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Dunwich Amplification General Discussion

#2,541
Played the WF125B at high gain last night for the first time. I normally find high gain sounds useless, but this pedal is amazing at high gain, again because of this amazing blend circuit. You lose no articulation. Unbelievable how versatile this pedal is. Low gain, barely there sounds incredible. Clean boost sounds amazing. And now high gain is musical and useful. I love the fact that there are so few of these out there. But Dunwich is doing a disservice to the bass playing community by not putting this one into regular production.

And back to the amazing blend. I don't know from who designed what into whose pedal, but this blend circuit should be the end all be all. It's been perfected as far as I'm concerned.
 
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#2,542
2010P said:
Played the WF125B at high gain last night for the first time. I normally find high gain sounds useless, but this pedal is amazing at high gain, again because of this amazing blend circuit. You lose no articulation. Unbelievable how versatile this pedal is. Low gain, barely there sounds incredible. Clean boost sounds amazing. And now high gain is musical and useful. I love the fact that there are so few of these out there. But Dunwich is doing a disservice to the bass playing community by not putting this one into regular production.

And back to the amazing blend. I don't know from who designed what into whose pedal, but this blend circuit should be the end all be all. It's been perfected as far as I'm concerned.
Click to expand...
fwiw I believe Dunwich contributed to the design of the blend on the Damnation Audio MBD-1
 
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#2,544
Looks something like this:

39309676_10105349102876841_2561303957422997504_n.jpg


The output of the Treble control is sent to one side of the Blend and a MOSFET buffered signal from the input is sent to the other side of the blend. Then the sum is sent into a fixed gain MOSFET boost.
 
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#2,545
dunwichamps said:
Looks something like this:

View attachment 3119392

The output of the Treble control is sent to one side of the Blend and a MOSFET buffered signal from the input is sent to the other side of the blend. Then the sum is sent into a fixed gain MOSFET boost.
Click to expand...
Everyone should copy this design in their blends, assuming it will work with their circuit. But seriously, best blend I've ever played. Super natural, no phase issues, and the best part is I can blend in more clean than normal and no buzzing bees sound.
 
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#2,546
2010P said:
Everyone should copy this design in their blends, assuming it will work with their circuit. But seriously, best blend I've ever played. Super natural, no phase issues, and the best part is I can blend in more clean than normal and no buzzing bees sound.
Click to expand...

It probably would work to some degree. One of the reasons that is works well is that at the summing node the relative volume of the effected and dry signals is very close, if the effected signal was really loud I would have had to amplify it first and then compensate for the additional phase shift.
 
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#2,547
2010P said:
Everyone should copy this design in their blends, assuming it will work with their circuit. But seriously, best blend I've ever played. Super natural, no phase issues, and the best part is I can blend in more clean than normal and no buzzing bees sound.
Click to expand...
Having two audible layers sitting on top of each other is one of the biggest flaws in many blend circuits. They just cram the two singles together, which really isn't blending them. A couple years ago when I had a custom blend built for me, the guy at Broughton explained it to me. This one here is far more elegant because it is a more complex circuit, but if I understand it right, the signals need to go through some kind of tone circuit to glue them together properly. Something with just a pot that bleeds from one signal to another, or two volume pots (one for each signal) will always sound like the "bees" thing you are talking about.
 
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#2,548
socialleper said:
Having two audible layers sitting on top of each other is one of the biggest flaws in many blend circuits. They just cram the two singles together, which really isn't blending them. A couple years ago when I had a custom blend built for me, the guy at Broughton explained it to me. This one here is far more elegant because it is a more complex circuit, but if I understand it right, the signals need to go through some kind of tone circuit to glue them together properly. Something with just a pot that bleeds from one signal to another, or two volume pots (one for each signal) will always sound like the "bees" thing you are talking about.
Click to expand...
I don't understand all the electronics, but whatever Nick did with this one was a grand slam and needs to be studied by all builders who are interested in usable and musical blend circuits.
 
#2,549
socialleper said:
Having two audible layers sitting on top of each other is one of the biggest flaws in many blend circuits. They just cram the two singles together, which really isn't blending them. A couple years ago when I had a custom blend built for me, the guy at Broughton explained it to me. This one here is far more elegant because it is a more complex circuit, but if I understand it right, the signals need to go through some kind of tone circuit to glue them together properly. Something with just a pot that bleeds from one signal to another, or two volume pots (one for each signal) will always sound like the "bees" thing you are talking about.
Click to expand...

Usually the convention is to first match the raw phase relationship between clean and effected signals. Rough estimate is to say that for each inverting gain stage the phase is flipping by 180 degrees. So if you have an even number of inverting stages you dont need to flip the phase of the clean signal, if you have an odd number of inverting stages you need to flip the phase of the clean signal

Now beyond that generally you wanna low pass the clean signal to remove some of the clank and string noise and the dirty signal itself is likely somewhat high passed. Basic idea is to create some space between the two signals so you dont have excessive overlap and comb filtering.

However, I didnt bother with filtering the clean signal in the WF125B. It just seems to sit well as is with the effected signal.
 
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#2,550
dunwichamps said:
Usually the convention is to first match the raw phase relationship between clean and effected signals. Rough estimate is to say that for each inverting gain stage the phase is flipping by 180 degrees. So if you have an even number of inverting stages you dont need to flip the phase of the clean signal, if you have an odd number of inverting stages you need to flip the phase of the clean signal

Now beyond that generally you wanna low pass the clean signal to remove some of the clank and string noise and the dirty signal itself is likely somewhat high passed. Basic idea is to create some space between the two signals so you dont have excessive overlap and comb filtering.

However, I didnt bother with filtering the clean signal in the WF125B. It just seems to sit well as is with the effected signal.
Click to expand...
The blend I have has a phase switch for what you are discussing. I don't think I've ever had to use it. One way it sounds "normal" and the other is it quiet. I remember reading something about certain distortion pedals being out of phase with each other if you chain them. I haven't run into that.
It has a tone LPF for rolling back the highs, but it impacts both signals. I wanted as small a foot print as possible, so went with applying it to both if I wanted to take some of sizzle out of a drive. I don't know if you have ever tinkered with an older COG TK-421X, but it has a blend with a LPF for the clean and a HPF for the distorted channel. That way you can get the highs of one and the lows of the either. It is a slick pedal.
 
#2,551
WF 125B #10. The Crème de la Crème... I'd contacted Nick about a WF 125B weekend before last and now... its here!! Although sold out, the Dunwich master builder was able to put together another one. Nick does not mess around and gets it done. Outstanding work!

20180818_190216-(2).jpg
 
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#2,556
socialleper said:
Hmm. I didn't know he was doing offs of those. Usually he only does them in batches.
Click to expand...

Earlier in the thread there was mention about the possibility of more and Nick said he can make more later. So, I thought it couldn't hurt to ask. Turns out he still had an enclosure and I happened to ask at the right time! :thumbsup:
20180819_183227.jpg
 
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