SC-1 Mic Preamp NOW ON SALE!!!!

After many months of development, testing, troubleshooting, frustration, problems, and accomplishments... the SC-1 mic preamp kit, PSU-1848 power supply kit and power transformer kits are now available for sale!

Click here to ORDER

Photo of a finished SC-1 mic preamp kit!  (Note: XLR jacks and wires shown on picture not included in the kit.)

Features:
- Low-Noise, transformerless, High-Quality Mic Preamp
- All solid-state design, using chipsets from THAT Corp and Burr-Brown
- Soft-start, slow ramp-on +48V phantom power
- Crystal clear Red LED indicator for phantom power
- Electronically balanced input and output stages
- 12-position Grayhill gain selector switch
- Gain range from +6 to +72dB, in 6dB increments
- Input RFI protection
- Input clamping protection
- Output surge protection circuit
- Output RFI protection
... read more...

Download PDF file of Assembly Guide/Kit Instructions

Related products like the PSU-1848 Power Supply Kit, Power Transformer Kit, Power Control Kit are also available for sale. Click here.
 Thursday, November 30, 2006
Build your own Stompboxes!
Friday, December 01, 2006 4:10:27 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) (  |  )
This is probably one of the best site on the internet for building guitar stompboxes and effects. Kits are available, along with ready-made PCBs. 

You can build Amps, Bass Effects, Boosters, Routers, Compressors, Distortion boxes, EQ Tone Control, Filters, Modulators and Echo, Noise Generators, Octave, Phase Shifters, Power Supplies, Reverbs, Tremolo Circuits, Wah Wah, and others.

Projects have cool names like Little Gem, Ruby Amp, Rangemaster, May Queen Booster, etc...

Schematics are available, along with soundclips, and photos of the finished project. I think everyone, even those with little or no electronics experience can build these projects because they are simple, safe (low voltage, 9V usually) and small. Of course, it's also cheap so if it didn't work out, it's no big loss.

PDF files are available with the board artwork, parts list and wiring diagram. So what are you waiting for? Start building! Go create something!

Here are some sample pics to get you started/excited. Okay... now go visit the site and go create something!
 



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Attention: Moogheads... Builld your own Modular Synths
Thursday, November 30, 2006 5:03:11 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) (  |  |  )

Moogheads, Tubeheads, VCOVandals, VCFFreaks, DCOOverlords... let's build some modular synths! Get your soldering irons hot, open up your browsers to Digikey and Mouser and your favorite surplus store because you'll be building some wicked synths, old  school style. Yup.. old school style, without PIC programming or embedded firmware that a bunch of codewarriors just programmed. No siree!... we're going to be pushing, bending, forcing electrons to do the work... not some silicon nerd that's just faking it.

You can buy ready-made units from here, pick and match what you need, wait 4 weeks, and then wait for Mr.Brown to deliver your packages. Then you'll be able to create sounds like this.

If you can't wait that long, or want the excitement of DIY, you can buy the ready-made PCBs, add a few parts and there you have it.  Look at all the stuff you can build.

This site is run by Ken Stone.
Schematics, parts list, and description and operation of the circuit are pain-stakingly written on the site. This is an excellent, excellent website! Check out Ken Stone's Modular Synth website.

Some pics to get your blood going...



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 Wednesday, November 29, 2006
How to create professional looking chassis
Thursday, November 30, 2006 2:46:19 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) ( )
So you finished your project and it's now in a 1u or 2u rack chassis. Very nice.

However, the problem is nobody else except you know what all those knobs and switches are for. You need a way to paint labels on thos knobs and switches so it looks like a commercial unit.

You can use a service like FrontPanelExpress and have them create the front panel for you. They'll take care of drilling the holes, and labeling them by engraving the text on the aluminum plate. The result is a very professional front panel. They even provide you with a CAD software so you can layout and create all kinds of holes and openings (including D-sub connections, XLR, etc.). Then you submit the resulting file and you bare aluminum  front panel to them and they'll ship you back a finished product.
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 Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Build your own MP3 Player
Tuesday, November 28, 2006 10:28:29 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) (  |  )
This site belongs to an MIT student named Ladyada. The project is a very small MP3 player that can fit inside an Altoids mint can. She calls it the Minty MP3 player.

So for approx. $50, minimal total cost of $25 for parts, and $25 for a PCB, you can have your own MP3 player. This rates high on the geek factor. It's a pretty advanced project so if this is your first DIY, don't pick this as your first DIY project.
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 Monday, November 27, 2006
DIY Headphone Amp Gallery
Monday, November 27, 2006 11:37:15 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) ( )
This guy from Korea can pack a lot of components into a teeny-tiny space. Great work. Some even have tubes while some are surface mounted components... that are hand soldered.


