Has anyone built a "Tape Saturation" circuit?

[Plectrum]

I wondered, has anyone built the "tapesat":

http://home3.netcarrier.com/~lxh2/tapesat.html

Or an equivalent circuit?

What were your findings?

Many thanks,
Grant.

[finkfloyd]

Hi,

Yeah ive built a similar circuit after a condor cabsim, so have many others too, called a speaker saturation simulator, schematics are very similar ( http://aronnelson.com/gallery/STMs-Circuit-Ideas/Speaker_Saturation_Simulator )

Gives a very nice soft, warm sound I thought.


More can be found on this thread.
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=44902.0

[Rodgre]

I built the Tape Sat circuit you linked to many years ago. I forget what it sounded like, other than it didn't sound like tape to me.


Roger

[finkfloyd]

Hi there matey

These tunes sound great i think, and show the softness of the  "speaker saturation simulator", but this sound would also sound great i reckon after the p-80 delay etc...

heres a quick example, using a fuzzface,condor cabsim and "SSS"

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=47FBC374149E0B4E

Im too drunk, but i think it explains it,.

[rockgardenlove]

^Sweet clips!

Doesn't sound much like tape though.

[SeanCostello]

Anyone know of any good analyses of tape saturation? Does it have hysteresis? Is it a memoryless nonlinearity, or does it have memory (i.e. a Tube Screamer is essentially a memoryless nonlinearity, while a limiter has memory)? How much of the sound considered "tape distortion" is from the tape, versus artifacts of the noise reduction process, or of the preamp used?

Bring on the math! (which I will probably not get, but if I think about it for a few years, it might sink through...)

Sean Costello

[Noplasticrobots]

What would the effect be if you were to use only 4 Ge diodes (not enough on hand...) in the schematic posted by STM?

http://aronnelson.com/gallery/STMs-Circuit-Ideas/Speaker_Saturation_Simulator