Analog Obsession will come back!

Hi,

For now i'm not working on any project cause Paypal not working in Turkey anymore.But Paypal will come back.And then i will start to build new projects.I can't buy or sell anything without Paypal.So now i'm only thinking about new project.Even i can't buy any component to build new gear for myself...

I will come back with new 1176,Pultec gain stage,API 550B and more...

Please wait for to buy some PCBs and gears.

Thanks.

Use the time for drawing PCBs... time without components makes better PCB designs!

JS

Maybe a Pye compressor PCB? Just a thought 

Yes,working on only design is better.

I have some unique ideas for my own company.I will sell welknown gear's PCB but as a gear i will build some special and unique stuffs.

I have 1176 style drive.Working great!I will improve it and make solid state culture vulture style distortion unit.

Actually PYE compressor is too complex for me.I know where i must stop

Of course new free designs on the way,too.

Just waiting for Paypal.For now drawing circuit,spicing and drawing PCB...

Here is something no one I know of is working on. 600 ohm I/O sucks, IMHO. It's difficult for many output stages to drive and you lose 6dB compared to bridging. We live in a bridging world now. But so much vintage gear has 600 ohm I/O. An 1176 with 10K ohms in /50 ohms out would be awesome. Same for LA-2A and Pultec style EQ's.

Use the time to create something original if you can!

analag said:

Use the time to create something original if you can!

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Absolutely i have some unique ideas!

Unique, really? Do you wind transformers?

Who wants modern analog design...NOBODY. Who wants old circuits and clones...EVERYBODY.  I don't even show them what I do anymore.  I was the one who coined the term "Poorman" I should have copyrighted it. Seems  poorman idea of analog goes a long way.
For those who remember me, this is my yearly rant.

analag said:

Unique, really? Do you wind transformers?

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Actually i do but it was past time.When i was student...

Who wants modern analog design...NOBODY. Who wants old circuits and clones...EVERYBODY.  I don't even show them what I do anymore.  I was the one who coined the term "Poorman" I should have copyrighted it. Seems  poorman idea of analog goes a long way.
For those who remember me, this is my yearly rant.

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Maybe not unique but i'm trying to improve some topologies.I'm not master but trying make some good things.Actually topologies are same in my designs.I'm working on active Pultec right now.Small and easy to build eq with Pultec curves.And second idea is inductorless Neve 1073.Yes it's funny!But everyone wants Neve 1073 curves,i guess.Trafo in&out but gyrator based Neve 1073.It's cheaper and smaller.It's not big deal.

analag said:

Who wants modern analog design...NOBODY. Who wants old circuits and clones...EVERYBODY.

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I beg to differ. Most analog devices are a botteneck compared to what digital could offer. Some time ago, I had an argument with Terry Manning, where he claimed (rightly) that the full potential of digital could not be realized because the analog orifices were not designed to operate with the dynamic range of digital. Most of the reverred vintage gear was designed to give adequate performance at +4dBu, and marginal at +20. And today many products are still designed that way.
The whole vintage craze is based on emulating the sounds that have modelled our musical tastes, but no "old" circuit can replace the voice of Elvis, Frank or Ella.

I have lots of your old PCBs Any way to get you old docs ?

analag said:

Who wants modern analog design...NOBODY. Who wants old circuits and clones...EVERYBODY.  I don't even show them what I do anymore.  I was the one who coined the term "Poorman" I should have copyrighted it. Seems  poorman idea of analog goes a long way.
For those who remember me, this is my yearly rant.

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One of the things I am surprised by is this phenomenon. So lots of people are building clones of classic gear, and rightly so, that stuff works and sounds great. But I for one am interested in modern analog design, and was a bit shocked when I didn't see as much of it here as I thought I would.

But I'm not sure I get the point of your post. We you trying to discourage or ENcourage the OP?

Don't feed the troll..

/Jakob E.

abbey road d enfer said:

I beg to differ. Most analog devices are a botteneck compared to what digital could offer. Some time ago, I had an argument with Terry Manning, where he claimed (rightly) that the full potential of digital could not be realized because the analog orifices were not designed to operate with the dynamic range of digital. Most of the reverred vintage gear was designed to give adequate performance at +4dBu, and marginal at +20. And today many products are still designed that way.
The whole vintage craze is based on emulating the sounds that have modelled our musical tastes, but no "old" circuit can replace the voice of Elvis, Frank or Ella.

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But isn't it the marginal performance at +20 what people are interested in? If you listen to recordings of Ella or just about anything else from the 50's and 60's it's got an edge to it. Something like The Animals or The Zombies like "Little Girl" sounds like a low-fi speaker in a tunnel. Lot's a Beatles with low/hi cut and distortion. Bo Diddley is almost always horribly distorted.

