Craig Anderton’s Electronic Projects for Musicians 1980- (Phase Shifter)

[axeman010]

Hi Guys

I have just dug out of a draw a copy of Craig Anderton's Electronic Projects for Musicians. I remember many, many years ago when I got this book that some of the more interesting projects had hard to source bits and therefore I did not manage to build them.

Now with even old parts being readily available over the Net I am thinking that I might re-visit some of these projects. The one that takes my fancy is the Phase Shifter, as it looks very versatile and includes a vibe option.

I have looked through the forum and cant find a great deal on these projects and I am assuming that this is 'cos the book (or at least the version I have) is 27 years old !

So now the questions :

Anybody out there recommend any killer projects from this book ?

Is the phase shifter as good as it looks ? ( I have an old 1980's Boss PH1-R and I have built an EZ Vibe which sound great – so do I need it ?)

Any feedback / advice much appreciate.

Kind regards

Axeman.

[MartyMart]

Yes, the Compressor is superb, as is the variable Eq but I didn't like the "Fuzz" stuff much
and never got the "Tube sound fuzz" to work properly, but that's my general experience of cmos
stuff, others have had no problems !

MM

[kvb]

Paia.com has kits for the phase shifter. They are out of stock. Says wait six weeks.  I wonder how long it's been since they put that up?

[Meanderthal]

Here- from GGG.


http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/diagrams/epfm21.gif

[Meanderthal]

 Oh, and I do remember the old cereal box style record had some amazing sounds in it, including the phaser!

[jrc4558]

Oh, and I do remember the old cereal box style record had some amazing sounds in it, including the phaser!

Not surprisingly, the new one comes with a CD!:)

[Mark Hammer]

There is nothing particularly stellar about the EPFM phaser, except to say that it has ALL the controls a proper phase-shifter should have, and that it uses optoisolators as control elements.  The use of optoisolators (CLM6000) has a few implications.  First off, LDRs are not subject to level-related distortion, which means that one can feed the unit fairly hot signals, which in turn means that a reasonably good S/N ratio can be obtained, which also means that experiments with super-hot regeneration can be attempted without introducing awful noise.  The other implication of using LDRs is that no matching is required.

Unfortunately, the third implication of using 4 optoisolators is that the unit needs a fair amount of current, such that a more substantial bipolar supply is recommended/required.  This project is NOT likely to work off a single 9v battery an a 7660 voltage multiplier, the way a Mutron will...for a little while.  On the other hand, if your leanings are towards a 9v wallwart and a synthesized bipolar supply using a 7660, that could work.

Note that there is NOTHING magical about the 4739 dual op-amps used in the original.  The layouts over at GGG substitute a modern 8-pin dual-op-amp in the layout, and is the preferred version at this point.  As much of a service as that is (and it IS), JD has not done a whole lot more than adapt the existing layout to a different op-amp.  The original layout is pretty dang big for what it contains, and the footprint of the board could very likely be reduced by 1/3 with a little bit of thought and incorporation of modern smaller-sized components as well as things like vertical mounting of resistors, and use of some strategic jumpers to move pads for individual pots and switches a bit closer together.  Personally, I worship at the "altar of Anderton"...just not when it comes to board layout.

[Meanderthal]

 Before I bought that book(around '82) I wasn't even aware that ordinary human beings even could DIY a stompbox! I had thought of electronics as something way out of reach unless you had a lifetime of education/experience(like my grandfather) and incredible math skills... but when I saw the book on the sheet music shelf at Mike's music and picked it up and flipped through it it suddenly dawned on me that this is all really not THAT complicated. Of course I immediately bought the book! I could go on, but here's my point-

As far as I know, Craig Anderton was the first guy to bring DIY effects to the masses, and for these reasons I too worship Lord Craig!

[moosapotamus]

I did the tube sound fuzz and the ring modulator. Both pretty cool sounding, IMO.
http://moosapotamus.net/THINGS/ca-tsf.htm
http://moosapotamus.net/THINGS/ca-ringmod.htm

~ Charlie

[Isg1315122]

A little off topic but in this book he refers to using shielded wire from say J1 to pad A. If j1 is the input Jack what exactly is pad a? Isn't the Jack what you would wire too? This one thing is hanging me up on doing some of these projects.

[Isg1315122]

A little off topic but in this book he refers to using shielded wire from say J1 to pad A. If j1 is the input Jack what exactly is pad a? Isn't the Jack what you would wire too? This one thing is hanging me up on doing some of these projects.

LMAO after some thought I'm thinking it's referring to the circuit board and the pad is the connection point on the board.