S
soundchaser59
Reluctant Commander
Is it really "all analog" like they say? After getting to know my Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive and Analog Chorus pedals pretty well, I saw in another thread some doubts expressed about what constitutes "all analog" vs. "digital" or "solid state." So I emailed the company and asked them to explain what they mean when they make that claim.
Being a small company, maybe 30 or 40 employees, it just happened to turn out the reply came from the president of the company. I thought I would share his abbreviated take on what they mean by saying "all analog," and then we can all use this info to further evaluate our own gear and our own persepctive. I'm very happy with my VL pedals and my Traynor amp, so I dont mind saying that it's a darn good product, and some people have done a lot worse with some of the other brands!
Here is the reply I received:
*********************************************************
Hi Gary,
Let me refer you to the following two articles on Wikipedia which provide fairly
clear basic definitions.
Analog signal-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_signal
Digital signal-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_signal
With respect to guitar effects, a digital effect requires converting the signal
from the analog to digital domain, then subsequently converting back to analog. There are a number of different distortion/noise artifacts that come as a result of the conversion process. Some are inherent to digital coding, because the signal varies continuously and we only sample it at discrete intervals, then best fit it to a limited number of bits of resolution. Other problems are caused by imperfections in the conversion system. Examples of these are nonlinearity in the values representing the signal--this means that say the value should increment once per 1.0mV, but in fact some go up after 0.9mV and some after 1.1mV. Also there will be jitter to the clock--our 50kHz sampling rate should sample every 20uS, but instead the point in time when the sampling occurs varies by +/- 50nS.
This is a pretty simplistic overview of a complex problem. However, what is
important is that these distortion artifacts resulting from the conversion
process are non-musical. They sound bad!
Nonlinearities in the transfer function of analog processes more typically
result in harmonic distortion. These vary dramatically in character, but some
positive examples are the warmth of tube amplifiers or recordings on analog tape.
Both analog and digital signals can be represented by vacuum tubes, discrete
semiconductors (transistors) or integrated circuits. The presence of any of
these devices is no indication of analog vs digital representation of signals.
To answer your question about Voodoo Lab products in specific, thus far every product we've built has an entirely analog audio signal path. You may correctly refer to your Sparkle Drive as an "analog" pedal.
My final admonition is don't get too worked up about analog, digital, or
whatever the buzzword du jour might be. Use your ears to determine the
suitability of a product to your application. It's art, remember?
Regards,
Josh Fiden
President
www.voodoolab.com
P.S. Feel free to post on the forum.
Quoting GAS <xxxxxxxx@yahoo.com>:
> Can someone at VL answer a question that is bugging people on the forum
> where I post guitar messages? What does it mean when you say "all
> analog"?? Does it mean no chips? no transistors? Only certain stages are
> analog, while the gain or fx is transistor? etc.....
> Is it only my Analog Chorus which can correctly be referred to as "all
> analog"?? Or can I correctly refer to my Sparkle Drive as "all analog" also??
> Thanks for any info you can offer!
Being a small company, maybe 30 or 40 employees, it just happened to turn out the reply came from the president of the company. I thought I would share his abbreviated take on what they mean by saying "all analog," and then we can all use this info to further evaluate our own gear and our own persepctive. I'm very happy with my VL pedals and my Traynor amp, so I dont mind saying that it's a darn good product, and some people have done a lot worse with some of the other brands!
Here is the reply I received:
*********************************************************
Hi Gary,
Let me refer you to the following two articles on Wikipedia which provide fairly
clear basic definitions.
Analog signal-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_signal
Digital signal-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_signal
With respect to guitar effects, a digital effect requires converting the signal
from the analog to digital domain, then subsequently converting back to analog. There are a number of different distortion/noise artifacts that come as a result of the conversion process. Some are inherent to digital coding, because the signal varies continuously and we only sample it at discrete intervals, then best fit it to a limited number of bits of resolution. Other problems are caused by imperfections in the conversion system. Examples of these are nonlinearity in the values representing the signal--this means that say the value should increment once per 1.0mV, but in fact some go up after 0.9mV and some after 1.1mV. Also there will be jitter to the clock--our 50kHz sampling rate should sample every 20uS, but instead the point in time when the sampling occurs varies by +/- 50nS.
This is a pretty simplistic overview of a complex problem. However, what is
important is that these distortion artifacts resulting from the conversion
process are non-musical. They sound bad!
Nonlinearities in the transfer function of analog processes more typically
result in harmonic distortion. These vary dramatically in character, but some
positive examples are the warmth of tube amplifiers or recordings on analog tape.
Both analog and digital signals can be represented by vacuum tubes, discrete
semiconductors (transistors) or integrated circuits. The presence of any of
these devices is no indication of analog vs digital representation of signals.
To answer your question about Voodoo Lab products in specific, thus far every product we've built has an entirely analog audio signal path. You may correctly refer to your Sparkle Drive as an "analog" pedal.
My final admonition is don't get too worked up about analog, digital, or
whatever the buzzword du jour might be. Use your ears to determine the
suitability of a product to your application. It's art, remember?
Regards,
Josh Fiden
President
www.voodoolab.com
P.S. Feel free to post on the forum.
Quoting GAS <xxxxxxxx@yahoo.com>:
> Can someone at VL answer a question that is bugging people on the forum
> where I post guitar messages? What does it mean when you say "all
> analog"?? Does it mean no chips? no transistors? Only certain stages are
> analog, while the gain or fx is transistor? etc.....
> Is it only my Analog Chorus which can correctly be referred to as "all
> analog"?? Or can I correctly refer to my Sparkle Drive as "all analog" also??
> Thanks for any info you can offer!
