Pondering Some New Ideas, Need Some Input

[Jim C]

From gtirard:
"If the amp is using DSP and modeling technologies to provide great sounds, perfect. Ideally I could install 3 amp profiles (let's say SVT, Mesa 400+ and DB751 - or something new?), then select them with one knob, and use other classic EQ controls. The amp should look and feel iike a classic amp, with real knobs and no LCD screen, even if these knobs are just controlling a software and DSP. Well, that's my view of the topic, but I'm sure we all have different opinions."

I'm good with all this but it sounds like the average bassist may not be able to live with the 10 year lifespan.
So now it's back to make the old ones lighter.
It will be interesting to see how Kemper, Spark, Line 6, Jim Bergantino, etc. resolve these issue in the future.
I would think the DSP pedal manufacturers will face the same problems.

 

[newfuture]

I just slapped together a franken-amp for fun. Would be cool to see something commercial along the lines of what I did-

Low power all tube head (5w SE version of a portaflex sb12) with basic EQ and a DI output. That also runs into a class D module capable of an optimistic 2x 300w into 2ohms. Great sounding bedroom amp at 5w, stupid loud @ 300.

All 3 output channels are simultaneously usable, or the power tube can be put in standby to use just the class D fed from the (12ax7) preamp.

 

[jb90]

What about 4 band parametric or at least semi parametric for every band? Like on ex. SSL console? Graphic eqs are awful, at least for my experience. Definitely HPF/LPF knobs too. I guess less is more and great, versatile as possible gear is a thing. Same with cabs.

 

[Hoochie Coochie Man]

The problem with semiconductor component availability is that buyers have no power to influence large manufacturers to not discontinue a component. The last place I worked the purchasing people would alert us to the impending obsolesce of an IC and would notify us of a "last time buy" event of some number of that item. There would be talk of buying stock from "brokers" but that often did not work out. Sometimes we were able to find a suitable replacement, but sometimes we could not. The end result of that was that a decision had to be made as to whether we would redesign or discontinue something.

I think I saw TL072 op amps in my D800 when I opened it up. I remember when those first came out, (I think they are a J-FET version of the old LM741?), and they are still available (for now). It might be that the more specialized stuff goes obsolete sooner than a kind of standard, less complex part like an op-amp. I don't know.

 

[agedhorse]

The problem with semiconductor component availability is that buyers have no power to influence large manufacturers to not discontinue a component. The last place I worked the purchasing people would alert us to the impending obsolesce of an IC and would notify us of a "last time buy" event of some number of that item. There would be talk of buying stock from "brokers" but that often did not work out. Sometimes we were able to find a suitable replacement, but sometimes we could not. The end result of that was that a decision had to be made as to whether we would redesign or discontinue something.

I think I saw TL072 op amps in my D800 when I opened it up. I remember when those first came out, (I think they are a J-FET version of the old LM741?), and they are still available (for now). It might be that the more specialized stuff goes obsolete sooner than a kind of standard, less complex part like an op-amp. I don't know.

The TL072 is a very popular. low noise, high reliability (when you use it correctly) op amp that should remain current for another 20+ years, but there are newer substitutes that could be used (pin for pin compatible) IF the original part was "end of lifed". This is generally not true for digital IC's however.

With dedicated DSP chipsets, there is often a big advantage because of how the programming and support of external memory is done, but as things get faster and with deeper bit depth, some of this is being offloaded into more comprehensive IC's or "system on a chip" architecture. It's a matter of sales volume, the bass industry doesn't even reach 1/100th of one percent of digital IC volume, therefore we are at the mercy of the trajectories of other industries.

 

[gtirard]

It will be interesting to see how Kemper, Spark, Line 6, Jim Bergantino, etc. resolve these issue in the future.
I would think the DSP pedal manufacturers will face the same problems.

Don't you think Line 6 has managed pretty well the durability of the Helix platform so far?
The HX Stomp was released in 2018, the hardware is still unchanged since then, and the software have been regularly updated for the better. And I'm sure that even if the launch the successor of the HX Stomp in 2024, we'll be able to use and enjoy the current for several years to come.

But of course, I expect a longer lifespan from an amp than from a digital fx, because the pedal il an affordable hi-tech utility whereas the amp remains a long term investment.

 

[Hoochie Coochie Man]

Maybe not the case now, but I remember keeping an old DOS machine with a nine pin serial D cable to header connector on hand to program Xilinx FPGA digital devices on circuit boards in the lab that were ancient. It seems to me that Xilinx did not cause their gate array parts to go obsolete as often as manufacturers of other field programmable devices have done. Choose your vendor wisely.

 

[agedhorse]

Choose your vendor wisely.

Words to live by.

 

[Hoochie Coochie Man]

Mr agedhorse, you know way more than I do about this stuff, and I am not criticising the reason you chose to so so, but I will ask why the TL072s in my D800 are in sockets?

One reason I would not do so is cost and the other one is known by a term (that would be an excellent name for a musical composition), which I first heard regarding socketed components back in the 1970s. That term was "Thermal creep".

Probably not a real problem, but any old circuit board I have looked at with socketed components since forever, I automatically press down on any ICs in sockets, and they almost always give a little, and make a creaking sound as they seat more solidly into the socket. This for me goes back to the 1970s dual inline package devices.

