early discrete circuit effects

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

I wonder what an all germanium flanger sounds like?    Don't forget the carbon comp resistors and use nothing but sprague and mallory caps.

imagine a germanium + carbon comp compander.  it's there to keep the noise floor down.

if you want to consider the effects of that era, you're probably looking at various fuzzboxes, wahs, the univibe, and tape delays. that's about all of the pedals i can think of for the 60's... not a very wide selection.

please, PLEASE consider ICs. you can have so much more fun when you work with them. if you have some notion that discrete transistors sound "warmer" and that ICs sound "lifeless" then you seriously need to do some A/B testing. see if you're hearing it, or you're hearing an advertisement.

just some thoughts

[Fp-www.Tonepad.com]

Do you have any idea when you'd be starting/finishing this project?

I can't wait to see your results.

GO FOR IT!

Fp

[A.S.P.]

rch427`s idea is absolutely cool,
and in a pure DIY spirit!

[rch427]

>>"I wonder what an all germanium flanger sounds like?"<<   

I get it; I get it.  There are some effects that are difficult to make with discrete circuits.  That's why I'm asking for info here.  I'm *not* asking for people to tell me what I *should want*.

>>"Don't forget the carbon comp resistors and use nothing but sprague and mallory caps."<<

I'll use carbon comps where they'll make a difference (in circuits where noise isn't an issue); otherwise, metal film.  And if I can justify Sprague and Mallory caps for a specific project, I'll be happy to use 'em.  Yes, I know you were being facetious.

[rch427]

look at the second "project forum" - the discrete opamp replacer.  That should make lotsa stuff (orange squeezer) slightly more possible...

Thanks!  What's such a big deal about using 3 transistors, a diode, a cap and 6 resistors instead of an op-amp?  Making that would take very little time, and only cost a few bucks.  And to all the nay-sayers: note where the author of that post wrote "It (the discrete circuit) overloads more gracefully than IC opamps"?  I'm not the only one who prefers the sound of discrete circuits.  It looks like quite a few folks in that thread agree.

[rch427]

Thanks!  Looks like I'll want to get both of them.

Does such a book exist?   

*****************Yes, http://www.smallbearelec.com/Search.bok?category=Books+And+Publications

[JimRayden]

I gotta agree with my Tone God re: cost. I'd put at least a $50 per hour value on my time, assembly, debugging, painting etc sure start to add up then.

I've heard it too many times before and I think it's just plain silly. If I'm willing to take time to learn building stompboxes and designing them, why the heck should I count pennies on how much I build. I'm into DIY from my free time, so this time can't be evaluated as money. It can be evaluated as enjoyment.

I am very much like you, rch427. I hate anything digital between me and the guitar speaker. Op-amps are OK as long as they're out of my visual range. They just look so dang digital. Tubes are the best because you can actually "see" it working, all the innards and stuff, plus, it sounds sweet. Actually I dislike all the modern appliances and gadgets too, it all gets so tiny. Is it normal to mount the lifeworks of 30 bands in one TINY USB mp3-player? No. But I DO use the internet and a mobile phone because otherwise I'd be cut off from the rest of the world. And that's bad. Oh you'll HAVE to see my favourite film "Office Space", there's a scene where they beat up a copying machine on a meadow. Ahh I feel warm inside every time I watch that.
Sorry, getting a "little" offtopic here. Needed a vent anyway...

I wonder what an all germanium flanger sounds like?    Don't forget the carbon comp resistors and use nothing but sprague and mallory caps.

That's just plain mean. You can have fun on this forum but not on your own forummates.

----------
Jimbo

[JimRayden]

Not to mention aggravation and frustration, which can drain you even after you stop working on the project.  With something as big as what you're proposing you can count on A LOT of time on debugging and general existential angst as you start to rethink whether it might have been better just to work overtime and buy the damn things instead.

I think you should think about a new hobby if building pedals make you feel like that.

Well yes, I agree, sometimes it is frustrating to find out that you just had the IC in backwards after 3 hours of debugging, but it's not a thing to make a generalisation out of.

-------------
Jimbo

[marc]

interesting thread. i'm curious to see where this project would go. i think i understand the rationale behind it. i'm guessing that part of the enjoyment of these effects will be knowing that they were hand made using components (for the most part) identical to the effects used in the era of the artists you mentioned. i think there might be a misundestanding here that your displeasure of ic's (digital or not) is equivalent to the "mojo" atribute often associated with boutique pedal hucksters. if i wanted to put together a replica of the kittyhawk because i wanted to tap into the experience of flying in that machine, i would not use aluminum or nylon. same thing, no?

