Jordan - Vico Vibe Tremolo

The Jordan (Yes, they're the same people who made the Boss Tone) Vico Vibe was an odd effect, built as a sort of plugin for your guitar. It was a great sounding tremolo unit though and has baffled quite a few guitarists over the years as to why it isn't more sought after.

Original Jordan Vico Vibe Guts

Mahoney now make a replica unit;

With a nice description of the history of the Vico Vibe;

"In the late 60's, Jordan offered an incredible sounding tremolo unit that was housed in the plug-in style box like the Bosstone. There were less than 100 of these rare units ever produced. We were lucky enough to obtain one of these original units and have successfully cloned it.

We have added a transparent boost that allows the pedal to be fully adjustable. One drawback of the original Vico Vibe was the volume drop that occurred when the pedal was engaged. We have addressed this problem and the boost is very warm and lush sounding.

The Vico Vibe is not a "Vibe" like the name suggests, it is a very warm sounding Tremolo. The sound is truly out of this world - and creates a very Buttery effect. Imagine the Tremolo used on the song Crimson and Clover and you will get an idea of the sound.

In testing of this unit, we have compared it to other Vintage amp tremolo units and our version exceeds all of our expectations.

If you're looking for a no-frills Fender style vintage tremolo unit, look no further than the Vico Vibe."

Check out this demo video to get an idea of how this unit sounds;

A nice Sine-wavey tremolo warble. 

Lets have a look at the layout and schematic;

And here's a cool paint sketched schematic;

Note - the transistors are 2N5088 and both pots are 100kA. The 1M trim provides gain bias for the first transistor. The second transistor is part of the oscillator network. As you can see it works by pushing signal to ground via the first transistor which operates as a variable resistor - here's where the volume drop comes from.

Here's a vero layout from Renegadarian;

For more info check out the freestompboxes.org forum topic here; http://freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1019