Stuff you wanted to know but were afraid to ask

[Feral Feline]

Sometimes I snip off the tab on the washer, then sand/grind the snipped sharp-edge down smoothish.



Oh, and refdes on schematics I generally work from left to right following the signal path, and top to bottom as I go along the signal path.

As CDB pointed out, it needs to be easy to read — after all, the whole purpose of the schematic is to communicate information clearly and succinctly.

 

[Diynot]

Resurrecting the dead here, but compressors…….I get the “on paper” principle of how they work, but what does a compressor do (ignoring sustain functionality) that a basic 6 band eq favoring the treble side can’t? I ask because I have been trying to wrangle a Thumbsucker compressor into what I think are usable tones and really I find that my Ray34 with 3 band active eq really sounds better without compression. No lack of snap/treble on it’s own, but the E goes “thud” no matter where I set the Thumbsucker. I do notice a huge difference on the passive jazz though. Is it just some inherent compression in the Ray34 pre?

 

[jwin615]

View attachment 83369
Resurrecting the dead here, but compressors…….I get the “on paper” principle of how they work, but what does a compressor do (ignoring sustain functionality) that a basic 6 band eq favoring the treble side can’t? I ask because I have been trying to wrangle a Thumbsucker compressor into what I think are usable tones and really I find that my Ray34 with 3 band active eq really sounds better without compression. No lack of snap/treble on it’s own, but the E goes “thud” no matter where I set the Thumbsucker. I do notice a huge difference on the passive jazz though. Is it just some inherent compression in the Ray34 pre?

What do you mean by "thud"?

Also, Keeley on compressors is a decent vid, past the shameless plugs

 

[Hal Harvey]

View attachment 83369
Resurrecting the dead here, but compressors…….I get the “on paper” principle of how they work, but what does a compressor do (ignoring sustain functionality) that a basic 6 band eq favoring the treble side can’t? I ask because I have been trying to wrangle a Thumbsucker compressor into what I think are usable tones and really I find that my Ray34 with 3 band active eq really sounds better without compression. No lack of snap/treble on it’s own, but the E goes “thud” no matter where I set the Thumbsucker. I do notice a huge difference on the passive jazz though. Is it just some inherent compression in the Ray34 pre?

I’m not familiar with the Thumbsucker or Ray preamp but a higher dB signal will compress more.

Also bass signals have a lot of energy, is the Ray pre pumping out lots more bass you potentially can’t even hear (and slamming the compressor)? That why the bass version of the Origin compressors have a high pass filter for the side chain. Does it sound better if you attenuate the Ray with your bass volume control?

Do you have a DAW we you can visualize what a compressor is doing to your signal? That helped me hear compression better.

 

[Diynot]

What do you mean by "thud"?

Also, Keeley on compressors is a decent vid, past the shameless plugs

As opposed to the natural ring of the note it is basically a dead thud which I guess would mean the compressor is really clamping down on an extra hot signal, but that is even with the ratio at ab 9 o’clock or lower. The active signal def drives the Thumbsucker into distortion if the threshold is low.

 

[Diynot]

I’m not familiar with the Thumbsucker or Ray preamp but a higher dB signal will compress more.

Also bass signals have a lot of energy, is the Ray pre pumping out lots more bass you potentially can’t even hear (and slamming the compressor)? That why the bass version of the Origin compressors have a high pass filter for the side chain. Does it sound better if you attenuate the Ray with your bass volume control?

Do you have a DAW we you can visualize what a compressor is doing to your signal? That helped me hear compression better.

The active pre def hits the Thumbsucker pretty hard. See my response to jwin above. I picked the Thumbsucker based on the love it gets from the bass crowd around here. I am old school and jut run instrument to amp so it is by ear alone. But I do still have to ask, if at it’s core a compressor evens out the dynamic response of the strings iow attenuates the bass strings and accentuates the treble, can you not do that with just an eq?

 

[Hal Harvey]

The active pre def hits the Thumbsucker pretty hard. See my response to jwin above. I picked the Thumbsucker based on the love it gets from the bass crowd around here. I am old school and jut run instrument to amp so it is by ear alone. But I do still have to ask, if at it’s core a compressor evens out the dynamic response of the strings iow attenuates the bass strings and accentuates the treble, can you not do that with just an eq?

It really depends on what you want to achieve with the compressor. I like a compressor to even out the dynamics when I play bass because I am a terrible player haha.

Do you want to make the different notes have fewer spikes like in my example above? Do you want more sustain? Etc.

Dynamics are not equal to EQ but you likely want different dynamics for lower and higher notes. My example of the Bass Cali76 having a high pass filter for the side chain (which controls the compression amount) - it makes it so the lower notes impact the compression amount less. I.e your e string thud.

I have Cali76 Stacked near the front of my board to help sculpt my note attacks (pick player) and a Effectrode LA-1A towards the end for limiting and warmth.

