In case anyone is interested, Midwest Analog is having a 25% off sale on selected products, one of which is the Whisper Compressor kit:
http://www.midwest-analog.com/news.html
Cheers,
Scott
Does anyone happen to have a parts list for this ckt? :?
Is that an OTA-based compressor? Because I notice that their 3080 book is on clearance, too--big surprise.
Quote from: Ben NIs that an OTA-based compressor? Because I notice that their 3080 book is on clearance, too--big surprise.
dunno... (http://webpages.charter.net/oscarv77/shrug.gif)
that's one of the reasons why I wanted to know if anyone had a parts list... Although, I might just break down and buy it to try it... (I have some b'day money burning a hole in my pocket)
The Whisper is essentially an improved version of the Anderton EPFM-II compressor project.
Like the EPFM Comp, it uses a bipolar (+/-9v supply), and uses 3 op-amp stages. One stage is the gain reduction stage (where the ever-trusty CLM6000 sits in the feedback loop). Another stage is the gain stage that drives the LED inthe CLM6000. The third stage is the gain recovery stage. It uses better op-amps than the original, and also includes a tone control.
I liked the original very much and still count it among my arsenal. I would imagine this to be a bit of an improvement.
One of the advantages of LDR-based compressors is that the sluggishness of the LDR reduces envelope ripple for a smoother decay. Another advantage is that LDR have no distortion since they are just resistors.
Thanks for the tip on the sale! I was getting around to ordering two of the books, but I just got all three for 25% off!
COOL!
Ry
I don't know whether Thomas Henry is going to keep selling the CA3080 book past this, though I doubt if he discontinues it. The CA3080 is now going out of production, but lord almighty there is a glut of them out there, and I think it'll be a long time until they decay into unobtainium. Seriously.
That CA3080 book *is* awesome - Thomas has a good writing style and method for breaking things down to the simplest level and building from that. It helped me a lot to understand OTA's after blindly (more or less) using them for years.
I've got an original manuscript from Thomas concerning some great work he did with VCO chips (this summer I beta tested the circuits, and also some other really cool synth stuff for a book that just hasn't made it out the door). Thomas landed a good teaching position which sucked up exactly 99.998% of his time, and things kinda held up a bit (around that time he was talking about sending me a whisper compressor kit, too damn!!).
He's not going out of business, BTW, but there may be a name change coming down the pike.
I might mention that this summer I 'seeded' Thomas' snail mail box with some PT2399's and PT2395's, and in this last email, he mentioned he was thinking about diving into them. I've always wondered what he would come up with using these chips.
Cheers,
Scot
I can't wait to get the 3080 book. I bought a fairly sizeable stash of them from Mouser when I heard that they were being discontinued, then I found this book. I have no understanding of how the 3080 works, and I've tried to figure them out a few times (both in college during my EE days and since).
I'm really interested in the noise book, too. I have a perverse love of noise circuits.
The electronic drum book was bundled in for the sale, and I'm sure it will be interesting as well.
I'm interested to see what things will be coming out with the VCO book and delay chips. It's quite inspiring to see someone still writing books on this stuff for the diy market.
Quote from: DiyFreaqueI don't know whether Thomas Henry is going to keep selling the CA3080 book past this, though I doubt if he discontinues it.
"while supplies last"
My kit just came in today. Looks very nice. Good parts, good pcb, 12 page assembly manual with schem, layout and other info. $31.50 shipped. Go for it O, I don't think you can beat the price.
No box, no knobs though... not a problem really.
DiyF...thanks for the heads up on this. I would have completely missed it had you not mentioned it. I've wanted to try this one for a while now but it had skipped my mind.
Clay
I designed the Whisper Compressor - that info must have been left out in one of the redesigns of the page (http://web.archive.org/web/20021012005153/www.midwest-analog.com/cat-gui.html) - so if you have any problems with it I will attempt to help you out.
Just some info about its development... there were several different circuit topologies tested and I liked one of the others better but I was taking directions from Tom so we went with that one. I also wanted it to use one 9v battery but Tom really liked the greater dynamic range from two of them so we went with two. The original article we wrote about the design appeared in either Electronics Now or Nuts-and-Volts magazine; I cannot remember which but I have a copy of it somewhere.
