If I'd consider making a pcb for a flanger ...

Scott Stites · Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 4:45 pm Post subject:

Hey Steven,

I didn't see anything untoward in your posts - I appreciated reading them. One advantage of a forum like this is it enables input from all points of view, and many can learn from reading it. I hope no one ever feels timid or reticent about expressing a doubt, opinion, suggestion or observation on this forum - that kind of stuff is the fertilizer of creativity. In fact, most of my posts could be considered fertilizer....no....wait.....scratch that last line Very Happy

Cheers,
Scott

para · Joined: Oct 16, 2006 Posts: 276

well i wasn't looking for reassurance or anything but i appreciate all of your comments. i'm constantly holding my tongue in fear of offending others because more often then not i look for the fastest way to get a point across rather then the nicest way. character flaw

as for the inversion issue it really just comes down to taste at this point so its doesn't matter, perhaps just having a switch between the two will increase the range of use though. but i wanted the step back to PM's and say that the only tape consoles i've ever heard of having anything near an "inversion" issue are older Japanese brands like Otari that have their hot and cold XLR pins reversed and the "fix" for this has always been to just make cables or hit the phase button and flip them back and then its forgotten. considering that you would often find yourself A/B-ing back and forth between mixes and reference tapes having an inverted output (or input) is just a bad design choice. i'm sure they had their reasons but they are lost on me.

as for the comment in the quote earlier from Graham ? whoever?, he only stated that on a basic physics level that is how printing to and reading from tape works. he didn’t actually say why its done that way. i’d imagine the conversation goes on though? i’d like to see what else is said after that to help me make sense out of this. i could guess and say that the output path was made that way to keep it as clean and pure as possible but there are already input amps possibly coloring the sound so that doesn’t seem likely.

steven

mono-poly · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 1:56 am Post subject:

Shouldn't it be possible to make something like the time modulator with ccd ic's?
I think ccd's now the days are easy avaible for a good price due the market of camera's etc.
Or maybe i'm just wrong about this.

There was an ETI design with a CCD phaser / flanger acording to this website.

http://www.irational.org/marcus/music/instruments.php

jhaible · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 2:05 am Post subject:

para · Joined: Oct 16, 2006 Posts: 276

100 percent cancellation no, but enough cancellation of frequencies to achieve a nice sounding flange ( modulated combfilter ). and i personally don't like or use flange with 100% cancellation so this is where i'm coming from and why i made the suggestion of having it switchable. the overbearing jet engine thing has just never sounded good to me ( usually sounds radically bad and out of place in most cases through out history ). if i ever use flange its just to add a bit of alteration to things not achieve an "effect" you know. i'd rather dig into how the source sound was made and use the basics to change it, not just slap some crazy overused thing on top of it. again this is all just a matter of taste, so take it for what its worth, which isn’t much and certainly not worth arguing about.

steven

jhaible · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 5:56 am Post subject:

para · Joined: Oct 16, 2006 Posts: 276

good to hear...... urrr ahhh read.

so where are these plentiful ccd's you speak of mono? i've never worked with one. are they a pain to design with?

Serenadi · Joined: Jul 03, 2007 Posts: 89 Location: Germany

para · Joined: Oct 16, 2006 Posts: 276

http://www.smallbearelec.com/Detail.bok?no=501

i guess $6.50 isn't that bad considering some of the others are around $15 each

mono-poly · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 9:11 am Post subject:

I just did mention CCD because i am en ex time modulator owner.
And did google a bit for ccd in flangers.
But how and what is a bit to technical to me.
But i got a technican who fixes my stuff.
So i'll just await what Jurgen will come up with.
But it would be amzing cool if it would be in the line of the time modulator by Marshall.

StephenGiles · Joined: Apr 17, 2006 Posts: 507 Location: England

http://www.4shared.com/file/20491740/5cc1118b/TZF.html

Very subtle, but the TZF is there. This is a 2 x MN3004 unit - very quiet considering there is no noise reduction!

germaniac · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 11:47 am Post subject:

StephenGiles · Joined: Apr 17, 2006 Posts: 507 Location: England

Yes, and it's even better if you crouch down slowly then rise up slowly afterwards - jolly good exercise as well! We are under the stacking paths for both London Heathrow and Gatwick airports and the landing path for Biggin Hill so there's plenty of scope for dopplering!

para · Joined: Oct 16, 2006 Posts: 276

the frequencies that create the combfilter would be bouncing off of some nearby structure (or even the ground) and based on its distance from it to your point in space, the material its made of, its size, shape, the humidity in the air and bunch of other variables it is then meeting, combining, adding and subtracting (phasing) out the different frequencies of the source sound where you are standing. if you move around like was suggested you change the time at which they are all intermingling and this is basically the same as you adjusting the delay setting in a hardware effect version. but the hardware is generally more “perfect” so the variables are removed for the most part. i personally like the odd variables, and things like this are why tape and the marshall, the tau and others all sound so great, they introduce slight variables and imperfections that other devices don’t have and as a result add their own little character. like covering that reflective surface with carpet or tile for example. you generally only notice this in the real world with things that are really loud near large surfaces but they happen constantly in every room off of every surface just at much quieter levels. treating surfaces and room to make the interactions of those standing waves is the basis for acoustic design, from massive cathedrals all the way down to a violin’s shape and material.

once you learn and grasp things like this mic placement takes on a whole new importance Smile

steven

StephenGiles · Joined: Apr 17, 2006 Posts: 507 Location: England

mono-poly · Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 2:25 am Post subject:

Yeah i just pointed to that one because it also used CCD as delay line.
Just like the Marshall Time Modulator.

StephenGiles · Joined: Apr 17, 2006 Posts: 507 Location: England

jhaible · Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:13 am Post subject:

I wonder how much of the marshall's famous SNR is due to the noise reduction. DBX, wasn't it?
I think I remember DBX systems theoretically doubled the dynamic range.
I definitely remember a DIY project in the German Elrad magazine in the 1990's (or 80's?) that used a HighCom noise reduction around a BBD, and reported outstanding SNR figures.
In the Storm Tide Flanger, I used a noise reduction system derived from the ARP Quadra's phaser, and this is also very quiet. (It has a certain grainy-ness, which I love, but which I wouldn't call "clean" - but it's quiet.)

JH.

germaniac · Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:09 am Post subject:

Scott Stites · Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:20 am Post subject:

Hey JH,

According to the thread where the Time Modulator sample originated, it seems that quite a bit of the SNR was actually due to the use of DBX ICs.

Cheers,
Scott

germaniac · Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:41 am Post subject:

StephenGiles · Joined: Apr 17, 2006 Posts: 507 Location: England

jhaible · Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 4:31 pm Post subject:

I bought a Dynacord TAM-19 Flanger today.

All that they say about it is true. Shocked

It sounds extremely soft, much warmer than the TAM-21 which I had a few years ago. Warmer than my Storm Tide, too; but not as extreme.

And it does some kind of thru-zero! Surprised

That is, the manual potentiometer has a center spot at 12 o'clock position, from which it modulates down in 1/x fashion on both sides. The delay time at center position is not that close to zero, though. But it sounds nice, nevertheless.

As a coincidence, the TAM-19 seems to exactly realize what I had suspected and voiced earlier in this thread, that the 1/x function on both sides of the (almost) zero point plays a crucial role, probably more than the approaching of zero itself.

In order not to confuse you, this does not produce the dramatic effect of real tape flanging or what the Tau phaser does! And yet, it's remarkably different from what you get with ordinary flangers.

I'll have to investigate this further ...

JH.