner.  To my ears, this gives it more of pitch bending effect.  The 410 and 213 do have some pitch bending going on, but they border on just being tremolo.  If you do build that circuit, you'll want to double the vibrato stages.

 

[six_eight]

I just listened to a demo of the Magnavibe and it sounds really good.  Very much like the 280/Lonnie Mack sound.