MIRKWOOD DELAY MKII

The MIRKWOOD MODULATED DELAY MKII is the result of years of research and design work (with the first experimentations of it dating back to 2021) and many revisions.

MIRKWOOD MODULATED DELAY MKII UPDATE: 4/24

Best revision yet! I found a way to make the repeats louder without distorting them more. Thick warm and lush while still having that dark analog and krinkly tape sound (a bit of a hybrid between bucket brigade and tape sounds)
Really REALLY happy with it!

I WILL BE MAKING A SMALL RUN OF 10 “SLIME GREEN” GLOW IN THE DARK KRACKLE

/////////////////////////////////////////////

My obsession analog delay growing up with the deluxe memory man still continues to this day. And why not add a few features I always wanted? An expression jack for the delay time, multiple waveforms for the modulation and a second footswitch for turning the modulation on/off on the fly.

With MN3005 bucket brigade chips skyrocketing beyond what they were a few years ago I decided to try designing a version using two cascaded PT23999 chips which are then modulated with an Electric Druid LFO chip.

In my research I discovered the similarities between the PT2399 and bucket brigade chips are more numerous than I had realized. Especially with the right filtering techniques and including the SE571 "compander" chip (it first compresses, then expands, hence, "compander")

There are still some analog aspects of the PT2399. The amplifiers on the right side of the chip are analog. The time setting is analog (the resistance to ground being continuously variable), it's just converted to digital information by the internal module.

In the PT2399, digitization is only used to delay the signal, nothing else. The small DSP in the PT2399 stores only a sample of the sound in memory for a few milliseconds. Then it plays it back later without any sound processing added. Then, all the sound processing is done with 100% analog circuit. The are filter stages are quite similar to those used on the BBD.

(It's also important to note that the BBD also works by sampling the signal. So in both cases, the delayed signal doesn’t look as “analog” as we could imagine.)

The PT2399 is therefore much closer to a warm, grungy BBD than a crisp digital delay for sound processing.

Too much delay time and it gets crunchy in a REALLY low fi way so limiting it to about 400-450ms is the best idea which is why the MIRKWOOD cascades two chips for:
about 800-900ms OF DELAY TIME.

MODULATION/delay control symbols are different from BLACKHAWK dirt pedals and are:

D=depth
R=rate
C=clean
W=waveform
T=time
F=feedback

////////////////////////////////////////////

The new MKII version includes the new "clickless true bypass" (or "soft touch") switch which uses a clickless momentary switch to trigger a relay as opposed to the standard mechanical method.

The MKII also uses a hybrid of SMD resistors/diodes/semiconductors/ICs but with the important parts (audio film caps, rarer discrete transistors and some ICs) still being through hole.

The audio/DC jacks and foot switches will still be handwired, only now they can be done much faster.
This means shorter wait times and the ability to build batch "drops"!

////////////////////////////////////////////

All BLACKHAWK pedals and preamps are true bypass and standard “one spot style” 9v, Negative tip, 2.1mm barrel.

CURRENT DRAW 100ma to 200ma

Please allow 1-2 weeks build time as every BLACKHAWK pedal is made by hand for YOU.