This particular configuration has a compressor-limiter effect with a "soft-knee" - there was a curve of its response on his site at one time. The more you crank up the compression, the more it acts like a limiter. There was also some discussion about different opamps to use in the circuit but it has been so long ago that I cannot really remember what we tried.
When I originally built the circuit, it worked perfectly. Tom built a copy and it would not work for him. He is an excellent tech so this had us puzzled. I traced it down to the CLM6000s... he had a big lot of them that he had bought surplus and only about 1 out of 3 or 4 was good. He ended up having to sort through the CLMs to find the good ones to sell. I then bought a handful of CLM6000s from one of the surplus outfits and experienced the same problem! All of the old ones that I had in stock were perfect but the new units that were available were all over the place. This was at a time when Clairex was almost out of business and they ended up getting bought by someone and the line revived.
I won't use a CLM6000 to this day because of that incident -- an NSL-32 will work in the Whisper Compressor just fine, but if you bought a kit, don't worry, Tom checks all the photocells.
I still have a prototype in my studio and I'm sure it would work if I put in new batteries.
regards, Jack
That does look like a good deal. If I was in the market for a compressor I would go for it.
I saw the schem (or a partial schem, can't remember) for this many years ago and it is a very elegant design. Immediately made my "I'd like to get to it someday" list... :D
Doug
That's pretty cool, Jack! Thomas told me a similar story about some SAD4096's found in a warehouse long ago. Turns out a significant percentage of them were DOA.
As for the CA3080 book - I just don't know if he'll do reprints. I've bugged him a few times about producing a few more Compandor Cookbooks (fooled around and never bought one, and now they haven't been in stock for a while).
Cheers,
Scott
QuoteI designed the Whisper Compressor - that info must have been left out
Boy, if that isn't a familiar refrain...seems like the story of your life.
Thanks for that information Jack. I look forward to this one and I'm glad you went with the bipolar supply.
Doug I remember talking to you a while back and you weren't a big fan of compressors. I'm somewhat a hoarder myself. I like compressors like some guys like ODs and like Mark Hammer I'm a fan of the Anderton one too.
QuoteBoy, if that isn't a familiar refrain...
Hahaha, that isn't the case in this instance... Tom is a heck of a nice guy. He redesigned his site sometime ago to concentrate on the kits, which doesn't really require info about the designers or the magazine articles.
We did a bunch of projects together; The Whisper, the Mod Box and the ADV series. Tom is an excellent designer so I'm not sure why he enlisted me to work on the circuits in the first place but a series of kits and magazine articles came out of it.
BTW, I have long since been paid fully for my work on the projects and do not get any money from sale of the kits.
The Midwest kits are first rate and you can't go wrong with them! Check out the Mod Box too.
regards, Jack
Somewhere, some lucky studentsare being taught by Tom. I guess our loss is their gain.
I just wish Tom wasn't so damn fond of the old TI multifunction chip (the TI76477 or whatever the heck it was). He'd always come out with these great ideas...a few years after Radio Shack and Godbout stopped selling them.
Ah yes, the venerable SN76477 - heart of the Blacet Dark Star Chaos 2000 and Thomas' own Super Controller module (plus others of his as you mentioned). Last I knew, they were still fairly available at the Akhibara (sp?) market in Japan....in that tiny format - not SOIC, but tinier leaded. Oh, what is the name of that package? Anyway, I got a few of those in trade with a friend in Japan a while back.
Blacet used to sell adaptor boards for these critters, but I don't think they do anymore. I've got one driving my Dark Star.
Someone on this list needs to write/record a song entitled "Where Have All The Good Chips Gone". :(
Oh, now I'm getting all misty..
Cheers,
Scott
Quote from: Mark HammerSomewhere, some lucky studentsare being taught by Tom. I guess our loss is their gain.
I just wish Tom wasn't so damn fond of the old TI multifunction chip (the TI76477 or whatever the heck it was). He'd always come out with these great ideas...a few years after Radio Shack and Godbout stopped selling them.
