I just got a .mix but does not seem to distort

Mono Recalcitrante · Post by **Mono Recalcitrante** » Sun May 20, 2012 5:33 am

Hi there,

I just got a brand new STG .mix but it does not seem to distort.

I have tried with sine and other waves from my AFG and my RS95e I do not hear any distortion. I have also checked in a softwear oscilloscope and do not see any distortion even with all the levels fully up.

Am I missing something? Something to do with calibration of the unit? Should it not be calibrated to distort allready?

Thanks for your help!

DonaldCrunk · Post by **DonaldCrunk** » Sun May 20, 2012 1:05 pm

hi, are you mixing together multiple waveforms in the mixer or just testing by plugging one input in at a time? mine does not do such obvious distortion with only one input, but when two or more or added they start to battle it out and interesting distortion and harmonics result.

youve probably tried that, but thought i'd check.

ignatius · Post by **ignatius** » Sun May 20, 2012 1:51 pm

i think it's more of a saturator than distortion.

Mono Recalcitrante · Post by **Mono Recalcitrante** » Sun May 20, 2012 2:01 pm

DonaldCrunk wrote:hi, are you mixing together multiple waveforms in the mixer or just testing by plugging one input in at a time? mine does not do such obvious distortion with only one input, but when two or more or added they start to battle it out and interesting distortion and harmonics result.

youve probably tried that, but thought i'd check.

Thanks for your reply Donald!

I thought the any chanel of the .mix distorted if you go above 3 oÃ‚Â´clock

. This is what I understand form this quote from STGs website:

"As calibrated to factory standard, 2 o'clock on the dial is approximately unity gain, at 3 o'clock it begins to clip and then distortion presents itself above that input".

I am also sure I have seen some oscilloscope videos in this forum (I can not find them now) where you can see a sine becoming a square just by going thought the .mix. And that must be just one channel as it was just a sine.

Any ideas anyone?

Mono Recalcitrante · Post by **Mono Recalcitrante** » Sun May 20, 2012 2:02 pm

double post, sorry.

DonaldCrunk · Post by **DonaldCrunk** » Mon May 21, 2012 1:25 am

my modular is unfortunately not accessible right now or i would check my results with one input only. i usually do not use the mixer in this way so my memory is foggy, but i'm pretty sure you should hear some clipping of some sort.

'saturation', as ignatius said, is a much more accurate way to describe the sonic effect of the mixer rather than 'distortion' - it is not a boss DS1 by any means - but i believe the gain increase should be obvious. i suggest emailing Suit -

erwill at suitandtieguy dot com

suitandtieguy · Post by **suitandtieguy** » Mon May 21, 2012 5:51 am

it won't specifically become a square at 3 o'clock, it will just begin to distort.

a sine wave at max input will look like this. input on top, output on bottom:

Mono Recalcitrante · Post by **Mono Recalcitrante** » Mon May 21, 2012 7:05 am

suitandtieguy wrote:it won't specifically become a square at 3 o'clock, it will just begin to distort.

a sine wave at max input will look like this. input on top, output on bottom:

Mine still looks (and sounds) like a sine wave but with more gain! I will try to post some pictures of what I am talking about later today.

Mono Recalcitrante · Post by **Mono Recalcitrante** » Mon May 21, 2012 8:04 am

Let me show you what I mean:

This is a RS95e throught the euro .mix at 12 oÃ‚Â´clock:

And the same sine throught the .mix fully clockwise:

As you can see the sine is still a sine and there is no distortion just more gain. this is not normal, is it?

I need some help please!!

diophantine · Post by **diophantine** » Mon May 21, 2012 8:22 am

What is the amplitude of your original sine wave?

EMwhite · Post by **EMwhite** » Mon May 21, 2012 9:11 am

I have the same mild concern, but with the MU version. One of the other guys here emailed me and said something about not needing to get one of the MOS-LAB 921 repros because his synth.com OSCs when pumped through the STK mixer really really really had the vintage tone he was looking for.

The first thing I did was take my VOS (Voyager Old School) effects loop (from OSCs to Mixer then back into Filter -> internal VCA) and while louder, slightly (using the top jack on the STK Mixer), it didn't sound much different at all. (but in fairness, I spent all of 10 minutes on it)

I was convinced it was just me, or needed some other patching, level, etc. but an answer here would certainly help me as well. Thx for posting this.

felix le chat · Post by **felix le chat** » Mon May 21, 2012 11:48 am

I don't remember very well... isn't there a trim potentiometer on the PCB for setting up the clipping level?

Flc

mikecameron · Post by **mikecameron** » Mon May 21, 2012 11:50 am

I think it's highly dependent on the level of the initial signal. Some oscs in my system are fairly quiet and do not distort, even at full CW rotation, but my AFG's are hotter than hell and will distort above 12'oclock.

