Is analog really more expensive to make at scale?

[bottlenecker]

Oh very interesting... are they mod effects? That would be essentially a digital mod effect, but not technically DSP in the conventional sense.

2399 effects are definitely not DSP. Nothing programmable, just a delay chip that can be implemented like a BBD, but reproduces the signal digitally.

One on my board is the Lost Soul by Sketchy Sounds. It's a fuzz/delay combo that clocks the 2399 with an envelope follower, so the repeat is pitched down by an amount controlled by how hard I pick. It can be set for very different sounds. I use it like a demented rockabilly slapback with touch sensitive warp, that gets fuzzy with the guitar volume knob. It is easy to get wobbly fuzzy shoegaze sounds from it, so the pitching echo can sound like a chorus. But it's not exactly a mod effect.

My other 2399 pedal is a Kenai Fjords by Spruce Effects. It is an oil can style delay. I'm not sure how the "swirl" is accomplished, but it has two speeds and pretty much sounds just like an old oil can echo to me. I keep this one set up like a reverb, with a very short delay time and a bunch of repeats.

The 2399 seems like an option for small builders who want to make some kind of delay and don't know how to program a dsp chip.

 

[Linderflomann]

not all DSP is the same, I love the japanese made boss pedals, I once had a MIJ boss DD3 with the DSP chip in it from the 80s, technically it's digital but it sounded amazing, nothing like modern ones, warmer, it's the same thing with for example old lexicon reverbs, they are DSP chips but they have a certain grainy sound that even though technically digital, they sound warm and analog like.

It might be the conversion to a lower bit and/or sample rate that you enjoy.

 

[RLangham98]

2399 effects are definitely not DSP. Nothing programmable, just a delay chip that can be implemented like a BBD, but reproduces the signal digitally.

One on my board is the Lost Soul by Sketchy Sounds. It's a fuzz/delay combo that clocks the 2399 with an envelope follower, so the repeat is pitched down by an amount controlled by how hard I pick. It can be set for very different sounds. I use it like a demented rockabilly slapback with touch sensitive warp, that gets fuzzy with the guitar volume knob. It is easy to get wobbly fuzzy shoegaze sounds from it, so the pitching echo can sound like a chorus. But it's not exactly a mod effect.

My other 2399 pedal is a Kenai Fjords by Spruce Effects. It is an oil can style delay. I'm not sure how the "swirl" is accomplished, but it has two speeds and pretty much sounds just like an old oil can echo to me. I keep this one set up like a reverb, with a very short delay time and a bunch of repeats.

The 2399 seems like an option for small builders who want to make some kind of delay and don't know how to program a dsp chip.

That spruce effect looks really cool. I may eventually justify getting one— I’ve been interested in oil can delay but not really overwhelmed by what I’ve seen of the JHS oil can emulator.

It’s funny, I saw a Morley Oil Can pedal recently at a repair shop, all disassembled and cleaned. I wouldn’t be surprised if I never see a real one in person again.

 

[WalATX]

I was unconvinced about the virtues of digital effects until recently, having picked up a Zoom CDR70+ I am now sold that it can sound very good. Maybe not exactly the same, but beautiful in its own right. Along with the other conveniences of having multi fx in one box.

However, despite having tried rather expensive choices for digital overdrives and distortions, I haven’t found one I like as much as tube or opamp drive.

 

[bottlenecker]

That spruce effect looks really cool. I may eventually justify getting one— I’ve been interested in oil can delay but not really overwhelmed by what I’ve seen of the JHS oil can emulator.

It’s funny, I saw a Morley Oil Can pedal recently at a repair shop, all disassembled and cleaned. I wouldn’t be surprised if I never see a real one in person again.

I had a non-working morley before any good info was on the internet. WD-40 did not work as a ferrofluid.

Catalinbread's adineko is probably DSP. I'd guess it uses a spin fv-1 chip like their belle epoch. Comparing that to a 2399 is like a modern computer compared to a commodore 64. But somehow the spruce gets there, and the analog part of the circuit really has a sound. The preamp character is a big part of it. I love using it.

 

[RLangham98]

I had a non-working morley before any good info was on the internet. WD-40 did not work as a ferrofluid.

Catalinbread's adineko is probably DSP. I'd guess it uses a spin fv-1 chip like their belle epoch. Comparing that to a 2399 is like a modern computer compared to a commodore 64. But somehow the spruce gets there, and the analog part of the circuit really has a sound. The preamp character is a big part of it. I love using it.