SN76477 rules! Anybody remember the Bullet SE-01 kit? I'd give up eye teeth for that PCB now. Wish I hadn't tossed it in a manic Spring cleaning fit . . . .
I have one of his reprints books. I have checkmarks in the index next to stuff that use SEM/CEM chips. Pity so many projects are just hard to get parts for.
Debco just blew out SN76477's for $2.00 each a few weeks ago. You never know what will come and go from those surplus suppliers.
Quote from: Joe Kramer
SN76477 rules! Anybody remember the Bullet SE-01 kit? I'd give up eye teeth for that PCB now. Wish I hadn't tossed it in a manic Spring cleaning fit . . . .
There is info here:
http://www.electronicpeasant.com/circuits/circuits.html
Someone could probably work out a pcb from the parts layout.
Quote from: CS Jones
Doug I remember talking to you a while back and you weren't a big fan of compressors. I'm somewhat a hoarder myself. I like compressors like some guys like ODs and like Mark Hammer I'm a fan of the Anderton one too.
Clay, I don't have a lot of use for them with distorted guitar (which seems to be a good majority of what we discuss at these places :lol: ). Seems like the pedals, amps, whatever compress enough for my tastes.
But I like compression for some clean chimey sounds. And for playing my acoustic/electric, where I may switch between 3 or 4 different playing styles in the same song (lead, strumming, fingerpick, staccato, etc) I find it almost indispensable if I want to be heard in the mix. I have a boss compressor that works pretty well for that. It can be a little noisy at times, though.
Doug
"Debco just blew out SN76477's for $2.00 each a few weeks ago. You never know what will come and go from those surplus suppliers."
Gasp!!
(goes from misty to fetal position).
Quote from: Doug_H[I don't have a lot of use for them with distorted guitar (which seems to be a good majority of what we discuss at these places :lol: ). Seems like the pedals, amps, whatever compress enough for my tastes.
That's an interesting issue you raise.
It depends on whether your goal or approach is to use compressors for compression, or compressors for signal conditioning. My sense is that a great many folks use them for compression, which is fine, but only a portion of what they can do.
For me, I like compressors because of what they do to signal consistency, rather than sustain. So, I may be able to get different tones by digging into my strings in a certain way, but I am obliged to have that be accompanied by a volume change. If I use a compressor, maybe not. Similarly, I may get a certain tone with a distortion pedal when the input signal exceeds (OR remains below) a certain level. By maintaining a more consistent signal level, I can nail that desired tone with greater reliability.
Certainly one of the things I like compressos for is making envelope-controlled filters behave better. In some respects, this seems antithetical. After all if the way an autowah works is that it responds to playing dynamics, you'd think that *restricting* dynamics would take away from an autowah's character. Well, yes and no. Certainly it takes some dynamics to elicit a response from an envelope-controlled device. But, with the exception of some E-H devices (and some of Steve Giles' clever designs) that use their start-and-stop-frequency circuit (which dictates how far the filter should "travel" over the designated period of time), likelihood of triggering, and extent of filter "travel", are inextricably linked via the sensitivity control in most such pedals. Personally, I find having a moderately compressed signal, with a bit of boost, helps me to reliably extract a wah from envelope-controlled filters, without having it sweep farther than I want.
As for noise, well the magic is all in feeding a compressor the cleanest and hottest possible signal you can squeeze from your guitar. A well-preamped guitar almost always makes a compressor perform better. Just note, though, that since compressors generally function by starting with high gain and then reducing gain in response to larger signals, you will need to reduce the default gain in your compressor to be able to achieve degrees of subtlety in compression.
In other words, if the pedal *expects* to see a typical 80-100mv signal for single notes, and applies the sort of gain on the input stage needed by the envelope-follower to translate that input signal into gain reduction, feeding the same device a crystal clean 350mv signal will make it very hard to get anything les than max compression. Just as important, the noise people often report being unhappy with when it comes to compressors, stems from the default gain applied at the input. Plug your guitar into a compressor with high gain without playing anything and that noise gets boosted during the "silent" passages. If the input signal is hot enough to drive the envelope follower, then one can afford to reduce the gain of the input stage, and the noise presented to the compressor during silent parts won't be boosted quite so much.
