"Wind Machine" - you know you want it!

[Gordo]

Ummm...I seem to have created my own wind machine but I think it's from eating too much Tex-mex food while I was in Houston.  It has the added benefit: you know it's working even if it's completely silent...

[frequencycentral]

Just breadboarded it again in order to do a soundclip to post for chi_boy .

You might try shorting the base of the noise transistor to the collector. The resulting sound should not change, but it will have a DC voltage closer to the middle of the power supply, easier on the opamp biasing. Right now all the base-emitter adds is one diode-drop offset on bias.

ie base to ground. That actually does make a huge different! And it also makes picking the transistor much easier, it now works with a much broader range of transistors, 2n5088, BC547B, BC107A etc. Genius RG! I'll modify and re-upload the schematic. And I'll post some soundclips later.......


EDIT: As I stole the noise part from the Maestro FSH1, it now makes me wonder why on that circuit the base of teh noise transistor has no connection, as it obviously works so much better with the base to ground. Hmmm.....

[frequencycentral]

Here's (real) a soundclip:

Not On The Run

The first 30 seconds is clean, the following 3 minutes is processed through the following pedals: Phase Evolution phaser, Vibracaster submini tube tremolo, Magnus Modulus delay. I enjoy doing this sort of thing far too much.............

No overdubs! No rehearsal even!

[liquids]

I thoroughly enjoyed that soundclip, and quickly got 'back to work' while listening to it, forgetting it was a sound sample..... 

I think I need to build one of these and make a recording of myself tinkering and knob twiddling similarly..one long track of white noise+ effects.   It would help me avoid some of the nosey questions and to hear less drivel, gossip, and nonsense from the people around me here at work, so I can get back to my job- or get back to thinking about pedals here at my job, with fewer of these personnel and work-related distractions.

Thank you!

[col]

In one of his early books Penfold used a Ge transistor to produce white noise and then filter for pink noise. I quote; "germanium transistors seemed to give the highest output. Audio types such as OC72s, OC81Ds andd OC81s seemed to give good results but RF types such as AF117 gave a much stronger output and an AF114 VHF device gave an even more substantial output. The reason for the high output from RF and VHF devices is simply because these are not optimised for a good audio noise performance but for low noise at their intended operating frequencies. "
Penfold used emitter to ground, 8.2k resistor from collector to -9v, 1.5m resistor base to collector and the output to the amplifier via a 1uF cap from the collector. The shield (this is a 4 pin device) was left unconnected. Seems like a great use of those crappy noisy Ge transistors that get left in the drawer and any pnp device would slot straight in here.

[guitarman89]

I've drawn a perf layout. I wish can be useful for the community! It's still not verified but it should work... I'll try it this weekend because I'm very busy now.





Thanks for the schematic! You're great!

Davide

[frequencycentral]

^^^

R1 looks wrong to me. It should connect directly to the emitter of the transistor.

By the way, out of my over-developed sense of irony, I used a NE5532 low noise opamp. 

[guitarman89]

oh yeah, thanks for the catch! Tomorrow I will post a correct version! I'm very scared and tired: there are few hour between me and my exam (analisi matematica 2= math. analysis 2, E.E.)

I will use 4558, or tl082 or -72; in my next order i will pick up some ne5532, because in many application they are more useful than 4558!
For the NPN, can a 2n2222 work well?It should not be very noiseless. I have a great amount of trannies to try in it, including old Ge and old Si (VHF, UHF). I saved them from my grandma's spring cleaning...

[birt]

how about a second noise source to the filter for a whining noise? with a volume control in between. for wind under doors and between buildings :p

[chi_boy]

Rick!

Thanks for the clip!  That thing is wild!

Is the pulsing portion of the sound. Generated by the quacky filter?  I had a hard time distiguishing the changes in the clip.

Birt; regarding the whining, I was playing with a 555 chip last night and found some varying pitch tones, but not really a whine. You have any thoughts for a filter to get a whine?  Something like an car alternator whine would be interesting. I'm actually going to try an LFO and some filtering with the 555 to see what I can find. 

- George

[frequencycentral]

The first 30 seconds of the clip are just the Wind Machine. The rest of the clip is more an example of what you can do with it with a bit of additional audio processing. The phaser is set to a pretty slow sweep and just left like that. The pulsing to which you refer is a tremolo pedal, I'm just tweaking the speed and depth a little. That's fed into a delay with a lot of repeats and heavily wet mix, with the delay time tweaked a bit.

[guitarman89]

Here the correct layout (i wish), this afternoon with soldering iron in hand i'm going to build it



there is an error in the bill of material: 4550->4558 (well known dual opamp)

[R.G.]

By the way, the old PAIA surf machine - I forget the actual name - used a set of three relaxation oscillators to make a control voltage for a filter. I think you could use one CMOS Schmitt trigger gates package (http://geofex.com/Article_Folders/LFOs/psuedorandom.htm) to generate a randomish-but-repeating control voltage for controlling something like a Dr.Q or other voltage/current controlled filter to get a more automated sound.

[deathfaces]

By the way, the old PAIA surf machine - I forget the actual name - used a set of three relaxation oscillators to make a control voltage for a filter. I think you could use one CMOS Schmitt trigger gates package (http://geofex.com/Article_Folders/LFOs/psuedorandom.htm) to generate a randomish-but-repeating control voltage for controlling something like a Dr.Q or other voltage/current controlled filter to get a more automated sound.

this just wrinkled my brain. i've got a 40106 around here somewhere, i'm going to try and breadboard this

[guitarman89]

I'm writing to you while a sweet wind sound blow out from the speakers of my pc...
the layout is now verified! I'm swapping the transistor. In fact the sound that you have is extremly conditioned by the transistor. I've tried metal can bc208c but it doesn't satisfied me because it's too loud. So i tried another metal can (from my father collection) a bfy50 with the collector's bottom plate and pins golded but it's too trebly. I have my optimal situation with bc238b and bc547. If i can i will post some samples!

[frequencycentral]

Cool. You've probably found out by now that the output is super-hot! It's probably worth adding a 100k log pot volume control at the output if you plan to feed it through guitar effects. Then feed it through your Phase 90 and Zombie Chorus and post some soundclips!

[guitarman89]

I can't add it now but I'll do soon! It's amazing with phase 90. The Zombie Chorus add some particular tones like a sea-in-a-shell. With my pedalboard now I can emulate wind and seawaves... now I can write "done" near one of my DIY dreams... Thanks Rick!

[timd]

Has anyone thought of a way to put an input on this so that it can be used on a pedalboard? Think of the live possibilities...stepping on this thing for an intro, outro, bridge, etc.

[Earthscum]

Just build an onboard mixer. Guitar in -> mix -> Sweet sounds out. 

[timd]

I haven't touched an onboard mixer yet. Easy?