IMO there should be an analog chain that makes "the sound" and then everything goes into converters at the same time at which point everything becomes pristine and perfect. Once it goes digital you have perfect mixing, no distortion and complete automation. Maybe reverb is done digitally just as a practical matter.

squarewave said:

But isn't it the marginal performance at +20 what people are interested in? If you listen to recordings of Ella or just about anything else from the 50's and 60's it's got an edge to it. Something like The Animals or The Zombies like "Little Girl" sounds like a low-fi speaker in a tunnel. Lot's a Beatles with low/hi cut and distortion. Bo Diddley is almost always horribly distorted.

IMO there should be an analog chain that makes "the sound" and then everything goes into converters at the same time at which point everything becomes pristine and perfect. Once it goes digital you have perfect mixing, no distortion and complete automation. Maybe reverb is done digitally just as a practical matter.

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Old analog gear was not designed to add euphonious distortion on purpose, in my estimation the engineers made it as linear and wide band as possible (I know I did), or they thought they needed. 20-20kHz was a later evolution, the original RIAA and tape EQ was more like 30Hz to 15kHz. .

I won't argue subjective preferences, and I haven't designed an intentional effect since the 80s (Loft delay line/flanger). That was not supposed to be linear.

I haven't said this lately but I prefer to begin cooking a meal with clean pots and pans. Then I add spices to taste.

JR 

JohnRoberts said:

Old analog gear was not designed to add euphonious distortion on purpose, in my estimation the engineers made it as linear and wide band as possible (I know I did), or they thought they needed.

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I guess it depends on the music. My examples are probably "loudness war" type content where they clearly where deliberately tying to create a loud recording with recording and playback devices that had limited noise performance.

squarewave said:

I guess it depends on the music. My examples are probably "loudness war" type content where they clearly where deliberately tying to create a loud recording with recording and playback devices that had limited noise performance.

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In the old days, tracking hot in the recording studio was to enjoy some modicum of S/N by keeping above the less than pristine noise floors. Even professional mastering tape recorders suffered a trade off between hot and clean.

Relative playback level was more in the purview of disc mastering, and broadcast engineering playback engineers. BUT radio stations had issues with over-modulating RF transmitters so could not just crank up the level. They had to find ways to make similar peak level tracks "sound " louder.

Broadcast engineers worked to be the loudest sounding station on the dial to win listeners (all else equal louder generally sounds better). Early broadcast tricks involved crude multi-band compression using loudspeaker crossovers and separate compressors per passband..... The results were louder sounding but far from good sound quality (hard to put humpty back together again after all that slicing and dicing). I recall several times noticing how dramatically different (better) albums sounded compared to the same tracks listened to through the FM broadcast chain. 

JR

PS: Loudness wars in the context of direct to digital releases is a different subject, mostly about tolerating clipping.

JohnRoberts said:

.... BUT radio stations had issues with over-modulating RF transmitters ...

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Modern transmitters are quite linear and wide-band, the main problem is the widening a channel into adjacent maybe occupied channels.

Broadcast engineers worked to be the loudest sounding station on the dial to win listeners (all else equal louder generally sounds better). ....... I recall several times noticing how dramatically different (better) albums sounded compared to the same tracks listened to through the FM broadcast chain.... 

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Nothing changes 'till today. Except you can change for example a working preset on multiband processor from "hot hot urban" to  "smooth jazz" automatically when/if you are playing jazz. There are some other good features too.

JohnRoberts said:

Early broadcast tricks involved crude multi-band compression using loudspeaker crossovers and separate compressors per passband.....

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I've been obsessed with the Aphex Dominator II lately. I bought a whole bunch of them just to play around with the circuit. Its really an amazing circuit. It compares the sidechain signal from all three bands to a reference level, and creates a PWM signal that gets mixed with each individual bands AC signal which is phase flipped according to whichever peak is loudest. Then fed to the VCA's. WHICH are amazing VCA's. The distortion is around .003% at +18dbu through the whole band with no gain reduction.  Thats going through 3 VCA's and a band splitter! Oh and they use a regular CD4016B to change the gain through the system. and still that low of distortion! And talk about a great balancing stage on the output. Acts just like a THAT1646 balanced line driver made with 4 op amps. The manual is online and worth reading just to be amazed at all the cool tricks they used.
Some gear mod hack on gearslutz said "Oh those things suck they have 6 VCA's in the signal path".   

Good... just means more Cheap Dominator II's for me!

They must have put so much work into designing that thing. So many smart design tricks. I just think the controls were dumbed down too much. If they were a little more flexible more recording people would have picked it up. But that wasn't they're target customer base anyhow. (broadcast)