Woohoo, first step down the DIY path

[Dean Roddey]

Oh, so I just realized I never posted the resolution of the 1176 thing. In the end, the problem was a bad input pot. Well, they aren't called pots but I'm blanking on the name at the moment. Oh, yeh, attenuator. It had some sort of short internally, so that, depending on which way you'd jiggled the wires last, it would either put out too much juice, or not enough. That's why it was driving me crazy as I was trying to calibrate it.

So I reported this to the Hairball guy and he agreed that wasn't right and sent me a knew one and it was happy. This was not long after last posts on it above, so I've been using it happily for a long time now.

The thing with the ratio I think is that there's a 1:1 mode, so it does nothing. Then 4, 8, 12, and 20 modes. Then there's an 'all in' position, but that requires modifying the pot, which I didn't do. I previously thought that was the 20:1 position and that that was not working, but that's not the case. So that one just does nothing really at this point and I'm not worried enough about having that option to really pull it out and modify the pot. And of course the first one does nothing since it's 1:1, and just there to let you run the signal through the box.

[tazman]

I was looking at the kit. I assume it does not include the meter, case, etc? Or does it? If not, any ideas where to get them at?

Thanks,

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

I would do a Drip LA-2A. That will be fundamentally different from the Distressor (though the Distressor can sort of emulate that type of thing), and a vastly easier build than the Mnats 1176 because it's far better documented. I love mine. My 1176 is nice as well, but it was much more of a struggle to get done, and the same is happening to another person here on another thread right now. And you won't get anything like the help that you will doing the Drip stuff.

He also has an LA-2A that has both a fast and a standard type opto cell that you can switch between, which would be pretty nice. The LA-2A thing is really nice, but sometimes you can't use it because the 10ms attack time just isn't quite fast enough.

[Teddy Ray]

Dean...where to find these kits now??

the page seems to have dissapeared

I do not like the distressor at all...would you say that these sound a lot different?

[Dean Roddey]

Originally Posted by tazman

I was looking at the kit. I assume it does not include the meter, case, etc? Or does it? If not, any ideas where to get them at?

Thanks,

The Drip stuff only includes the PCB board and, if you are doing an LA-2A type project, the opto cell. Everything else you purchase yourself. There is a BOM (bill of materials) for each project at the end of each project's documentation which will include links to Mouser ot Digilink for all of the required parts.

It's a bit of work to order all the parts, but not too bad. You'll probably miss one or two bits and not realize it until you are almost done and have to order them, but it just makes the anticipation greater.

There are folks out there who make pre-fab enclosures for all of this projects if you want fancy looking enclosures for the extra bucks.

[Dean Roddey]

Originally Posted by Teddy Ray

Dean...where to find these kits now??

the page seems to have dissapeared

I do not like the distressor at all...would you say that these sound a lot different?

The Drip stuff is here:

Drip Electronics

The LA-2A sounds like an LA-2A, not an emulation of one, since it's the actual LA-2A, just done on a PCB instead of point to point. But the PCBs are very large, very heavy, with really thick traces and lots of space between components. So I don't really think it's at all a compromise relative to a point to point wired one, and a lot easier to do.

Mine is great, probably the best box I have. Kills on vocals and bass, which are the traditional uses of it for good reason I guess. But also on certain strummed guitar parts, sometimes on kick drum, and you can also just run stuff through it during tracking where it's barely twitching the needle and it sounds nice, just getting some more tubes and Sowter transformers into the input chain.

I did have a Distressor at one point, and I'd like to have another eventually, but you won't really get that real LA-2A vibe from it. It probably can more closely emulate the 1176 than the LA-2A, I would think.

And he also has a Pultec EQ, Fairchild 660/670, an Altec vari-mu compressor, and some nice tube based preamps like the RED 47.