What Does Audio Transformer Overload Sound Like?

[@lpcustomvs]

Now I’m thinking about how to integrate this as a bus send effect for drums/bass/guitars/vocals saturation in a live setting. Dave, you are ruining my gear budget 😂

[@DaveRat]

I love that!

[@DarkTrapStudio]

Actually you can take a cheap unit, mod it to have a good mastering grade or more colored transformer and boom

[@DaveRat]

👍👍

[@sixsentsoldiers]

Soundman to Bassist, "i got a DI box for You." Dave, once again your expertise is amazing.

[@Elsonmakes]

i feel like im a college freshmen stepping into class on the first day and i accidentally walked into the graduate level course

[@ConcertCultureSound]

Whenever I run sound and think to myself “darn, I’m pretty good” i just gotta watch his videos, and then I’m humbled VERY quickly

[@DaveRat]

Thank you for hanging out and I'm here to answer questions if I can help with anything

[@artysanmobile]

That was a great demonstration, Dave. You are correct that a line level audio xformer is the one to have. Transformers -all else equal- have increasing distortion as level goes up and as frequency goes down. The acid test is +20dbm @20Hz. One designed to meet that standard will be wonderfully linear at mic levels. It will also cost $125-200+. This is justifiable in broadcast feed iso applications, where they will be seeing wide band +20 all the time. I found a large quantity of UTC A-20 xformers in my 1990 surplus search and installed 40 of them in my new broadcast truck IO panel. These are no longer made, built for military / commercial cost-no-object use in the 50s-70s. You see them bolted to the back of a UREI LA-2A for example. They pass the acid test, weigh over a pound each and are, to my ears, perfectly transparent. I built another 12 of them for individual portable use and have 8 left over from my purchase of 60 pieces for $1000, a true best-buy. Today, I see them on eBay for $200-300 each. They are that good. 32 years on, I pretend they aren’t even there. These things make my truck sound better, my fly packs easier, and in a pinch could probably be used in a fight.

[@DaveRat]

So cool I love all of this!

[@Tom-nf6xo]

Dude, you're my hero. This is the most valuable thing on youtube. Big THANK YOU.

[@DaveRat]

Super cool and thank you

[@cgtbrad]

You touched on this - an important distinction between the JS3 and Twin Iso is the input/output impedance. Twin Iso is 600-ohm, while the JS3 is 2.4kohm. As you know, with some devices impedance mismatches can impact the frequency response.

[@peterchoe]

this is very important. So much of "transformer sound" is down to how devices interact.

[@Anothermouse]

Super great tech presentation. The magic of eddy currents and hysteresis, inductive coupling and electrical decoupling. Fabuloso!

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@Preachmusic4u]

Awesome demo. Glad to see someone really took the time to let us hear what the audible difference are .

[@6sensory]

LOVE when you get into the subtleties

[@bassface84]

best explanation of mic/line level & transformer saturation I've heard! Thanks!

[@DaveRat]

Super cool and thank you

[@derickmcwilliams8089]

So in summary; think about what you are using! Great Video man!

[@DaveRat]

Cool cool thank you Derick!

[@javierf55]

Great to find an expert's channel. I bought an Harmonica and I wanted to play it in a Fender Hotrod Deluxe amp, so I bought a Shure A85F transformer to connect my Shure SM58 mic but the result is a huge feedback no matter how low the volume is. Any advice would be appreciated.😅

[@jdcheetham]

damn, love the sound of that saturation

[@DaveRat]

👍🔧👍

[@MrBrunoRenee]

Cool Cool.Thanks for the video!

[@ConcertCultureSound]

Whenever I run sound and think to myself “darn, I’m pretty good” i just gotta watch his videos, and then I’m humbled VERY quickly

[@ErikAnders]

Love that cartoon analog warmth ❤

[@DaveRat]

👍👍

[@RapturesDelight]

THANKS for the vid. I found a cheap mic level transformer on the main output before DSP, took that sucker OUT ASAP

[@DaveRat]

Excellent I love it when the info has practical and immediate uses

[@little-alien]

This was really awesome to hear. Thanks for taking the time to do that. I’m a big fan of the tape like squishiness transformers can add to signal. I think I’ll be buying a few more transformer mic splits soon!

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@Linksimpson]

Thank you for posting these real world experiments. It’s very interesting to watch. I am wondering about transformer turns ratios. I was under the impression that most mic level input transformers have a higher turns ratio, which steps up the signal on the primary by the turns ratio. Common ratios for mic input transformers is anywhere from 1:1 to 1:10, whereas line level transformers are typically 1:1. The other difference to note is the primary winding impedance of a microphone input transformer is typically low like 150 ohms, whereas a line input transformer primary winding impedance is much higher like 10k ohms. So long story short they are not interchangeable, they both serve different purposes.