EMwhite · Post by **EMwhite** » Mon May 21, 2012 11:57 am

That may very well be it in my case. I have a Moog FreqBox with an OSC that you can cook over; maybe a different result. I'll attenuate it just so the mixer doesn't melt (!!) and see what comes out of the other end.

Mono Recalcitrante · Post by **Mono Recalcitrante** » Mon May 21, 2012 2:15 pm

mikecameron wrote:I think it's highly dependent on the level of the initial signal. Some oscs in my system are fairly quiet and do not distort, even at full CW rotation, but my AFG's are hotter than hell and will distort above 12'oclock.

diophantine wrote:What is the amplitude of your original sine wave?

I do not think it has to be with the level of my oscillators. I also have a AFG and does not distort either (nor do the Anti or the Pittsburg).

suitandtieguy · Post by **suitandtieguy** » Tue May 22, 2012 5:25 am

if you aren't getting enough distortion, or are getting too much distortion, just adjust trimpot R20 until you're happy with it.

it's hard for me to tell what's going on without knowing the input signal levels.

Mono Recalcitrante · Post by **Mono Recalcitrante** » Tue May 22, 2012 3:11 pm

suitandtieguy wrote:if you aren't getting enough distortion, or are getting too much distortion, just adjust trimpot R20 until you're happy with it.

it's hard for me to tell what's going on without knowing the input signal levels.

OK I did have a little play with trimpot R20 and know it does what it is suppose to do!

Only played with it for some minutes but first impresions are very good! Now I can here a pleasant difference when I go past 3 oÃ‚Â´cock!

I am supprised it wasnÃ‚Â´t calibrated to do this to start with, because as I said is a brand new module.

This is the same sine wave I posted before (RS95e sine through euro .mix) with the .mix channel and master fully clockwise:

I am happy now!!

EMwhite · Post by **EMwhite** » Tue May 22, 2012 7:45 pm

Any harm/risk to tweaking this too far or is it merely that the sound will distort from none to wonderful to terrible sounding with loudness obviously relative to level of final output?

Any guidance as to where it should be tuned (in your case or 'from factory') or is it just the matter of viewing output on a scope as shown in the screen shots above.

Finally, any guidance with regard to mixing voltages vs. mixing audio/outputs from OSCs. (this last question is from the beginning in me having not owned any mixer before except for a low cost Yamaha and a high cost Allen & Heath, neither of which were used for CV or audio prior to Filter, etc.)

Thanks all.

suitandtieguy · Post by **suitandtieguy** » Wed May 23, 2012 5:23 am

Mono Recalcitrante wrote:I am supprised it wasnÃ‚Â´t calibrated to do this to start with, because as I said is a brand new module.

i calibrate everything against a reference Synthesizers.com VCO here in the studio.

your scope images do not have voltage calibrations on them, so they don't really tell me what i need to know to say anything further. i don't know what voltages your AS VCO puts out, so i can't even begin to comment.

EMwhite wrote:Any harm/risk to tweaking this too far

nope.

EMwhite wrote:Any guidance as to where it should be tuned (in your case or 'from factory') or is it just the matter of viewing output on a scope as shown in the screen shots above.

i calibrate it so that at full positive output something around 2 o clock or so on the channel input is unity gain.

btw the other trimmer is the gain amp bias. it will offset the signal up or down so don't mess with it or it'll do stupid stuff.

EMwhite wrote:Finally, any guidance with regard to mixing voltages vs. mixing audio/outputs from OSCs.

nope. mix away, it's very straightforward!

exwel · Post by **exwel** » Sun Jun 03, 2012 2:54 pm

What module is this?
http://stgsoundlabs.com/products/mixer_mu.htm ??

EMwhite · Post by **EMwhite** » Sun Jun 03, 2012 3:47 pm

That's the one we are talking about here. Well to be specific, the thread started with the ".mix" which is the Euro mixer that STG makes. I asked if the same applies to the MU format (the one you gave the link to above).

From what I understand it's very similar (diff having to do with less real estate on the panel in the case of the Euro version).

JohnLRice · Post by **JohnLRice** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 2:23 am

Here is a quick and horribly made video that might be useful to someone, maybe?

[video][/video]

Henfield · Post by **Henfield** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:14 pm

Great video JLR!!! I will have to get one of these soon!

NYMo · Post by **NYMo** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 11:03 pm

Thats the mixer in question !

JohnLRice · Post by **JohnLRice** » Sun Nov 25, 2012 12:32 am

Henfield wrote:Great video JLR!!! I will have to get one of these soon!

Thanks Henfield!

Here's a new demo that was inspired by a discussion on the Moog forum:

[video][/video]

MUFF WIGGLER

MUFF WIGGLER

I just got a .mix but does not seem to distort

I just got a .mix but does not seem to distort