Yeah I was surprised to hear an oil can delay could be emulated without DSP, sounds almost as hard as truly emulating a Leslie without DSP.

 

[arlum]

I was as hard core analog as you can get and, in some respects, I still am. I remain a true believer in tube amps. Ten years ago I would have said the same thing about pedal effects. Today I've come to believe that some digital pedal effects now equal or exceed their analog counterpart. The two that come to mind are Delay and Reverb. And Note* These are two of my all time favorite effects. I now own multiple DSP or Digital examples of these effects that are better than the best of the old school pedals. Note* I still prefer amp onboard reverb over any pedal. Last fall I purchased an amp with the very best Tremolo I've ever heard and it's not tube tremolo. It's digital. My Hamstead amp has a tremolo that you can alter the speed both much lower as well as higher than any amp tremolo ever made and sound just as good. I also now own multiple digital chorus that sound different yet, in their own way, equal to the analog chorus's of the past. I've been an Analogman Mini Chorus user and promoter since I joined TDPRI and still use one on one of my pedal boards.
On the other side there are still pedal effects that nothing digital or DSP have come close to. And yes. Just as you asked. Gain remains outside anything digital or DSP has been able to come up with. I'm still pure analog in those respects.

 

[RLangham98]

I was as hard core analog as you can get and, in some respects, I still am. I remain a true believer in tube amps. Ten years ago I would have said the same thing about pedal effects. Today I've come to believe that some digital pedal effects now equal or exceed their analog counterpart. The two that come to mind are Delay and Reverb. And Note* These are two of my all time favorite effects. I now own multiple DSP or Digital examples of these effects that are better than the best of the old school pedals. Note* I still prefer amp onboard reverb over any pedal. Last fall I purchased an amp with the very best Tremolo I've ever heard and it's not tube tremolo. It's digital. My Hamstead amp has a tremolo that you can alter the speed both much lower as well as higher than any amp tremolo ever made and sound just as good. I also now own multiple digital chorus that sound different yet, in their own way, equal to the analog chorus's of the past. I've been an Analogman Mini Chorus user and promoter since I joined TDPRI and still use one on one of my pedal boards.
On the other side there are still pedal effects that nothing digital or DSP have come close to. And yes. Just as you asked. Gain remains outside anything digital or DSP has been able to come up with. I'm still pure analog in those respects.

Yes I’m still a firm believer in gain pedals that consist of nothing more than transistors or op amps, clipping circuits where applicable, tone stack and everything necessary to power and support the above. A Klone or a MIAB is about as fancy as I’d ever feel like going, and they’re still not truly complicated circuits.

 

[alesplin]

From a strictly objective standpoint, you don't actually need a lot of processing power to do the kind of DSP that mod effects do. So once you spend the money to exhaustively sample/analyze the frequency response of a given effect, and spend the time write the code that reproduces that frequency response (or reproduces it closely enough), there might actually be a cost savings to go from the very large number of components (and the pcb that hosts them) needed for an "analog" mod effect to the much smaller number of components (and simpler pcb to host them).

 

[klasaine]

And you missed my point completely.

Groovy

Enjoy the flowers

I think he understood the point perfectly.

 

[GPoint]

Any digital audio is multiple fake audio. AD conversion is just description of signal, digital processing is something what only programmer knows (changing this description to unknown signal), DA conversion is synthesis from processed description...

 

[bottlenecker]

Yeah I was surprised to hear an oil can delay could be emulated without DSP, sounds almost as hard as truly emulating a Leslie without DSP.

Yeah, I was too, but it's great. The 2399 works for the same reason it can imitate a bucket brigade. Somehow it's lo fi in a way I don't assiciate with digital. But I don't know how he did the swirl. I'm guessing the 2399 is just producing the repeat. The preamp rolls off highs like the old tel-ray circuit and makes a sound I would call "syrupy", and I think this helps coagulate the whole sound into the spooky vibe it has.

 

[RLangham98]

Any digital audio is multiple fake audio. AD conversion is just description of signal, digital processing is something what only programmer knows (changing this description to unknown signal), DA conversion is synthesis from processed description...

