Yup the marked resistors are fried.
It may be a simple case of replacing those resistors. I’d snip the resistors at the point furthest from the board, then flip the board and heat the joints one at a time while gently pulling the leg/body down. They’ll pop out easily enough. You can then replace them with minimal fuss.
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Hey, thanks. Very kind of you to take the time, it’s much appreciated!
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No worries! I’d probably replace all four of the resistors to be on the safe side. If you have a soldering iron it’s a straightforward job. If not, it’s a five-minute job at most for someone with the right tools.
I think if you message @nonlinearcircuits, he might be able to point you in the direction of a local(ish) builder who could repair it. Well worth giving the repair a go yourself though!
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Hay everyone,
I’m currently building my first modular setup and was able to pick up a verbose complex Osc. Now I’m looking for a VCA that’s a good fit with this OSC. One with a LPG function would be great (I think) to tame the sounds that come out of the complex Pst a bit more.
If you have any recommendations feel free to let me know!
Best,
Thomile
The obvious move would the Verbos Amp & Tone, no? Steady State Gate is impressive, if you want alternatives.
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Thats correct… what would be the budget choice tho:D
Natural Gate if you want to splurge. It really is excellent.
For cheaper options, Pittsburgh Dynamic Impulse Gate or Dynamics Controller Bat, or the Doepfer LPG, are good but in my experience you will almost certainly want to use an envelope with them rather than just pinging them.
Passive LPGs have a certain charm too and tend to be very inexpensive, but they often don’t do well with lower control voltages (for softer pings, slow attacks or sustained dark drones).
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hermbot
4795
I don’t have one, but you can get a Low Pass Gate from AI Synthesis fully built for $115. It looks like it has some nice features.
Once upon a time the Make Noise LxD would be a good “budget” lpg but prices have gone crazy bananas.
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It should definitely be an active LPG yes… I guess I’ll have to save up a bit more to get the AMP&Tone or SS-Gate. We shall see.
Just ordered one of these Electro-Acoustic Research | Analogue Haven
so verdict is still out, but the demos sound great
You might be able to score an Amp & Tone used. I see a couple on Reverb.
I don’t see a point in buying cheap for the sake of cheap: it’s important that the module sounds good to you and be one you will enjoy using (ergonomics, features).
Another option that will be hitting the market soon, at a nice price, is the TipTop 292t. That’s a quad low-pass gate based on the Buchla 292. They’ll probably go fast, though, so be prepared to pre-order. Same situation with the Steady State Gate: more are coming, but if you want one, you may need to pre-order.
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I’ve got a pair of these Model 13s that I put in a small TT Buchla system and I absolutely love them. They’re pretty straightforward and without any bells and whistles, but they just sound really damn good and do exactly what I’d expect an LPG to do.
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Good to hear. I had a SSF SSG and didn’t like the sound all that much. It was pretty harsh and the resonance wasn’t my thing. After that I knew I wanted vactrols.
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The Takaab 2x LPG is a great budget passive LPG. Sounds great and is cheap. The problems with passive LPGs that Starthief mentioned apply though. It’s also pretty slow so if you want super short blips it won’t work. Make Noise LxD and Optomix are both classic LPG modules too.
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I saw a couple if optimix used for quite affordable. Is the sound comparable to the lxd and any upsudes for the 4hp more?
They do sound a bit different but I’m not sure how to describe it, you’ll have to check some videos and judge for yourself. As for features I think the mixing, CV attenuators and control over the strike response on optomix are worth 4 hp. It’s worth noting that both channels of optomix are the same whereas on LxD they are different.
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If you want a classic vactrol based low pass gate Optomix is as good a place to start as any.
Over the LxD (which I’ve never used/heard) you get attenuation on damping (not on lxd) & cv/ctrl onboard (vs attenuating cv at source for lxd) in addition to the strike. The damping allows for a type of sidechain/compression effects. Optomix can also be used to generate an envelope and/or offset too although I’m not sure I’ve ever actually used it that way. Also lxd has 6 & 12 db slopes (12 being “mildly resonant”) that you can cascade into 18 whereas OM both are… edit: changing my guess to 6… and are not resonant.
Considering how much cheaper OM is than lxd at this point unless you really need to save HP or want the cascaded sloping not sure why not just go OM. The manuals are pretty straightforward if you haven’t checked them out.
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I’ll add that LxD has a bit of character that some might not like, the first channel has a bit of resonance that sometimes seems a bit too much to my taste, while the second channel has a more natural sound but a slower response which is less percussive.
One thing to note about all vactrol lpgs is that they can differ wildly unit to unit depending on the vactrols used. Buying used can be tricky in this regard since you are unlikely to be able to test it out (unless the seller is kind enough to make a short demo).
As far as the Optomix, I much prefer the v1 to the v2 in terms of sound. The v2 does some things that the v1 doesn’t (and apparently has less bleed) but at the expense of the sound quality IMO.
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The variance in vactrols is a big part of why I have a natural gate as my main LPG these days.
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