I can hear some of you saying "So what do I do about this?". I guess what you can do...in SOME cases...is turn down the gain of the input stage until you reach a point where the amount of compression attainable is satisfactory at lower gain. In the case of the Anderton design (and the Whisper),the input/gain-reduction stage is an inverting op-amp with the LDR half of a CLM6000 in parallel with a fixed resistor. Normally the LDR is much higher resistance than the fixed resistor so gain is given largely by the fixed resistor's value. Dropping the value of that resistor should set the default gain lower, thereby reducing the appearance of noise during silent parts.
Unless one does some other things to the envelope follower portion of the circuit, the down-side to this is that since the LDR starts from the "off" state, it adds perhaps a few milliseconds (depending ont he LDR or optoisolator poperties) for the LDR resistance to drop low enough that the combined parallel resistance drops the gain noticeably. This will change the feel a bit in a manner that might appeal to some more than to others.
Quote from: Mark Hammer
For me, I like compressors because of what they do to signal consistency, rather than sustain. So, I may be able to get different tones by digging into my strings in a certain way, but I am obliged to have that be accompanied by a volume change. If I use a compressor, maybe not. Similarly, I may get a certain tone with a distortion pedal when the input signal exceeds (OR remains below) a certain level. By maintaining a more consistent signal level, I can nail that desired tone with greater reliability.
Yes, that's precisely the reason I use it with my acoustic guitar. Although you can turn up the "sustain" knob and get interesting compression effects, I mainly use it for balancing my sound in the mix, and allowing the more subtle techniques to be heard without drowning out everyone else when I strum chords. Or vice-versa.
BTW I like your idea of using it to limit the excursions of an env filter. I played around with some env filter circuits a few yrs ago on the breadboard, but never got around to building one. That's a good idea!
Doug
QuoteSN76477 rules! Anybody remember the Bullet SE-01 kit? I'd give up eye teeth for that PCB now. Wish I hadn't tossed it in a manic Spring cleaning fit . . . .
Yup, just found mine (Bullet kit) again 'in a manic spring cleaning fit'. :)
If only they had included an audio input that could be used with/instead of the internal VCO, it would have been the coolest chip ever made!
Amen, Mark. I used to have the compressor in front of my overdrives to get a sing-ey tone, but that got old. Now I have it after the ODs, so I can get all my touch sensitivity and roll-down/clean-up effects, while squeezing the dynamic range enough not to get lost or overpower, and it is not all that noisy.
AFA the envelope filter idea, I would think it would always make sense to have the audio signal compressed going through so you get the full wah effect. Perhaps a good "sensitivity" control would be to pan the envelope follower input between the compressed signal and a sidechain.
Ben
I've been thinking about building a compressor for a while - probably ever since I first saw the Janglebox - and I was leaning towards building an Orange Squeezer and possibly modifying it a bit. How would these two compare sound wise?
Quote from: Dean HazelwanterQuoteSN76477 rules! Anybody remember the Bullet SE-01 kit? I'd give up eye teeth for that PCB now. Wish I hadn't tossed it in a manic Spring cleaning fit . . . .
Yup, just found mine (Bullet kit) again 'in a manic spring cleaning fit'. :)
If only they had included an audio input that could be used with/instead of the internal VCO, it would have been the coolest chip ever made!
Hey Dean!
Any chance at all of you working up a clone of that PCB? I for one would pay $$$ for it! I thought the SE-01 implementation with the multiplexer and all was really cool. Am I mistaken in thinking you do have an ext. input/pitch control on the SN76477, though it's not very wide range, pitchwise? Please get in touch with me if you have even the slightest interest in the PCB idea. . . .
Also thanks, Dan N for the epeasant link. I do have all that stuff. I just haven't been able to commit to either breadboarding it or remaking the PCB. And it's kind of a pain that there's no actual shematic with the Bullet kit --just another thing to have to trace out.
Joe
Mark Hammer wroteQuoteThat's an interesting issue you raise.
It depends on whether your goal or approach is to use compressors for compression, or compressors for signal conditioning. My sense is that a great many folks use them for compression, which is fine, but only a portion of what they can do.
etc...
