My Maracas are really quiet... any tips?

Hey everyone,

I have a little problem with my maracas: they are a lot quieter than anything else. Claps and everything else are fine. Any tips on where to look? The resister seem to all be correct.

Bump?

I rechecked all the resistors, caps and diodes again, and have reflowed all the joints. Which part of the handclap section is responsible for the Maracas part? Could it be that either of the chips are dead?

mymaracas wrote:I rechecked all the resistors, caps and diodes again, and have reflowed all the joints. Which part of the handclap section is responsible for the Maracas part? Could it be that either of the chips are dead?

my tip: check your noise generator.. try another C828 or poke around that section. (if you have no spare 828 you can also try a 945P for a test)
I had something similar with one machine: clap was fine, snare was fine but the toms had not enough "room" and that was the hint.
just try it and let us know.

best,
Sub

Hey Sub,

Thanks for the reply, I got in touch you the customer service last night, and it seems as though you may be right - there is no noise at R335 (something they suggested I check). What did you mean by C828? Do you mean Q28? On my BOM I only have 2SC945s and 2SA733s...?

Thanks again.

I think that this is a reference to the transistor used in the noise section. It seems that to get the correct mv value of around 130 as per the build instructions for the noise section you may like to try buying a batch of 2SC828 transistors and trying out several until you get the correct value. You may wish to try a 2SC945 to get the right value if you have one spare while you wait for the 2SC828's to arrive.

what is the noise measurement

Swapping the 2SC828 for a 2SC945 seems to have done the trick! I will pop to the shop and get a couple of 828s tomorrow. It's wierd because I thought I had checked the noise part, but it seems I missed it. Thanks for the help everyone! I really appreciate it.

mymaracas wrote:Swapping the 2SC828 for a 2SC945 seems to have done the trick! I will pop to the shop and get a couple of 828s tomorrow. It's wierd because I thought I had checked the noise part, but it seems I missed it. Thanks for the help everyone! I really appreciate it.

good job!
maybe you have to trim the noise again with a new transistor. you can try to solder a little socket to the PCB.