[petemoore]

  Here's a suggestion to 'compromise' your discrete 'particularity'...
  No IC"s *in signal path'...
  using a chip to drive an LED or other non signal path components opens up compressor, Vibe, and certainly others, if you hide the chip and can't actually 'hear' the 'chippiness' of it, maybe you can easily overlook that it's not an IC in your sound.
  There are nice chips though, and they certainly 'open doors' that you indicated you want opened...
 

[Steben]

rch427,

I am not going to praise IC's. Why? Simply because you don't want to. There are a lot of deviating longings and beggings going around. that's what makes a DIY community I guess?
I do have sympathy for your project. I just want to exchange my thoughts.

Maybe I didn't make it clear but, since I'm most interested in the *sound* produced in the mid-to-late '60s, I won't care as much about something not being possible to make, if it wasn't even being used back then.

Thanks!  What's such a big deal about using 3 transistors, a diode, a cap and 6 resistors instead of an op-amp?  Making that would take very little time, and only cost a few bucks.  And to all the nay-sayers: note where the author of that post wrote "It (the discrete circuit) overloads more gracefully than IC opamps"?

First this is a circuit designed a half a year ago... not 60ties. They would never have thought about making this then.
Secondly it's all modern solid state silicon trannies...
Thirdly, It won't work in all circuits, mostly in distortion devices. And they are the simplest of things.

The Germanium love is widely spread, but only when speaking of simple non-linear circuits, where it's character can triumph. Silicon was allready wide-spread in the sixties/seventies you know. Most discrete non-distortion wonders have silicon (univibe,compressors). A lot of devices used silicon amplification (transistor) along with germanium diodes (clipping, radio recieving).

As long as you accept the limitations and inconsistencies, it's OK. But you will not be able to make delay, flangers and chorusses. Vibrato and Phasers on the other hand shouldn't be a problem, ranging from the Univibe to newly discrete designed perhaps?
Compressors are also very easy without IC's. Actually all the "doable" stuff relies on LED's or bulbs, FET's or LDR's, whether its phaser or compression.
"Real" delay, resulting in reverb, chorus and flanger is impossible without thousands of parts as allready said. Even if you have time, you simply won't get it in the box.

[PenPen]

As long as you accept the limitations and inconsistencies, it's OK. But you will not be able to make delay, flangers and chorusses. Vibrato and Phasers on the other hand shouldn't be a problem, ranging from the Univibe to newly discrete designed perhaps?
Compressors are also very easy without IC's. Actually all the "doable" stuff relies on LED's or bulbs, FET's or LDR's, whether its phaser or compression.
"Real" delay, resulting in reverb, chorus and flanger is impossible without thousands of parts as allready said. Even if you have time, you simply won't get it in the box.

First, he isn't putting these into a box. He said in one of the first posts he was going to put them into some kind of rack/table/all-in-one enclosure. Doesn't matter how big it is (and replacing chips with discrete is going to require some space).

I'm a bit disappointed. I'm a newb here, but the forum is usually a very friendly place. This guy is trying to do something different, and honestly, if he wants to spend the time to make an all discrete flanger/chorus, etc, then good for him. One thing I've often wondered about, after seeing the datasheets for some of these chips, is how cool it would be to manually making the equiv with cheap discretes. I actually had it on my list of future 'screw around' projects to try reproducing some chips with discretes just for the hell of it.

I'm a computer geek first, and as such, I read about all kinds of wacko projects, like the guy who built a replica of the Altair computer for fun, or the guys who shoehorn Linux onto every possible computing device (game consoles, PDAs, etc), or the nutjobs working on building their own BIOS. I remember one project where some guys were building their own graphics card chip. By all accounts, yes it is 'stupid' because they could just go get a real computer to work with for far less time and effort, instead of spending all of the time doing that, but maybe thats the fun of doing it, no reason other than 'because I can'?

Personally, if he manages to build some of these out of discrete's, I'd love to hear the results, and see the techniques used. I say go for it, and please let us hear/see the results!

[Steben]

Well, ok then. I said I had sympathy. It is going to be hard that's all, unless you stick to some limitations.
But WE cannot help him wiht that since we haven't got experience in rebuilding chips. If you want to rebuild delay chips, you should contact the manufacturers.

