Umble Circuit - Seems to have serious design flaws

[mojokorn]

.  Companies only had to pay if they wanted to use the name - essentially licensing the Brand of both Dolby and the technology.  I'd suggest ROG build a brand and do the same.

But that's EXACTLY what they do.

I'm not getting what you are complaining about.

On the ROG website, they ask people to report if someone is using one of their circuits, which is an indicator that they are enforcing the use of the circuit and not just their name.

Seems that a lot of post here totally get the fact that public domain is free to use without royalties or attribution, but a few are confused about this and have an affinity for the guys at ROG. 

Bottom line, I'm glad the conversation is taking place... even with the occasional dig and/or inside references to poke fun at me.

I'll have facts soon enough... in the form of Ids, Vgs, gain stages as well as LPF and HPF calculations.

[Hatredman]

On the ROG website, they ask people to report if someone is using one of their circuits, which is an indicator that they are enforcing the use of the circuit and not just their name.

Still, I did not read anywhere on their site they are charging people royalties.

[teemuk]

they HAVE i believe put in some hard work on the circuit stages they use regularly in their circuits.

Really? Copying a gain stage from tube amp, substituting the tube with J201, and replacing plate resistor with a 100K trimmer is "some hard work"...?


Did they ever even try to design a FET circuit that has consistent tone without hand picking/matching each FET ...or that would even work remotedly like the supposedly "equivalent" tube gain stage? e.g. Why "center bias" for FET drains (and resulting symmetric clipping characteristics) when most tube gain stages they try to mimic are deliberately NOT center biased, which results to distinctly asymmetric clipping characteristics...? Did they ever make any decent effort in simulating power amps stages of those classic amps? All little details making it evident that ROG put little or no effort in actually trying to emulate the amps. They just copied an existing tube amp circuit, substituted tube with J201, chose probably the most inconsistent biasing method for them and simply hoped for best.

[GibsonGM]

Why doesn't someone summarize this whole thing and send it off to ROG?  ASK them what they think is *the deal*?  *cough original poster *cough  stirring the pot *cough   

To ROG:  "Do you think you own the CIRCUIT as drawn, or only the drawings and names?"

"Are you claiming ownership of a tube circuit redesigned to use FETs?  At what point would you consider legal action should you see said circuit being reproduced under your name?  Or another name?  What would happen if I modify your design only slightly and then go commercial?"

"Do you hold any patents for the re-creation of tube circuits using solid-state devices?  If not, why do you suppose that you have any right to complain if someone lifts your design (NOT your artwork), IF you in fact WOULD complain?  Don't others already use JFETs as "tubes" and market 'old circuits' as something new, as well as offer them freely?  "

Names and drawings are already, by nature, copyrighted and not kosher to use without credit, as is commonly known.   DESIGNS must be patented, which means they must differ enough from what's already out there to pass muster.     A gain stage isn't going to do that, I don't think...nor would active filters using opamps, etc.


Until someone hears from ROG, this is really kinda behind-the-back stabbery, isn't it?  If this was about me, I'd probably take the sh(t off my site now and let the newbies learn from old books.   

Why is this only about ROG?  Curious about that - lotsa places do this, and we know sites that for sure do the same with ACTUAL tubes (A*8*....etc), using ACTUAL circuit derivatives...they just ask to be mentioned...

[garcho]

what's better, looking down on others, or others looking up to you? post your own superior circuits or STFU.

[Jay]

I think the sensible thing would have been to contact ROG, tell them what you're intending to do and checking they're ok with it.  Given that it sounds like you're just using similar means (cascaded gain stages/tweaked tone stack) to make a circuit that sounds more like a Dumble to you than theirs does I'm sure it wouldn't be an issue.

Signing up to a forum where ROG are major contributor and having a pop at their design and your perception of their practices has clearly not resulted in you getting the best of welcomes.

Technical knowledge is great - I've got 30+years as an EE, I'm allowed to put CEng after my name, which is all well and good but I've increasingly found that being able to interact and communicate effectively with people is far more valuable.  Start again with a PM to ROG.

[slacker]

Someone's probably already said this, I got bored half way through the thread. The CC license covers the copyrighted material on the ROG website nothing else, there's nothing in the license that stops you building the circuit and doing whatever the hell you want with it there's also nothing stopping you taking the circuit and redrawing it or modifying it and publishing your new circuit.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/legalcode

[mojokorn]

they HAVE i believe put in some hard work on the circuit stages they use regularly in their circuits.