That's another one of those amazing posts that you so often come up with - another mine full of nuggets. Brought to mind a little that thing R.G. was messing with several years ago that looked, at first blush, like a compressor but it was used to shape the signal amplitude as it approached a diode pair's conduction zones.
copy/paste/save once again.
I got the Whisper's board loaded. I rarely get to work with pre-printed circuit boards. While it's a welcome break from perfing it has the mixed blessing of causing me to rush through the build without taking more time to ponder the layout which in turn makes me pay more attention to what's happening with the circuit. I'm going to have to go back later and take more time with the circuit itself...right now I'm in the "build it and play that bad boy" mode.
QuoteGasp!!
(goes from misty to fetal position).
That cracked me up.
Clay
Quote from: CS Jones
I got the Whisper's board loaded. I rarely get to work with pre-printed circuit boards. While it's a welcome break from perfing it has the mixed blessing of causing me to rush through the build without taking more time to ponder the layout which in turn makes me pay more attention to what's happening with the circuit. I'm going to have to go back later and take more time with the circuit itself...right now I'm in the "build it and play that bad boy" mode.
Clay
I would
love to do a paint-by-numbers build. That would be such a relief.. and fun too! :D
Doug
QuoteHey Dean!
Any chance at all of you working up a clone of that PCB? I for one would pay $$$ for it! I thought the SE-01 implementation with the multiplexer and all was really cool. Am I mistaken in thinking you do have an ext. input/pitch control on the SN76477, though it's not very wide range, pitchwise? Please get in touch with me if you have even the slightest interest in the PCB idea. . . .
Hey Joe...
Tell you what. I'll bring the board to work tomorrow, take some pictures of it and try to scan the copper layer of the PCB. If you or anyone else wants to do a PCB layout from that, go for it. :) Give me your email address (either here or with a PM) and I'll send you the pictures/scans.
HTH! :)
QuoteQuote:
Gasp!!
(goes from misty to fetal position).
That cracked me up.
Try typing from that position :D
I'd be interested in your impressions of the Whisper Compressor.
Cheers,
Scott
In a nutshell. I like this thing a lot.
It's not a squash 'em flat kind of effect. The initial squash stays constant throughout the compression range. The gain stage which provides the compression is set to work from unity (a resistor equal to the value of the input resistor hangs off the end of the compression pot) up to 16. This combined with the input gain stage (which was around 10 I think) which drives the rest of the circuit would lead you to believe that the thing would be pretty noisy. But it's not. It lives up to it's name. It's amazingly quiet. They've chosen low noise/low drain opamps and designed the thing around low input resistances to keep the noise down. Like the Anderton it has the LDR in parallel with the first stage's loop resistor. The second stage drives the light. As the second stage gain increases it in effect throttles down the first stage's gain due to the light's effect on the paralleled LDR. The overall effect is most easily heard when you strum hard on chords. The uneven spikeyness of the voltage variations is tamed. It works great for me with single note line playing which is peppered with chordal add ins since my right hand control has always been my weakest playing point. I overplay and it helps to tame the lack of control. At unity the compression provided gives the effect a more open feel; a less snuffing feel. I find the compression throughout the sweep of the pot usable for many different types of playing. It's versatile and effective with no "blah spots".
The roll off frequencies which result from the coupling values the designers chose to use are great. I wouldn't change a thing. These guys put together a package that suits my ear perfectly. I couldn't improve on it. The combinations for gain and frequency emphasis seem perfectly suited for guitar. Any recommendations for changes would seem to me to be merely piddling.
The real surprise here is the tone pot. Wow. Simple and elegant. Provides a huge range of usable tone adjustments. It works like a simple mixer. Treble filtered through one side of a pot and bass to the other. As the wiper travels through the range of the resistance you get a blending effect. Very, very nice. Very effective.
The level control can make the thing grow a little hairy so you've got to set that at some relatively low output point to avoid distorting. Even at low settings though there is plenty of clean boost available. Not to worry, you'll know it's on.
I like it a lot. It's made me get out and dust off my old adjustable bipolar supply unit. It's made me interested, once again, in getting around to building a board dedicated strictly to bipolars.