Before I retired, I graduated to a microscope, and fine tipped dental probes to find surface mount solder defects when a new production board failed, (not in the circuit board plant, but as an end user of an untested circuit board ), with no automated circuit board test equipment available. My experience. is that component defects are almost non-existent, but solder defects are the most common failure mode of new circuit boards.

 

[agedhorse]

Mr agedhorse, you know way more than I do about this stuff, and I am not criticising the reason you chose to so so, but I will ask why the TL072s in my D800 in sockets?

Two reasons I would not do so are cost and the other one is known by a term (that would be an excellent name for a musical composition), which I first heard regarding socketed components back in the 1970s. That term was "Thermal creep".

Probably not a real problem, but any old circuit board I have looked at with socketed components for since forever, I automatically press down on any ICs in sockets, and they almost always give a little, and make a creaking sound as they seat more solidly into the socket. This for me goes back to the 1970s dual inline package devices.

Before I retired, I graduated to a microscope, and fine tipped dental probes to find surface mount solder defects when a new production board failed, and I had no automated circuit board test equipment available.

It's actually a carry-over from Genz Benz bass amps where every IC is socketed and I can't even remember the last time that I saw a bad socket.

That said, it was for ultimate servicability, and since the D-800 and D-800+ were the first two amps put into production, it made sense to use sockets since they are not expensive at the quantities that we purchase (I think we buy at 100k piece price). The newer products no longer use sockets (they became a long lead time item at the beginning of COVID, then the cost went up) since the number of bad IC's number maybe 1 or 2 a year. We still socket the DI line driver ICs AFAIK.

 

[Hoochie Coochie Man]

Andy, I did edit my post as you were replying. Most respect for you.

 

[agedhorse]

I didn't take it as the least bit disrespectful, it's actually a good question.

 

[Hoochie Coochie Man]

Mr agedhorse, can I start a little side-hustle selling cork-sniffing-op-amp-rolling users "vintage" LM741s to gullible D800 owners? I think I have about fifty left over from back in the late 1970s. I can post photos of date codes.

Yeah, just kidding, fergetaboutit.

 

[Jim C]

Don't you think Line 6 has managed pretty well the durability of the Helix platform so far?
The HX Stomp was released in 2018, the hardware is still unchanged since then, and the software have been regularly updated for the better. And I'm sure that even if the launch the successor of the HX Stomp in 2024, we'll be able to use and enjoy the current for several years to come.

But of course, I expect a longer lifespan from an amp than from a digital fx, because the pedal il an affordable hi-tech utility whereas the amp remains a long term investment.

I think the new Line 6 stuff sounds really good and will probably be very reliable. I have no experience with their early gear as I never thought it sounded all that great.

But I have to listen to the industry experts who have infinitely more experience about market share, manufacturing, and product life cycle. Where does one find an IC Crystal Ball Predictor?

Another board member who makes a Spector style HAZ Preamp has suddenly had issues with LF442CN opamps that were shipped and turned out to be counterfeits.
https://www.talkbass.com/threads/reverse-engineering-vintage-haz-labs-pre.1558894/page-16

 

[agedhorse]

Counterfeit parts is another very real issue. I’ve only been burned once, and the parts came through the factory distribution channels, but had been factory sealed customer returns that were substituted with exquisite counterfeits. X-ray micrographs caught it, but by then it was too late. Fortunately it was only a small number of amps about 20 years ago.

 

[Hoochie Coochie Man]

Counterfeit parts is another very real issue. I’ve only been burned once, and the parts came through the factory distribution channels, but had been factory sealed customer returns that were substituted with exquisite counterfeits. X-ray micrographs caught it, but by then it was too late. Fortunately it was only a small number of amps about 20 years ago.

We were defrauded once as well. Our purchasing people were top-notch, but it happens.
Once we were bitten they became more careful and they got out of any secondary supplier market.

 

[Nebadon2000]

We're talking about bass amps, not computers. I don't want a LCD screen and paging into menus and sub-menu, I don't even care for a iPhone or laptop editor, I want physical knobs.

Ditto

 

[agedhorse]

We were defrauded once as well. Our purchasing people were top-notch, but it happens.
Once we were bitten they became more careful and they got out of any secondary supplier market.

This was from a top tier National Semiconductor distributor. That’s what was so shocking, we did everything right and still got burned because the distributor got burned.

 

[Harpo61]

Not that I need more power than my TT-800 provides.
But what about 1200 watts !

 

[40Hz]

The problem is the communication protocols and the host operating systems.

For example, I have a client that still has an operating XP system just for supporting legacy control systems. The system software has not been migrated forward (a costly exercise) so everything has to be done in the legacy platform which makes support very expensive and inconvenient, but the system being controlled costs millions of dollars.

The real issue is the software/firmware development. The cost of hardware development pales in comparison to what it costs to develop a piece of reliable and almost entirely debugged software. And it’s still an expensive and labor intensive exercise that doesn’t scale well or build on earlier code despite all the efforts made towards the goal of “reusable software.” Which is why legacy software and systems still persist. Before I left working in IT I had clients that still had critical business programs that were written in COBOL running inside virtual machines that emulated long gone hardware and operating systems.

Major improvements in software almost always start with a blank sheet of paper and a solo or extremely small team of developers. Some developments in AI may eventually lead to huge efficiency improvements in the software development processes. And we’re already seeing some of that when it comes to things like code optimization. But we’re still a ways off from feeding an AI system a list of requirements and hardware specs and getting back a fully optimized and debugged chunk of executable code.