Really? Copying a gain stage from tube amp, substituting the tube with J201, and replacing plate resistor with a 100K trimmer is "some hard work"...?


Did they ever even try to design a FET circuit that has consistent tone without hand picking/matching each FET ...or that would even work remotedly like the supposedly "equivalent" tube gain stage? e.g. Why "center bias" for FET drains (and resulting symmetric clipping characteristics) when most tube gain stages they try to mimic are deliberately NOT center biased, which results to distinctly asymmetric clipping characteristics...? Did they ever make any decent effort in simulating power amps stages of those classic amps? All little details making it evident that ROG put little or no effort in actually trying to emulate the amps. They just copied an existing tube amp circuit, substituted tube with J201, chose probably the most inconsistent biasing method for them and simply hoped for best.

Exactly!  It does seem that they just popped in a J201 in place of a 12AX7.  The biasing is all wrong, allowing only a 0.14 V input signal at the first stage before clipping occurs.  Typical guitar signal is between 1V and 2V.  And this is just one of many issues.

[mojokorn]

I think the sensible thing would have been to contact ROG, tell them what you're intending to do and checking they're ok with it.  Given that it sounds like you're just using similar means (cascaded gain stages/tweaked tone stack) to make a circuit that sounds more like a Dumble to you than theirs does I'm sure it wouldn't be an issue.

Signing up to a forum where ROG are major contributor and having a pop at their design and your perception of their practices has clearly not resulted in you getting the best of welcomes.

Technical knowledge is great - I've got 30+years as an EE, I'm allowed to put CEng after my name, which is all well and good but I've increasingly found that being able to interact and communicate effectively with people is far more valuable.  Start again with a PM to ROG.

Most forums are about wringing the truth out.  I have a hard time believing that ROG is immune to criticism for poor work and an unorthodox business model just because they are a major contributor.

[mojokorn]

what's better, looking down on others, or others looking up to you? post your own superior circuits or STFU.

As noted, I will post my version of a Dumble box, but good things take time.  Hang tight. 

PS.  I typically find "STFU" is used on forums when someone is out of constructive things to say.

[garcho]

It does seem that they just popped in a J201 in place of a 12AX7.

The biasing is all wrong...

...this is just one of many issues.

Then design, test, build and present to the forum a "great Dumble-esque" guitar effects pedal as the ultimate "gotchya" instead of starting a thread about non-existent intellectual property issues and straw-man-ing until it becomes "look how stupid this other guy is"

[garcho]

sorry to get combative, leaving this thread, cheers

[B Tremblay]

tl;dr version

1: Yes, Umble isn't very elegant or accurate. Some builders love it and that makes me happy.
2: Anyone can commercially use our work without permission to the extent that their conscience and the marketplace allows. We won't come after you.

----

Originality

Long-time members of the this community may remember the initial heyday of FET-based distortion circuits inspired by classic amps. At that time - nearly 12 years ago - runoffgroove.com released several of those circuits. They generally followed a FET-by-numbers approach that others have astutely summarized as plugging in a J201 and a 100k trim in place of a tube gain stage. There wasn't much refinement. The goal was for them to sound good to our ears and maybe have a passing resemblance to the amp that served as inspiration. They were "good enough" and fun. Other builders enjoyed them and some still do. That's why three of those first generation circuits are still included as projects on the site, even though I would be fine with mothballing them. Our recent work (Thunderbird, Britannia) is much more important to me and miles ahead of circuits like Umble or Thunderchief. Still, we wouldn't have made it to where we are without them.
We recognized that those early, crude circuits were not accurate to the target sound and that also, anyone could draw one in the same manner. If two "designers" chose the same classic amp as inspiration and used the same FET-by-numbers approach, the resulting circuits would be quite similar, if not identical. We found ourselves in a couple situations like that and chose to focus on other work. Yet, we were still intrigued by the idea of an amp-in-a-box and returned to that realm a few more times, applying new knowledge and skills that would hopefully get us closer to the goal.

