Fuzzbox, Distortion, Phaser, Chorus, Echo and other Guitar Effects Info

When you are listening to the brain-numbing easy listening station at work during the day, Google is probably running the radio station.

Check out the Google SS32, which is a state of the art automated playlist control system.

I’ve seen a lot of misinformation written about true bypass switching, and little of it is confirmed by the actual measurements that I have made on the currently available switches and multiple pedal setups.
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RoHS = Restriction of Hazardous Substances

Its impact in pedal construction has to do with banning lead from being used in solder, circuit boards and chip construction.

Read the 12 Myths about RoHS:

http://www.sigcon.com/Pubs/news/10_01.htm

Can you hear the difference between digital and analog mixing systems? Digidesign, the owner of the ProTools computer recording software, wants to know and has posted some clips to allow the curious to test digital vs. analog. Check it out:

ProTools vs. Analog mixing

Separate Bass and Treble Controls for the BMP
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Barbarello Fuzz from Pop Electronics
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Here’s the pedal tutorial of the day… Greg Koch, who is a great guitar player with an oddball sense of humor, gives us a lesson on using a delay (among other things). Enjoy!

MicMix (now defunct) produced a flanger in the late 1970s that had an unusual feature…  the delay could be controlled by the envelope of the input signal.  This made for some unusual effects!

The Dynaflanger is probably most famous from its use by Frank Zappa.

Courtesy of the original designer, here are the schematics:

http://www.ka-electronics.com/images/Dynaflanger_Tile1.JPG

http://www.ka-electronics.com/images/Dynaflanger_Tile2.JPG

http://www.ka-electronics.com/images/Dynaflanger_Tile3.JPG

http://www.ka-electronics.com/images/Dynaflanger_Tile4.JPG 

Be warned, each file is about 4Mb!

He now sells THAT Corp. chips in small quantities for  hobbyists so visit his main page at http://www.ka-electronics.com/

In the previous post about recycling parts from old CFL bulbs, a comment was made about being careful to not break the glass envelope of the bulb, which will release the mercury that is required to produce the illumination.

This is certainly a precaution we all want to be aware of, but there is good news on that front. Wal-Mart has announced that it is requiring its vendors to reduce mercury content in the bulbs that it sells. Most of the bulbs at WM will be about 2.5 milligrams, which is half of the 5mg recommended by the NEMA guidelines.

Read more at http://walmartfacts.com/articles/5018.aspx

Did you ever wonder what was in the base of one of the new compact fluorescent bulbs? The enclosure of a burned out bulb is easily pried apart to reveal a circuit board and a collection of parts.

There are 3 inductors, several nice film capacitors, a couple of unmarked transistors and a 10uF/200v electrolytic! There are also numerous small resistors and diodes.

We might as well recycle some of these parts into pedals or amps… Wal-Mart estimates they will sell 100 million of the bulbs in the next few years so there will be plenty of parts to recycle.