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 Sunday, November 26, 2006
FREE PCB CAD Design software
Monday, November 27, 2006 1:58:07 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) (  |  )
I use a Windows program called "Eagle" made by CadSoft Online. This is a great schematic to PCB design program to use. And best of all, it's FREE (some restrictions apply).  The learning curve is a little steep, but after a few hours of practice, it becomes intuitive and you begin to appreciate it's power and capability.



The Autorouter feature is great. Basically, the program will find the best possible path to connect your components together. Or, you can do it manually but the program still helps you by guiding you when connecting the points together.

Once you're done with your PCB design, you can send it off for manufacturing or prototyping.

UPDATE!!!!   Eagle software can now run on Mac OSX! Woohoo!!!  Caveat is, it's run under X11. But doesn't matter... because the files that I saved on the PC worked just fine when opened on the Mac OSX (X11) version.

Here's some screenshots.

The Eagle control panel running under OSX (X11)



The Board editor

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DIY Midi Controller for use with Sonar, DP, Logic, Live
Sunday, November 26, 2006 11:44:30 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) (  |  )
This is a 32-knob, 16 switch MIDI Controller that can be used with any sequencer, like Sonar, DP, Logic or Ableton Live. By using the MIDI Learn function of your sequencer, and tweaking the knobs, you can train your sequencer to respond to the controls of this DIY MIDI Controller.


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MIDI Drums using DIY triggers
Sunday, November 26, 2006 10:37:47 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) (  |  |  )
Want to have your own electronic drum set but can't afford a Roland set? This guy built his own drum kit using Radio Shack Piezo transducers, some jacks, and a few wires.  Of course, you'd still need the drum machine like a TD-7, but this will save you  hundreds by making your own drum pads.



And the finished drum set...



More information can be found here.
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 Saturday, November 25, 2006
DIY: Building an 1176 Compressor
Saturday, November 25, 2006 9:08:05 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) (  |  )
I haven't DIY'ed for a long time, so to kickstart this hobby again, I decided I'm going to build an 1176 Compressor.

The 1176 is one of the classic compressors in used by almost every recording studio out there. (The other classic compressor is the LA-2A). Bill Putnam designed the 1176, based on the 1108 preamp. Back in 1966, the Field Effect Transistor (FET) was just developed and he's experimenting with the properties of this new device. Basically, think of an FET as a "voltage controlled variable resistor."  The FET has three terminals. Drain, Source, and Gate. The resistance between the Drain and Source can  be varied/controlled by the Gate voltage. So what Mr. Putnam was doing with the FET is using it as a variable resistor to contorl the gain reduction in the circuit.

The output stage of the 1176 is a Class A line level amp, feeding a load of 600 ohms. It's got an output transformer which converts the output from unbalanced to balanced, and also do impedance matching. 

If you don't know or don't want to DIY, you can buy an 1176LN (for Low Noise) compressor for about $1800. Or, you can purchae "virtual" 1176 plugins from $130 to $225 price range. Click here for software plugin versions of the 1176.


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 Thursday, November 23, 2006
How to calibrate your recording levels
Friday, November 24, 2006 3:10:28 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) (  |  )
A few years ago, the common wisdom was to "record as hot as you can." By HOT, I don't mean temperature wise. The wisdom at that time was to record your signal (from your guitar, keyboard, mic, etc.) so that the on-screen digital VU meters on your ProTools, Logic, DP, or Sonar is just hitting 0 dB, but not going over. Everybody knows that as soon as the red light turns on, you'll get clipping and digital clipping sounds nasty... like a fingernail scratching on a blackboard. ... The above argument sounds LOGICAL. There was even talk "you must use all of the bits as much as possible, so 0dB must be 1111111111111111 and that's good since we used up all the bits, nothing got wasted."

But something got forgotten along the way by the people who advised you to record close to 0dB in your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation... just a fancy name for a fast computer optimized for audio recording).
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 Wednesday, November 22, 2006
DIY API Preamp Project
Wednesday, November 22, 2006 6:16:46 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) (  |  )
Just a work in progress.... using a breadboard. API schematics found on the Internet... just google API 312 schematic. You can see the printout of the schematic on the photo. I'm using a Melcor Discrete opamp instead of the original 2520 opamp (which you can't buy unless you have a broken 2520 to surrender to API). Although there are many substitute opamps you can use like the Jensen 990C, Forsell Technologies 992, John Hardy opamp, etc... or if you're really scraping, just use an NE5534 IC chip.
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