Cabinet Simulation for 1U Guitar Effect Chain Project

[miallen]

Hello,

I'm looking for a simple analog cabinet simulation circuit (or something I can buy for less than $200) that can simulate a 4x12 guitar cabinet for an analog guitar effect chain. I was thinking a low pass (80Hz) + high pass (5K) + notch (500Hz) filters would be sufficient. So there might be a knob bass, a knob for treble and 2 knobs for notch control. Or perhaps a multi-switch with 3-4 different configurations would be better? Also correct me if I'm wrong but I'm thinking that I don't need the precision of opamps or matched resistors in the notch filter.

More generally I'm also looking for advice about a project. I posted this in the speakers forum because I'm primarily interested in cabinet simulation but if you happen to be a guitar person then please read on ...

I'm putting together a 1U rack with a few popular analog guitar effects. I was going to do compression -> treble boost -> overdrive -> cabinet simulation. The specific chain I'm thinking about at the moment is:

MXR Dyna Comp
Dallas Rangemaster
electro-harmonix Big Muff Pi
Ibanez Tube Screamer
Cabinet simulation

The Dyna Comp and Big Muff I'll just scrounge from pedals by extracting the boards, removing the pots, converting the bypass and so on.

Of course I'll build the Rangemaster. I don't have one but my understanding is that it's just a slightly overdriven single transistor gain stage with a small input cap to make it a high pass filter. I'm not convinced a real Germanium transistor will make a difference but I actually have pretty good quiet germaniums from NTE Electronics so I'll experiment.

I'll have to build the TS-9 because there's no way I'm going to pay $180 for an opamp diode clipping circuit and I don't need the flip-flop because I'm going to use the same panel mount DPDTs for true bypass of all effects in the chain anyway.

That leaves the cabinet simulation. After all of the above effects (and a master volume knob and master bypass switch and at the end of the chain) there's space for about 4 knobs.

After the cabinet simulation everything goes digital into a MOTU Traveler with S/PDIF connected Lexicon Reverb (which also has delay, chorus and all of the other digital stuff) and then ultimately to studio monitors (although I'll have the option of sending the Rangemaster directly into my JCM 2000 as the Rangemaster was origianlly designed to directly overdrive the preamp tube with treble).

So what do you think?

I'm going for a late 70's, early 80's sound - compress the input to take the edge off of hard notes and make it "louder", send lots of treble to the overdrive stage and then roll the treble back off on the way out. All the analog stuff is in one box so it has zero latency and only goes through one A to D conversion. And it's at eye-level in 1U where I can more effectively play with the whole chain. And I don't crap up my floor with cables.

Does anyone see flaws in my plan or room for improvement?

Mike

[PeteMcK]

Condor Cab Sim

personally, I think pedals are a distraction...