DIY Signal Saturator....

[riggler]

I am curious in this too! Especially to hear what "tasteful" amounts of distortion sounds like, might actually sound "sweet", not crunchy, eh?

 

[Ianbryn11]

I am curious in this too! Especially to hear what "tasteful" amounts of distortion sounds like, might actually sound "sweet", not crunchy, eh?

might be nice to have an option for "tasteful" or "trashy".... best of both worlds....

 

[Kingston]

Hard to tell, but with the right impedance and ratio transformer you even would not need a buffer.

of course. I meant I/O as in interfacing the thing with the outside world.

Actually this would make a decent output tweak for a tube project. Most tube preamps have a cap coupled transformer output, things are nice and DC-free right before the transformer. Unless we interfere!

Carefully select a bleeding range from, say B+, or 12V utility lines, whatever is most convenient, and feed that to the transformer + side (other is ground) through a pot. That should drive the output to nice controlled asymmetric distortion. Heck, I've a project on the drawing board perfect for this experiment!

Thanks for the idea!

PS. this really needs a post-transformer u-pad since we are clipping it and things will be LOUD at that point.

Let me know how it worked out--really curious! One thing, you will need to demagnetize the core once you'd like to get back to a "normal" undistorted mode. Not hard, but be aware.

Best, M

aww crap, didn't think of that. I can pretty much scrap the plan then. Not going to want to demagnetise after every use of the DC distortion mode. Are all transformers really subject to this? even the really beefy tube output ones?

 

[Marik]

Hard to tell, but with the right impedance and ratio transformer you even would not need a buffer.

of course. I meant I/O as in interfacing the thing with the outside world.

Actually this would make a decent output tweak for a tube project. Most tube preamps have a cap coupled transformer output, things are nice and DC-free right before the transformer. Unless we interfere!

Carefully select a bleeding range from, say B+, or 12V utility lines, whatever is most convenient, and feed that to the transformer + side (other is ground) through a pot. That should drive the output to nice controlled asymmetric distortion. Heck, I've a project on the drawing board perfect for this experiment!

Thanks for the idea!

PS. this really needs a post-transformer u-pad since we are clipping it and things will be LOUD at that point.

Let me know how it worked out--really curious! One thing, you will need to demagnetize the core once you'd like to get back to a "normal" undistorted mode. Not hard, but be aware.

Best, M

aww crap, didn't think of that. I can pretty much scrap the plan then. Not going to want to demagnetise after every use of the DC distortion mode. Are all transformers really subject to this? even the really beefy tube output ones?

Hey Kingston,

Don't be lazy @$$  ! All you need to demagnetize it is to run through 20Hz (no load) just below saturation level and that's it... or follow with an additional stage of a bypassable 1:1  "saturating transformer" connected through a blocking cap.

The problem with bigger core transformers is you will need higher DC level to saturate them, which will just magnetize them, as much. You won't magnetize ferrite powder cores, though.

Best, M

 

[CJ]

get a permalloy transformer, use it for an output,

abuse it

then make it into an mp3 for ipods, they need to round off some of that 22k  jitter,

see, he knows how to get saturated, just abuse something,

 

[shabtek]

cj?

 

[CJ]

hah!~


yeah, self portrait,

same ol cool shabtek! 

hey, i bought a new house, check it:

 

[shabtek]

cj!

mullet going strong!

 

[simonsez]

How about this one :-\...