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Re: Pat's Mic (Fetzer Valve Mic)


 

I love this ¡°Fetzervalve¡± idea and would certainly build a couple - I regret that I¡¯m not very technical and have no ¡°feedback¡± to offer but I so appreciate this group (even though I mostly lurk in the shadows!)

I want to express support and encouragement to you, Homero, in pursuing this - if it means anything I¡¯ll gladly be in line to obtain a couple PCBs early on

Cheers, Phil

On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 9:18 AM Homero Leal <homero.leal@...> wrote:
Thank you Germar! The final version of the PCB will be available?as a PCBWay Shared Project. Just would like to have any feedback from the group before it goes final.

Regards!

HL

El mi¨¦, 13 abr 2022 a la(s) 03:39, Germar Tischler (germar.tischler@...) escribi¨®:
Hey?Homero,
what a lovely way to remember P@T and a great idea too. I have only ever used the fetzervalve (FETs or Valve) as a guitar pedal and never would have dreamed of using it in a mic! Any change of you creating PCBs of this?

Kind regards,
Germar Tischler

On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 3:22 AM Homero Leal <homero.leal@...> wrote:
HI folks!

As some of you may know, one of the dreams of our friend Patrick Davis (aka. P@T, Enjoybiking) was the idea of designing a mic that could have the "tube" sound, but that could also be very cheap to build.

We discussed the topic many times, and the idea of having a solid state tube emulation was a really fascinating option that was always on the table.

Some time ago I found a paper from Dimitri Danyuk called "Triode Emulator", and in this paper he proposes very a simple way to "emulate" triode behavior using a JFET with very specific values for drain and source resistors.

Later, I found this page:



Which provides a way to calculate (look at the end of the page) the required drain and source resistor values using some JFET parameters like:
  • VP
  • IDSS
And also the input voltage of the circuit (VCC).

So, I decided to try a design using the Dimitri Danyuk approach, with the values calculated from the Fetzer Valve page.

You could find the schematic here:

/g/MicBuilders/files/Homero%20Leal%27s%20Files/Pat%27s%20Mic/Pat%27s%20Mic.png

Circuit design uses a Charge Amplifier input stage, a JFET middle stage (providing the "valve" tone"), and finally a impedance balanced output stage with a Sallen Key HPF at about 19.XHz.

Also, a custom voltage regulator is used, using a BC549C NPN and a zener, very similar to the one used on some very known chinese mics. This VR provides about 9.4V for VCC.

I used two drain resistors and two source resistors, so it could be easier to approach the right values calculated by the Fetzer Valve page, by using the combination of two resistors.

As the JFET stage may have an amplification level on the signal, I also used two capacitors for the charge amplifier, this way you could reduce output level by placing an additional capacitor (some math required).

I know the design may have some room for improvement, but I can confirm I have working mic with this design, and it seems to my untrained ear, that it has a very sleek and warm sound, very similar to the sound of the valve mics.

For the build, I used a cheap Zramo donor mic from Amazon, which that very nice 26mm electret capsule we have talked about before.

I decided to name this schematic? "Pat's Mic"... in memory of our friend and former member of this group, P@T?(Patrick Davis, R.I.P.)

This post is for your review and consideration, and please if you have any ideas for improvement, don't hesitate to let me know.

Thank you, and kind regards!

HL







--
Phil Manning
~ classic recording studio
~piano tuning & service
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Pickering shop/office: 416.907.3562
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