ruffrecords
Well-known member
In a mic pre with a stepped gain control, is anyone really bothered exactly what the step size it? Neve have them at 5dB, I did them at 3dB in the EZTubeMixer.
The reason I ask is I have just been doing the front panel for the new 7HP Classic mic pre in which I have used a 12 way rotary switch for coarse gain selection. Initially I was going to use 3dB steps but, when you lay out the panel you really only need to place an actual value on the panel every 90 degrees. If you do this with 3dB steps you get values on the panel of 60, 51,42 and 33 and they look really odd to my eye. It occurred to me if I made the steps 3.33 dB then every quarter would be 10dB so I could label the panel 60, 50, 40 and 30. I tried it on the panel layout and it does look a lot better. Will anyone really care that the two steps between each labelled gain is 3.33dB??
Cheers
Ian
The reason I ask is I have just been doing the front panel for the new 7HP Classic mic pre in which I have used a 12 way rotary switch for coarse gain selection. Initially I was going to use 3dB steps but, when you lay out the panel you really only need to place an actual value on the panel every 90 degrees. If you do this with 3dB steps you get values on the panel of 60, 51,42 and 33 and they look really odd to my eye. It occurred to me if I made the steps 3.33 dB then every quarter would be 10dB so I could label the panel 60, 50, 40 and 30. I tried it on the panel layout and it does look a lot better. Will anyone really care that the two steps between each labelled gain is 3.33dB??
Cheers
Ian