As far as building a compressor from scratch goes (perfing it with your own layout and not using a color-by-number approach of vero or pcb) I would much prefer building this one over the OTA based units...part for part. I prefer the opto type anyway soundwise. I've found the OTAs to be a PITA when it comes to bias balancing the differential inputs to keep the noise down as the gain level of the OTA changes. They can sound fine (if noisy) when you get them right but not much better than this one does for a whole lot less work.
Kudos to Jack Orman and Ted from Midwest Analog. And thanks again to you too Scott for bringing it up in the forum.
Clay
Thanks for your report Clay. I'm glad you are enjoying the compressor!
regards, Jack
I couldn't resist the deal. Ordered on Thursday, had the kit in my hands on Saturday. Awesome service (Thanks, Tom!). Nice report, Clay. I'm looking forward to building mine. And BTW... Jack, you are credited in the building instructions with collaborating on the design. ;)
Since the Whisper shares a lot with the Anderton compressor, one of the things I was planning to do was try some of the mods for bass that Mr Hammer was kind enough to elucidate in that other thread titled "bass compressor."
http://www.diystompboxes.com/sboxforum/viewtopic.php?t=31137
Quote from: Mark HammerT'wer me, I would have probably gone for multiple paralleled small value plastic caps to achieve the larger value with minimal phase distortion issues, than used a larger cap.
That is a cool idea! Thanks, Mark! ... oh, and everybody else, too. 8)
~ Charlie
I've mentioned it in past, but what sometimes feels like a few months ago to me often ends up being 3 years ago.
Bill Berardi's "Fuzztain" project that appeared in Electronic Musician in the late 1980's used LED/LDR optoisolators in an extremely clever way. The LED's in the pair of optoisolators were used in the feedback loop of a gain stage for LED-based clipping. Ever so conveniently, those very same LEDs just so happened to shine on a pair of LDRs which were used to reduce the gain of an earlier stage in a manner almost identical to the Anderton/Whisper compressor. So, as the pedal went into clipping, it would also compress, keeping the clipping more or less controlled (though how much clipping was need to produce gain-reduction/compression could be adjusted). One of those ideas brilliant enough that years later I still have dead spots on my retina where the flash of light appeared.
What Berardi neglected to do, however, was incorporate one of the LDRs for a whole other effect. You only really need one of the LDRs to reduce gain for compression so the LDR ganged to the second LED can be assigned elsewhere. Strikes me that a perfect place might be an envelope-controlled bandpass filter (one of the filter stages in the Bi-Filter Follower) either before or after the fuzz stage. If you ask me, a combo compressor, fuzz, autowah from so few components is about as elegant as you can get, and a terrific candidate for a one-stomp-gets-you-a-multi-FX-sound pedal.
Thanks, Clay - sounds mighty tempting indeed.....
While on the subject, has anybody checked out the optocouplers that Electronic Goldmine has?
http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/products.asp?dept=1268
P/N G15396 $0.99 apiece. They look like the Silonex type, though I couldn't say they were Silonex for sure.
Cheers,
Scott
I'm passing this on for Thomas Henry:
Today's the last day of the sale. He still has some of the drum cookbooks and the MIDI stuff.
Looks like Midwest Analog may be going away here before too long :cry:
Scott
Hi Scott,
Whaaaaat!? I know Tom has a "real" job now but is he quitting the business completely or just a hiatus for a while? That would be bad if he is going away for good :(
You mentioned a while ago that you were testing out some interesting new products for Tom - do you know what will happen to them if Midwest closes?
Thanks,
Peter
Well, from the tenor of the last email, it seemed like he was just going to close, but in previous emails he was going to come back in a different incarnation. I think (as with most of these small analog businesses) you really have to like it a lot, because there's little to no money in it, and I know he's pulling some serious hours just with his teaching position.
He mentioned some chip related books he's working on, so it was a confusing mix of messages. He's bummed that the chips he likes to write about are dropping out of production (CA3080, CA3046 at least in DIP form). I can see where that would be discouraging. I urged him to go ahead with those, pointing out that some BBD's, even though produced in much smaller numbers, are still accessible to this day, so the books themselves would still be useful for a long time to come. I'm hoping he continues with the book of designs that I've seen - pretty good stuff in them.