[PenPen]

Well, ok then. I said I had sympathy. It is going to be hard that's all, unless you stick to some limitations.
But WE cannot help him wiht that since we haven't got experience in rebuilding chips. If you want to rebuild delay chips, you should contact the manufacturers.

I guess I should apologize, I wasn't aiming at you. The first 'paragraph' was responding to what you said, but after that was a general statement. Don't want to seem like I was being a jerk and picking on you specifically.

[trjones1]

I think you should think about a new hobby if building pedals make you feel like that.

Well yes, I agree, sometimes it is frustrating to find out that you just had the IC in backwards after 3 hours of debugging, but it's not a thing to make a generalisation out of.

-------------
Jimbo

No, not every road to happiness is pure bliss at every point along the way.  In my admittedly limited experience I've had plenty of moments, and days, and weeks, of frustration, that doesn't mean in the end I'm not happy when I finally get it working.

[Joe Kramer]

How 'bout everyone stop trying to sell me on chips, OK?  I think I made it clear that I don't want to use them.  I'm well aware that any new Japanese car can blow the doors off my '63 Dart GT, and any new Japanese scooter can beat my '65 Ducati.  Any new, Korean-made guitar is probably a "better" guitar than my 40-year-old Masonite Danelectros.  Any new high-end computer synth is "better" than any old Moog that has to be retuned every time you go to use it.  So what?  Not everything about vehicles or traveling or guitars or synths or anything else has to be reduced to cold facts about convenience or performance.  I want it old-fashioned, and I'm happy with that situation.  I can't get something exactly like what I asked for without resorting to using chips?  I can live without it.

Oh--and I actually *like* doing small electronic projects (or 15 of 'em in a row), so I'm not interested in factoring in the time I'll spend doing it.  It's a hobby, not a job that I expect $50 an hour from!  As for my patience--I think I mentioned that I just recapped an entire flippin' combo organ.  If I can desolder 292 caps and replace them, as well as doing countless other repairs on that one project--I think I'm up to this new project, thanks.

Hey RCH427,

I have to throw my hat into the ring with you here--you're man after my own heart.  It's good to hear a kindred voice like yours.  I've emphasized on this forum a number of times that DIY should be about following your own vision and your own ears, and the technicalities and academics should be there only to serve those.  Unfortunately when you stand up and speak outside peoples' comfort zones, they can be a little hostile.  I never intend hostility, but often a contrary viewpoint is taken as such.  I say follow your sense of truth and beauty, and trust your ears.  They won't let you down.

BTW, I avoid op amps whenever I can.  And when I can't, I go for oldies like 741 and 1458, which sound fairly musical for guitar, but have a bad rap around here.

BTW II, it's possible to have an all-discreet signal path for things like echo/chorus/flanger, though the delayed signal would have to pass through BBD chips.  However, you'd be on your own to design/kludge those yourself.  It would also be possible to make a phase-shifter with little more than three transistors and four transformers. . . .

BTW III, how does that combo organ sound now?

Joe

[PenPen]

rch427,

One thing I'd like to add, if you want to replicate an effect that has opamps in them, you could always grab the datasheet for the opamp, there is usually a schematic for the amp in the datasheet. I'm looking at the schem for an LM318 opamp, looks like there are ~40 transistors and a plethora of caps and resistors that make those up. Looks like a major pain to make, but possible, if you want to put that much effort into it. I'm fairly sure most other chip datasheets have the same thing.

[tiges_ tendres]

Electronics is like buying a puppy.

You think at first it fills that cute little gap in your life, but you'l need a bed, blankets, collar, leash, carry case thing.  And once you've cleaned your 100th pee stain of the carpet, the dog starts to lose its appeal.  This is where you either call the pound, drive to another town and let the dog out of the car, or you make a commitment for the rest of the dogs life!

I thought at first it would be cheaper to buy my own, but it's just not as fun.  And sure, one purchase begats another.  At first I just needed and iron, then I needed a drill, now I need a dremel, I dont think the endless purchases is going to stop.  So I am making a commitment to effect pedals!

I promise I will not drive to another town and dump the contents of my tool box at the back of K-mart!

I applaud what you are doing and I want to see progress reports for every step of the way.

Viva committment!

[Fp-www.Tonepad.com]

Nicely put.

Making all those effects will be a lifetime commitment. 

Fp

[TELEFUNKON]

totally with rch... here:
the topic doesn`t read: "EASY...", but rather: "EARLY..."