I know this may feel like the emotional truth but it’s not the literal truth. Lossless digital audio is sampled at twice the frequency(or more) that we can hear. Hence its reproduction reproduces every frequency that we can hear. A DAC isn’t a synthesizer, it just outputs a voltage corresponding to each sample, resulting in a stairstepped wave that reproduces the contours of the wave to within the ability of our ears to tell; the high-pitched noise introduced by the stairstepping is cut off by a low pass filter—indeed, this renders the waveform identical to the counterpart that went into the ADC, less any frequencies that were also above the cutoff of the filter.

This is more or less proven in the math by the Shannon-Nyquist Theorem. Technology Connections has a good video on YouTube abour it.

Now, does digital recording often introduce some loss of dynamic range? Yeah. It’s not an intrinsic property of digital sound, but for various reasons digital recorders do tend to apply some kind of limiting or dynamic compression to the signal, probably to reduce the bandwidth thats required.

 

[GPoint]

I know this may feel like the emotional truth but it’s not the literal truth. Lossless digital audio is sampled at twice the frequency(or more) that we can hear. Hence its reproduction reproduces every frequency that we can hear. A DAC isn’t a synthesizer, it just outputs a voltage corresponding to each sample, resulting in a stairstepped wave that reproduces the contours of the wave to within the ability of our ears to tell; the high-pitched noise introduced by the stairstepping is cut off by a low pass filter—indeed, this renders the waveform identical to the counterpart that went into the ADC, less any frequencies that were also above the cutoff of the filter.

This is more or less proven in the math by the Shannon-Nyquist Theorem. Technology Connections has a good video on YouTube abour it.

Now, does digital recording often introduce some loss of dynamic range? Yeah. It’s not an intrinsic property of digital sound, but for various reasons digital recorders do tend to apply some kind of limiting or dynamic compression to the signal, probably to reduce the bandwidth thats required.

Nothing can replace electric electronics signal. Digital audio generally is about the business. Musicians and sound engineers who have good hearing and longer comparing experience hate digital audio, especially digital processing. Who needs theorems if our hearing/brain feels the difference ? There are some audio processes impossible to realise without digital technology - it is true fact...

 

[RLangham98]

Nothing can replace electric electronics signal. Digital audio generally is about the business. Musicians and sound engineers who have good hearing and longer comparing experience hate digital audio, especially digital processing. Who needs theorems if our hearing/brain feels the difference ? There are some audio processes impossible to realise without digital technology - it is true fact...

But you can’t feel the difference, you’re experiencing placebo effect. Experience is not a guarantee of being immune to that. I know good engineers who are very torn on digital, good engineers that are completely analog and good engineers that are completely digital. The thing which historically made analog (and tube) better is its imperfection, the subtle distortion of higher order harmonics that made the audio “warmer” and less harsh. This is not a mystery and can be done digitally just like everything else.

I like analog too as this thread would evidence. But I’m not going to pretend like it’s some objective thing. I like it because using analog is often a better, more tactile experience, and because I like to know what’s going on with my signal. I don’t mess around in menus, I’ll tell you that.

 

[JesterR]

if it saves a few dollars… it just seems weird to me that that’s how the cost would break down.

In 2007 boss celebrated 10 million pedal sold. Do the math.

 

[RLangham98]

In 2007 boss celebrated 10 million pedal sold. Do the math.

Yes, that’s what the thread was originally about, how that math breaks down

 

[11 Gauge]

Yes, that’s what the thread was originally about, how that math breaks down

And that really is the crux of it - the cost of building those units at scale (and how the math/metrics break down). It could be costs in designing, time, manufacturing, or of components/materials. The maximum reduction of those costs is a big part of the bottom line to a company like Boss/Roland, I'd think.

 

[JDB2]

Today I've come to believe that some digital pedal effects now equal or exceed their analog counterpart. The two that come to mind are Delay and Reverb

I'm very happy with good quality digital delay and reverb as long as they have analog dry-through. Whether it's a real concern any more or not, I can't jibe with my core signal going through D/A conversion and back. This steers me away from digital modulation effects like tremolo, chorus, and vibe.

 

[Caffiend]

Companies like Roland/Boss building massive quantities of pedals for worldwide domination have to behave differently from small scale boutique builders. If you only need to build a hundred, two hundred pedals - maybe even less - then so long as you can secure enough components for that run it's all good. If you want to crank out tens of thousands a year then you need predictable availability. Given how many old world components are going obsolete, I could see why DSP might make sense.