Licensing

None of runoffgroove.com would exist without the DIY-fx community that freely exchanged schematics, ideas, tips, and tricks. People like Aron Nelson, RG Keen, Jack Orman, and JD Sleep shared information that I found invaluable and I hoped to emulate them by giving back to the community. That was the genesis of runoffgroove.com. At that time, I never thought that I'd someday be contributing anything more than a hamfisted sound clip and voltage readings of a vintage fuzz. But then the community led me to collaborating with Gary Burchett and later Sebastian Tepper. That team was able to truly contribute to the community with new, unique circuits that we shared freely. We didn't spell out any terms of use because we didn't see beyond the community to the coming bootweeker revolution.
The value of those circuits was backhandedly made apparent when they appeared in boutique pedals with no attribution to us and seemingly no regard for making money off our hard work. Some would want to interrupt me here to say that I was incredibly naive to think that builders wouldn't pass off our work as theirs and they would be right. Lessons are everywhere just waiting to be learned, I guess.
Other builders (the majority) found value in the circuits and wanted to license them for commercial use - even those clumsy ones that we'd moved away from! So we figured out some terms for that situation.
Ultimately, those licensing terms are based on the honor system. Some people have no ethical concerns about appropriating our work as theirs and setting out to make big, big money. We've never "gone after" anyone more than having civil email correspondence. The few arrangements we have made have seemed to be mutually beneficial, but it's certainly not our priority. That continues to be making stuff that we like and sharing it with friends.

[mojokorn]

Mr. Tremblay,

Thank you for responding.  I totally understand your predicament and am glad to offer ideas and solutions that make sense for you, the DIY community and potential commercial users...

There are two approaches to protecting works in technology.  A) Patent and B) Trade Secret.  Both depend on the work being novel enough to protect.  As you note, some of your work is novel and some is not - no judgement here on which is which.

I know patents are expensive and time consuming.  Furthermore, they are only as good as your ability to protect them.  Hence, for a niche market (like stompboxes) patenting may not make sense.  On the other hand Trade Secrets won't allow you to publicly post the schematics for the DIY community.  What's a guy to do?

The prevailing model in the software industry is to give it away as a loss-leader in order to establish yourself as domain expert and in turn marketing your design services.  I suspect this model would fit well for ROG.  I estimate that one or two consulting contracts would generate 100x-1000x the royalty revenues of a niche market - even if everyone paid. 

Actually this model has been around for a while... Craig Anderton is a living, breathing example.  His designs established him as a true expert and he's been able to make a good living consulting as well as mixing and mastering tracks.  Which eventually lead to his current VP position at Gibson.

The thing I took issue was is the underlying flavor of "we will find you" message on your site.  Even guys with patents don't publicly post that kind of messages.  Compounding the issue, was that the Umble ckt was not novel or your best work (by your admission as well). 

All food for thought. 

I am in the process of creating my own Dumble ckt and the DIY community and commercial users are free to use it in anyway that they want.  I just didn't want to feel that I might be hunted down for doing so.

No hard feelings, I hope.

[R.G.]

B. Tremblay has nothing to prove.

Mojokorn, on the other hand...

[mojokorn]

B. Tremblay has nothing to prove.

Mojokorn, on the other hand...

...to prove on this forum, I agree.

[stallik]

Unfortunately, given the way you've gone about it, should your work prove to be without peer, unique and without fault, easy to build and adjust, reliable as a stone and have the voice of an angel, it's still likely to be utterly condemned here.

[mojokorn]

Unfortunately, given the way you've gone about it, should your work prove to be without peer, unique and without fault, easy to build and adjust, reliable as a stone and have the voice of an angel, it's still likely to be utterly condemned here.

ROG posted what sounded like a threat on their site.  I was afraid to do any work on the project until I had confirmation that it was safe.

if you don't want to use, or proof-out, my circuits, then ok.  The interesting thing is that quite a few members submitted posts that backed-up my findings, both on the quality and the licensing front.

If this site is about protecting your own over finding truth and working towards excellence, that it shall be.

I've always done DIY because the store-bought stuff didn't offer what I wanted, or wasn't good enough.  Peeling back the layers of this thread and other threads you may not agree with, I hope that's why we are all here.

[mojokorn]

...to be without peer, unique and without fault, easy to build and adjust, reliable as a stone and have the voice of an angel...

Thank you for the check list of quality items. Being new here, I don't know the expectations of the audience.  I'll do my best not to disappoint.  If I do, then the community will either help me proof-out the circuit, or I'll take crickets as a sign that I should go quietly into the night. 

However, if the community (or a segment of the community) decides to help out, we will end up with a highly desired pedal

The really cool part is that this topic is interesting enough for members on both sides to chime in.

[deadastronaut]

you dont have to please the audience...just yourself. if others like or dislike, thats fine..

'the sound' is very subjective...


btw you could have breadboarded and tweaked the umble by now...

get on with it..