Lee_M
Well-known member
Hi guys,
This is my first thread, So be gentle!
I'm a bit of a newbie to the DIY audio world. I've been experimenting with building my own audio circuits for a little while, But that's mainly consisted of cloning and tweaking stompbox designs so far...but now I'm looking to spread my wings a little.
I'm interested in building an inductor-based EQ as the designs I've seen all look relatively simple, Not to mention I love passive EQ's a lot and I've got a healthy stash of inductors and transformers on hand to toy with.
I've "inherited" a large collection of ex-BBC inductors, Some of which are useful values for EQ circuits...from what I've seen on schematics.
However, I've got lots (maybe 20 or so?) that are really small values. Quite a few around the 20uH mark, What kind of uses are there for such low values in audio circuits?
I was considering chaining them together together in a cumulatively coupled series to form a "bank" which would hopefully make up some more useful values, But that seems rather wasteful.
Surely there are some interesting/fun uses for such low values!?
Also, While building a wah pedal I stumbled upon various builds which suggested using one of the windings of a transformer as an inductor, Which gave me an idea...I have a couple of ribbon mic output tranformers. They aren't much use as transformers due to low primary inductance (around 100mH is the highest out of various windings) and they were wired for unbalanced output. However they seem ripe for use in an EQ circuit.
Another site discussing wah pedal modifications suggested the idea of feeding variable amounts of DC voltage onto other windings of the transformer to saturate the core, Giving a different sound to the winding which is being used as an inductor...Essentially a variable saturation control on that EQ band.
Does that seem like a plausible idea?
If so, What would be the best way of doing this?
Thanks guys!
Lee
This is my first thread, So be gentle!
I'm a bit of a newbie to the DIY audio world. I've been experimenting with building my own audio circuits for a little while, But that's mainly consisted of cloning and tweaking stompbox designs so far...but now I'm looking to spread my wings a little.
I'm interested in building an inductor-based EQ as the designs I've seen all look relatively simple, Not to mention I love passive EQ's a lot and I've got a healthy stash of inductors and transformers on hand to toy with.
I've "inherited" a large collection of ex-BBC inductors, Some of which are useful values for EQ circuits...from what I've seen on schematics.
However, I've got lots (maybe 20 or so?) that are really small values. Quite a few around the 20uH mark, What kind of uses are there for such low values in audio circuits?
I was considering chaining them together together in a cumulatively coupled series to form a "bank" which would hopefully make up some more useful values, But that seems rather wasteful.
Surely there are some interesting/fun uses for such low values!?
Also, While building a wah pedal I stumbled upon various builds which suggested using one of the windings of a transformer as an inductor, Which gave me an idea...I have a couple of ribbon mic output tranformers. They aren't much use as transformers due to low primary inductance (around 100mH is the highest out of various windings) and they were wired for unbalanced output. However they seem ripe for use in an EQ circuit.
Another site discussing wah pedal modifications suggested the idea of feeding variable amounts of DC voltage onto other windings of the transformer to saturate the core, Giving a different sound to the winding which is being used as an inductor...Essentially a variable saturation control on that EQ band.
Does that seem like a plausible idea?
If so, What would be the best way of doing this?
Thanks guys!
Lee