It’s another tool in your belt, but it sounds like you don’t need it

 

[jwin615]

As opposed to the natural ring of the note it is basically a dead thud which I guess would mean the compressor is really clamping down on an extra hot signal, but that is even with the ratio at ab 9 o’clock or lower. The active signal def drives the Thumbsucker into distortion if the threshold is low.

Tried it(thumb sucker) at a higher voltage? Quick glipse at the schem suggests it's doable, component ratings dependent of course.
You can sudo-simulate a high pass sidechain by cutting pre comp and boosting post with a wide bell or shelf.
But when it comes to compressors with attack and release controls, there are plenty of ways to make a tone worse if not wielded correctly.
If you're hitting with an active pre, especially if it's 18v, it's gonna cause issues on those powerful low notes.
Does D4 illuminate? It's a pseudo clipping indicator, from the looks of it(and will clip the signal).

 

[Atom ant]

How do you pronounce Tayda?

I say it like tah-duuuuuh!!!! Because its actual magic that it gets to my house so fast. We live like kings.

 

[Atom ant]

Ever wonder how they soldered stuff 80 years ago?
This instructional video might seem a bit dated, but the chemical and metallurgical processes are still the same.
Some good safety tips too.
And there are some hot babes.

This is awesome. And that 35 seconds of beautiful white noise at the beginning?
Recorded for future use.

 

[JTEX]

But I do still have to ask, if at it’s core a compressor evens out the dynamic response of the strings iow attenuates the bass strings and accentuates the treble, can you not do that with just an eq?

Evening out the playing dynamics is not the same as attenuating the bass and accentuating the treble. A compressor is all about reducing the difference between loud and soft passages. If you find that it cuts too much of the bass and lifts too much of the treble, it's because the compressor "hears" too much bass vs treble and tries to even them out. You might want to tilt your pickups away from the bass side to balance string levels before you hit the compressor. Then it will react more the way you expect it to. You can also use a pre-compressor EQ, or even a simple high-pass filter, to control what spectral balance the compressor "hears", and this will determine what part of the spectrum the compressor works harder on. Once you got the compressor to react to dynamics the way you want, you can then use a post-compressor EQ to get the tonal balance that you want.

Compressors are best enjoyed when playing in a band mix, so that you can sit better in the mix, hear yourself etc, without having to get too loud. They basically do what a good sound engineer would do while riding a fader. If it's too soft, turn it up, if too loud, bring it down. When playing on your own there's very little point to compressors, and you might actually prefer the dry sound without any compressor at all. It just won't sit as well if you drop it in a mix.

 

[cdwillis]

How in the hell do you calculate the gain on this output section on the Informant/DRV? Normally on a noninverting gain stage like this you'd take R14 and divide it by R13 then add one. Not only is R13 way bigger than R14, it's going to ground with no capacitor instead of vref.

 

[JTEX]

How in the hell do you calculate the gain on this output section on the Informant/DRV? Normally on a noninverting gain stage like this you'd take R14 and divide it by R13 then add one. Not only is R13 way bigger than R14, it's going to ground with no capacitor instead of vref.
View attachment 83430

This is basically a unity gain buffer. R13, C10 and R14 could all be eliminated and replaced with a simple short between pins 6 and 7 and the circuit would work almost exactly the same. I have no idea why they're there. Maybe as placeholders in case you want to mod it?

 

[cdwillis]

That's what I thought at first, but then I thought maybe I'm just not clever enough to understand it. I was making a Rat style pcb recently and used a TL071 for the buffer instead of the jfet then I added the option of making it a gain stage for more output volume.

I built an Informant then I ended up trading it. I can't remember how the volume compared to my Rat.

 

[lowpitch]

I got a bunch of 10uF MLCCs. Can I use these instead of electrolytics in power decoupling situations without problems?

 

[JTEX]

I got a bunch of 10uF MLCCs. Can I use these instead of electrolytics in power decoupling situations without problems?

Normally yes. In fact that's probably their best use case. Just be aware that their capacitance decreases significantly as the DC voltage across them approaches their rated voltage.

 

[lowpitch]

Normally yes. In fact that's probably their best use case. Just be aware that their capacitance decreases significantly as the DC voltage across them approaches their rated voltage.

These are rated at 25VDC. So fine for 9V operation, iffy for 18V?

 

[JTEX]

These are rated at 25VDC. So fine for 9V operation, iffy for 18V?

They might be down to around 50% of nominal capacitance at that voltage. That could very well still be fine in many decoupling situations, where cap values are not that critical.

You might want to look up Voltage Coefficient of Capacitance.

 

[lowpitch]

They might be down to around 50% of nominal capacitance at that voltage. That could very well still be fine in many decoupling situations, where cap values are not that critical.

You might want to look up Voltage Coefficient of Capacitance.

Thank you! I'll look that up.

 

[CheapSuitG]

Here is mine thing I am afraid to ask.

What does the stand alone Klon buffer do?