a good book?

P

Pony!

New member
Hi folks,

I'd like to get into the DIY arena, but unfortunately I'm a little lacking in the knowledge area. Is there a good book I can pick up somewhere or a decent beginner's kit I can learn on?

I dream of some day building myself a nice solid state preamp.
 
Paia has been around forever, it's cheap stuff but it's what it is:
http://www.paia.com/KRU_kits.asp

this is a classic book, not sure if it's really worth it:
http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Projects-Musicians-Craig-Anderton/dp/0825695023/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

here's a page on my website on a kit tube amp I made that I'm crazy about:
http://musicmusicmusic.cn/tubeamppg1.html

I don't use a preamp, I made a passive preamp, that is, and unpowered box that has a volume pot and inputs and outputs, to me that's the way to go as there's no noise... and then straight into the amp.

Preamps were only needed when sources weren't loud enough, but most things today like CD players, tape, mixers, synths, computer outputs etc are loud enough to not need any boost. You still need preamps for turntables, mics and guitars though.

You can find most what you want through Google... search for stuff like "diy passive mixer"... do they still make books?
 
There is always noise, even in a passive mixer there is at least thermal noise. But since a passive mixer can only attenuate, the following active stage's noise will be relatively larger than it would be if the preceding unit sent a line-level signal. Which approach is better? It depends on the application specifics.

Anyway, I did not see where OP was asking about a line mixer, chances are he/she is interested in building a microphone amplifier.

OP, there are a lot of existing designs as schematics or kits. Can you be a bit more specific about what you want to build? Are you looking for a cookbook-type approach or do you want to learn to design a circuit from discrete components? Those are very different levels of knowledge.
 
A passive preamp is basically a piece of wire. They only take away by resistance... there is no way for a passive preamp to boost anything.

To me it's the perfect 1st project for someone getting into DIY, much easier than starting with anything powered.

I would have built one decades ago if I knew how much difference it made, it was the biggest bang for the buck improvement so far, much bigger than other pieces of gear I paid thousands for, and it only costs peanuts.
 
dintymoore said:
I would have built one decades ago if I knew how much difference it made, it was the biggest bang for the buck improvement so far, much bigger than other pieces of gear I paid thousands for, and it only costs peanuts.
Click to expand...

There is little difference in the ultimate noise performance in passive and active summing. While the passive mixer does of course not amplify, unless the resulting attenuated level is sufficient as the ultimate level there will be a following active stage. I presume you plug your passive mixer into something? There you go.

We could do a detailed analysis of the noise performance of passive and active summing if you like . . . probably the biggest disadvantage to passive summing is a shunt resistor is generally used to achieve the required output impedance, which results in larger network loss than would be achieved by an inverting summing amplifier. Therefore, since the resulting signal level to the following amplifier is lower than it would be with a summing network directly feeding an inverting input of an opamp, the overall noise performance of the passive mixer would be worse.

This can be avoided by locating the makeup gain stage as close to the passive summing network as possible so that a higher output impedance is not troublesome. Ultimately, that becomes the same practical circuit as the active summing network, with almost the same performance. But that is not what most people build as a DIY passive mixer.

Also, if you are building a true mixer and not just a passive summing box, you will have significant additional loss to the panpot. That could require the ultimate makeup gain to be greater than 40dB, perhaps much more. That further harms the noise performance vs. an active mixer that would buffer the fader and panpot individually, thus avoiding too large a drop at any one point. The same is true of the EQ section, if present.

Ultimately, the selection of passive vs. active vs. digital summing is probably one of the least important aspects of the signal chain. I can demonstrate that handily if you have some source files you would like mixed.

None of that has much to do with the OP's question. A passive mixer is only a good first project if someone actually needs a passive mixer. If one needs a microphone amplifier it is entirely useless.
 
I the PAiA Kits a fairly good , I have built a couple and am very happy with them and most all of them are powered by a 12v ac wallmart so there is not much chance of shocking yerself to death and the instruction manual is so detailed and step by step that even a monkey can follow it .... it even has a pretty straight forware explanation of each stage of the curcuit which will give you some insight on how the curcuit works ....

The problem with them is they are a bit over priced , well at least to me as I am used to designing and building my own Curcuits and doing it on the cheap ....

I have built the "Stack In a Box" Tube guitar preamp .....

http://www.paia.com/proddetail.asp?prod=9210K

with a couple simple mods this preamp has an awesome guitar sound and has features galore , it has a DI out ,FX Loop, Speaker simulators , SS and Tube drive , Phaze reverse and more, it"s only draw back is it doesn"t have Tone controlls so I got this to give me tone controlls ....


http://www.paia.com/proddetail.asp?prod=9303K&cat=27

It is a 4 Band parametric EQ with Boost/Cut on each Band and adjustable Frequencies on each band with up to 16db of boost and cut and since each band can be overlapped you can get up to 32db of Boost/Cut .....


Cheers
 
I've always wondered what these were like:
http://www.londonpower.com/catalog/index.php
The impression is that the company isn't hokey.

And Torres looks great though not cheap:
http://www.torresengineering.com/

A sad note is that in the decades previous tons of us learned about soldering and kits from Radio Shack, and that company has changed into a store that mainly sells radio controlled cars and phones in 100 colors, and the electronics part is almost extinct.
 
thanks for all the replies. MS, I'm not looking to build a mixer... just a simple preamp... but not yet. I want to learn as much as I can about electronics design which is why I asked about a book. I'd like to gain a bit of knowledge before dropping money on a kit and testing that knowledge out. That electronics projects for musicians book looks good... anyone have any more ideas?
 
PAiA is a great place. Sadly the founder passed away a few years ago. I built their "hot springs" (a Craig Anderton design) buying only the manual and the board, and using my own parts. That is an awesome spring reverb. Built many of the Craig Anderton EPFM projects as well. The Craig Anderton book is a very good place for you to start, as he goes into a lot of detail about the circuits, which are all fairly easy to build. Depending on your level of skill the ARRL Amateur Radio Handbook is also a good place for info about related topics. (Power supply, impedance etc.)

As for a preamp check out (tube and transformer all the way.)

http://www.musiciansgig.com/mila/MILA1-Updated.pdf

MILA-1 started off here: can be one or two tubes, there is a complete part list available as well, many links contained within this thread: I am in the process of gathering parts for this and several other projects.

http://www.prodigy-pro.com/diy/index.php?action=printpage;topic=6711.0


Various microphone preamp projects and discussion: (not in any particular order)

http://www.prodigy-pro.com/diy/index.php?action=printpage;topic=16909.0

Here are a bunch of links, some are complete kits, some just PCB's some just p2p schematics depending on your wallet, skill, time and patience. Depending on the above, and what parts you may find in the basement, you can spend anywhere from US$50 to US$1000 on many of these:

http://geek.scorpiorising.ca/MicPreamp.html

http://www.borbelyaudio.com/products.asp

http://www.seventhcircleaudio.com/index.htm

http://www.welbornelabs.com/index.html

http://dripelectronics.com/home.html

http://boozhoundlabs.com/microphone-preamp-aikido/

(PCB for above:

http://glass-ware.stores.yahoo.net/newhardware.html )

www.gyraf.dk
 
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Thanks a billion dinty... I've started reading that site and I'm gonna request a catalog tonight.
 
Electronic Projects for Musicians by Craig Anderton is pretty cool. I've had it since it came out in the 80's.

EPFM-lg.jpg


http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Projects-Musicians-Craig-Anderton/dp/0825695023

:)
 
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