I'll see if I can press him for more details, but I do know for certain he said that Midwest Analog itself is going to be pulled. It's whether or not it comes back in a more streamlined form (no kits, just books, etc,) that seems to be in question.
Take care,
Scott
Peter,
It's been too long. I'm over at Asticou these days but we should get together some time.
Bonjour Mark,
Comment ça va? I've just finished a long arduous contract but I am happily unemployed again now. I'll PM you soon.
Scott,
Thanks for the info on Midwest. I do hope Tom stays in the business in some form or another. I have bought all his excellent books, some kits, parts and bare PCB's from him over the years and I would be really sorry to see him go. If he does give up the business he'll have more spare time, so perhaps you could persuade him to join the forum and give us the benefit of his considerable expertise?? :lol: :wink: :D
Cheers,
Peter
QuoteHe mentioned some chip related books he's working on, so it was a confusing mix of messages. He's bummed that the chips he likes to write about are dropping out of production (CA3080, CA3046 at least in DIP form). I can see where that would be discouraging. I urged him to go ahead with those, pointing out that some BBD's, even though produced in much smaller numbers, are still accessible to this day, so the books themselves would still be useful for a long time to come. I'm hoping he continues with the book of designs that I've seen - pretty good stuff in them.
I was really looking forward to digging into the CA3080 and noise generator books but...payment was returned - sold out :(
He should at least print some more copies of the books that already exist - seems like the demand is there. I can't seem to find any electronics books comparable to those described on his site. I'd rather buy a good book than spend time scouring the internet for odd bits here and there to print out and stuff in a folder.
QuoteHe should at least print some more copies of the books that already exist - seems like the demand is there. I can't seem to find any electronics books comparable to those described on his site. I'd rather buy a good book than spend time scouring the internet for odd bits here and there to print out and stuff in a folder.
Tell me about it! I've mentioned it to him a few times (and I intend to keep mentioning it). I fooled around and missed out on his compandor book, and that's been out of print for a while. I've asked him about that, but I don't think he's really said anything about it.
QuoteIf he does give up the business he'll have more spare time, so perhaps you could persuade him to join the forum and give us the benefit of his considerable expertise??
That would be cool. For me, he is one of the primordial influences. It was his book "Build a Better Music Synthesizer" that first turned me on to the idea that I could
build that modular synth I'd always wanted since I was in the third grade (truth). To have him as a forum member would be a treat, indeed. His knowledge is only matched by his skill at explaining things in a way that makes fairly difficult topics nearly impossible not to understand.
His style of writing has an enthusiasm that to me is always infectious, and every once in a while there is a sly twist of humor one doesn't expect (where else would you read of a certain transistor being described as 'punk' and therefore a good choice for a noise transistor). 'Build a Better Music Synthesizer' even touches on the benefits of visualization the night before a panel build.
Perhaps there's financial reasons behind the subject of reissues; I'd sure like to see it happen.
Cheers,
Scott
Sadly, 12 Midnight tonight Minnesota time (which I think is within a couple of hours of this posting), Midwest Analog will indeed shuffle off into history. :cry:
The SDIY List thought it was an April Fool's joke, but it's not. I posted this to the SDIY List, thought I'd share it here as well:
QuoteSorry, no joke. April is also tax time, if that means anything.....
If it is a joke, I'd gladly be the brunt of it.
Just had a talk with him - he's just plain burnt out, I think. The teaching
position is hugely time-consuming, and filling orders/answering emails just
kinda got to be too much.
I asked him about future publications, and he mentioned he'll probably do
some magazine articles then take things from there. He's planning a trip to
the lower midwest, and I know that'll clear his noggin. Hopefully then
he'll feel like publishing again. He talked about some other possible
alternatives, but probably nothing I should really talk about until he has
time to think it through.
Take care,
Scott
Hi...I've read this thread and wondered if the Whisper Compressor kit is still available and if not...does any one have a schematic ans parts list?
Thanks...