Attenuator solutions

Quadratt? Its one of the reasons my diy case will have a 1u row.

That’s exactly what i did! Unfortunately 84hp is juuuuust shy of being able to fit 2 quadratts, 1 noise tools, and 1 headphone out. Right now I have a passive mult, quadratt, and headphone out and I’m not sure how to best use my remaining space.

Passive is all you need for that, yes. It is pretty easy to DIY your own passive attenuator, too. Input to center of pot, output to one side of pot, ground to other side of pot.

I think the shortcoming of the Intellijel 1U standard is that they don’t have any really small options besides the USB port. Perhaps this is due (at least in part) to using full size power connectors?

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I’m hoping for some smaller options in the future - I haven’t been following NAMM news but maybe some new 1U options will be available soon?

Edit: noise tools is jam packed with jacks and knobs but there definitely appears to be some room for shrinkage in the quadratt. Maybe a 20-22hp v2?

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I’ll start a new thread if my plans come to fruition, but I’m working (slowly, since I don’t yet know what I’m doing) on some 1U options that would fit the Intellijel format for myself, but anything I manage to design that is in a replicable condition I’ll share.

In my limited experience working on some designs so far, it seems that the power connector will be an obstacle that I’ll need to address at least for my own uses for small active modules.

Also, I get why Intellijel doesn’t want to make too many different-yet-similar things, but I really like the bicolor LEDs on the Fonitronik Cascade/Mutable Shades. I don’t think the Quadratt could shrink without losing a channel and/or switching to knobless pots (which I wouldn’t personally prefer), but I think a 3 channel cascading attenuator/attenuverter in the 1U format would help for folks who can’t fit a Quadratt (or second Quadratt), and if I manage to make one, it’ll have indicator LEDs. Especially when you’re combining channels to, say, offset an attenuverted signal, having visual indication is really helpful for me to wrap my head around what is happening.

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I’m in! I use the quadratt/headphone outs as a super-minimal mixer, so I’d definitely be in for a lower-HP 3-channel for other utilities. And more LEDs is always better!

I’ve been glaring at attenuverters a lot recently, and the ALM O/A/x2 seems super choice at 4hp. I have a Shades, but I’m probably going to go for something more compact, and it’s definitely where I am leaning.

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If you like Shades, just want it smaller, can DIY, and can fit a ~66mm deep module, Fonitronik/Thonk’s Cascade is functionally the same in 4hp, as far as I can tell.

ALM’s O/A/x2 is a cool approach, as well, especially if you would regularly want to attenuate/vert AND offset more than one signal.

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For sure! The ALM one just seems great for the HP without needing to build it, like most of their utilities. It can also mix if you want it to. I’m all about small cases, which is why it caught my fancy. I’ll have to peep the Cascade though! Thanks for the reference.

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After having a read through this thread and some other resources I’ve decided to build a 1u panel with passive utilities (attens, mults).

I found this article really helpful

PassiveAttMult1.pdf (1.7 MB)

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If you’re looking for just an attenuation solution I’d recommend these Airtenuators from RYO. Super easy build and does the job with no hp :wink:

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Just noticed someone else recommended these, but they’re that good.

I’m really wishing I had a few of those on hand this morning - without attenuators modular can be a bit of a blunt instrument

Those Airtenuators seem dope. Will probably have to go in for some!

Would happily buy such a thing to replace one of my two quadratts, as it would hopefully would give me some room to fit something else in the top row!

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I wanted to buy this module for sending 4 modular signals directly into my 4 track tape recorder:

I’m in the US and I can’t find it anywhere. Does anyone know where I can find one or something very similar to it?