WHat is a Tube Saturator anyway?

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Adky

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 14, 2004
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175
Location
Hong Kong
I am thinking about building some kind of line level preamp buffer to add some tone or color to audio tracks that are too sharp and or thin , and I got one of those Behringer MAGICIAN dig out , and I dont see anything worth useing it , it sound rather too Low fi or too Cracking ... might rather build something that actually works , anybody got any idea about How or what a TUBE Saturator should be?
Thanks in advance!
 
Saturation is a characteristic of tape that IMO has become the latest "magic button" solution of the DAW world's clarity. Without a tape machine, anything you build will just be an approximation of that, and arguments abound whether or not it sounds "right".

Too thin? Run it through a Neve preamp clone or similar. Something "big"

Too harsh? Experiment with filter curves that tone this down without taking the body away. Almost every eq spectrum I have ever seen out of an analog box has started rolling off at 10k-12k or so.

Too Lo-fi? Re-record. I dunno what other peoples definition of lofi is anyway. I think of bitcrushing & LPF'ing when I hear that word, and this is a very specific effect to be sure.

You don't need saturation. It's just a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow anyway. Build yourself a couple transformer based compressors and preamps, and start routing your ITB sounds out through them and re-record them. Selectively, of course. Many sounds benefit from the clarity and focus of a digital environment. You'll get the character/color you are looking for this way.
If not, go another step and build the sumthing box.
 
I am actually thinking about building a BOX with a Variable BIAS so that I can alterate the tube operating point to get a different feeling or have different voltage selector or even put in couple different input transformer for some iron tone that I can select with ....
Planing to use a 12AX7 or 5670 or 5814 or 6DJ8 to do the gain stage ...
anyone have anymore idea?
Is more like a TONE box that I am building in mind ...
thanks again
 
another course of action might be to make a NYD one-bottle with switchable feedback and non-feedback gain staging. I've been looking into doing this as the next project of mine. non-feedback version would provide the tubey sound (with lots of dirty gain), and feedback loop the clean version.

I didn't check on the feasibility of making the actual switch yet, and just how possible it even is.
 
[quote author="Kingston"]another course of action might be to make a NYD one-bottle with switchable feedback and non-feedback gain staging. I've been looking into doing this as the next project of mine. non-feedback version would provide the tubey sound (with lots of dirty gain), and feedback loop the clean version.

I didn't check on the feasibility of making the actual switch yet, and just how possible it even is.[/quote]
I have been thinking of the same thing, but my first impression was that it would need a lot of switching. Have you come up with a solution?

cheers,
hejsan
 
well...I am thinking about making it like a Line Amp stage thing... with variable Bias and saturations point...I dont know yet...and then will add in the ability to have it overload and filament votage switching , also will try to have overdrive capability and then I will add a DRY and WET balance point to have it dial in..... maybe I will put it on paper to see will that work or not .... still doing a lot of research so far...or might be just totally useless after all ... :cool:
 
Hi,
to get tube saturation or colour a kind of tube summing box would be a nice solution. Have a look at this one:

http://www.tegeler-audio-manufaktur.com/tube_summing_mixer

regards
Bernd
 
[quote author="bernbrue"]Hi,
to get tube saturation or colour a kind of tube summing box would be a nice solution. Have a look at this one:

http://www.tegeler-audio-manufaktur.com/tube_summing_mixer

regards
Bernd[/quote]

I don't think I'd want much distortion in my summing network of all places.
Not that it's given that a tube summer has any distortion..
 
by what means , I will just need to build a TUBE mix buss gain stage with Transformer output and input , and a BUNCH of 10K resistor to do the individule input ...
or I can have indiv input gain stage and then add in the final mix buzz
if then I will have a single 6J1P at the channel input and then maybe a 12AU7 or even a 6SN7 or 5670 at the mix buss output , and I can even make it unbalance too or have the SSM balance chips to do the balance work instead of big hugh iron... hope this will fit into a 4U box ...maybe add a electronic input relay switching at the master output ... or 1 12AX7 to do 2 input channel and then finally go to 6SN7 master gain block...that way I can use less tube in it....when I got some time next week I will draw something up...anybody got some good idea? anything will help or am I just over thinking, and should drop the project instead....hope it dont blow up ...haha
 
[quote author="hejsan"][quote author="Kingston"]another course of action might be to make a NYD one-bottle with switchable feedback and non-feedback gain staging. I've been looking into doing this as the next project of mine. non-feedback version would provide the tubey sound (with lots of dirty gain), and feedback loop the clean version.

I didn't check on the feasibility of making the actual switch yet, and just how possible it even is.[/quote]
I have been thinking of the same thing, but my first impression was that it would need a lot of switching. Have you come up with a solution?

cheers,
hejsan[/quote]

I just had another look at it and I think I came up with an interesting solution, which must look like a nasty hack to the old timers here. Instead of doing a switch, one could simply wire the feedback and non-feedback parts of the circuit at the same time, effectively creating a sort of a mixer for the two types of gain. You'd have two gain knobs (one linear for the feedback, log for the non-feedback).

I'm looking at the schematics and thinking, why not? It's even cheaper than a switch, and even more flexible. If anything, it should be an interesting practical test and I have a feeling it would result in a very flexible preamp.
 
[quote author="hejsan"]Do you mean having to gain stages who's output you mix?[/quote]

no. using the exact same one gain stage, but wired as feedback and non-feedback at the same time.

have a look at the schematics and you'll see it requires two different gain potentiometers (log and linear) and their corresponding wiring set up parts. Besides that it's still just a single one-bottle preamp channel.
 
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