[@DaveRat]

The turn ratio and the impedance are related. Lots of turns to less turns will convert a high impedance to a low impedance. Not that many turns to a lot of turns will turn a low impedance into a high impedance. And you can put things around and use them in opposite directions with varying results depending on what you want to achieve. Putting a mic transformer backwards onto a line level out or instrument level out we'll convert that higher voltage output to a lower voltage. It's both very complex if you want things to be very perfect and very simple as you can raise and lower voltages and match things together and get different forms of distortion or output levels quite easily by using different transformers in different ways. They're just tools like anything else

[@simccaffrey]

Hi Dave, I was wondering if you remember the bit at the end of this video, the guys who converted all their splits to line-level transformers for both mic and line sources... Do you know what transformer they used? Maybe a 1:1 like in the Twin Iso? I want to try this, but haven't got much positive feedback on the idea from anyone...thanks for all the great videos BTW, I often come back to them.

[@DaveRat]

The company was ATK and yes you want one to one transformers. Jensen, luhnalll and cinemag a three good manufacturers of audio transformers that you can look into

[@simccaffrey]

@@DaveRat Cheers Dave, thanks for getting back.

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍👍

[@morgan0]

wow that’s a much more bounded saturation than i was guessing it would have, almost sounds a bit like hard clipping (but of course proportional to the wavelength)

[@DaveRat]

And also, gentle overload is what's usually liked. I did massive overload so all could really hear it

[@crazyelvis3577]

Love your videos. So informative. I was just studying on this topic to make a splitter system based on cat cable and different transformers. This answered questions I had. Thank you!!!!

[@BarefacedAudio]

Very interesting! I’m curious to test more of the subtleties of transformer saturation and also transformer overload when lowpassed (to remove the obvious clipping) be that actively, passively or through a miked speaker.

[@DaveRat]

Cool cool let me know how it goes

[@ashcatlt]

Thanks for that! To me it's kind of obvious that a mic level transformer is kind of the compromised budget option for when you can get away with it while the line level box would be speced to a more exacting standard which can easily accommodate the less strenuous tasks. When they weren't obviously overdriven, I'm not sure I could tell you changed anything if I wasn't looking. I felt like there was a tiny bit less bass extension on the mic one anyway, which might be a combination of some more subtle saturation and just a lighter transformer high-passing that little bit higher. (PS when it was obviously overdriven, it was pretty frickin cool!)

[@ashcatlt]

That said, you did have to actually pummel these things to get them to distort at all, if you hit that mic thing with normal line level signals, you'll be distorting all kinds of things before you notice the transformer is an issue.

[@meistudiony]

Kinda on/off topic here... Ive had the discussion (argument) with so many about transformer coloration on a signal. I'm of the mindset that the transformer, unless pushed into saturation, isn't really coloring the signal as much as people give it credit for. Weather the core is nickle, iron or some other alloy... i just dont hear it when put side by side under normal use. Push it into saturation.... maybe a different story. We had built a few preamps with identical input stages, input transformers etc. Different output transformers... Signals just about nulled and what didn't null was so minimal, i wouldn't call it worth even talking about. Maybe its just me, or I don't get something... Electronics engineers seem to be able to hear things that audio engineers cant.

[@DaveRat]

Have you looked at any of the other videos I did on how transformers change the sound by being plugged in even if the signal doesn't go through the transformer? What I found is that what you say is true that good transformers do not change the sound going through it. But what they do do is alter the loading of the line and that causes changes in sound. If you have the time maybe give a look at those videos and let me know what you think

[@meistudiony]

@@DaveRat I've been workin my way thru your videos... theres a lot lol. Man, I could swear i met you on the road like 12 years ago while I was on tour. Im horrible with names but your voice triggered the memory. I dont remember if it was in Europe or out in cali... but I remember the person (if it was you) talking about wedge mixes and everyone just having one of those "oh $#!T" moments where everything clicks and they all realized that what they were doing was just ass backwards lol.

[@Edwin-van-der-Putten]

Thanks, Dave!

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@themoregoodmusicstudio3294]

Cool cool❤... Crane HEED it's a great distortion/inspiration/converter gear

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@PadreAG]

Very nice investigation into the subject. I do think you should point out differences in impedance between line and mic level devices. If you're mostly using active circuitry mic's and buffered outputs it will not matter but for low level stuff - dynamics, ribbons, even long cables the response will differ.

[@poweredbyWatts]

Dave, thank you.

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍 cool cool Watts! And thank you

[@gillihansmobilewelding]

I wonder if you could put a step-up transformer in front of a potentiometer that feeds a 600ohm audio transformer in a box with XLR in and XLR out, and use it inline between a dynamic mic and the console? Would that saturate the 1:1 transformer? Is there such a thing as a step-up audio transformer? I was thinking of something like a ribbon mic transformer that starts at dynamic mic level instead of ribbon mic level.

[@DaveRat]

Putting things in line with a dynamic microphone creates all kinds of complexities that will vary quite a bit from mic to mic. Dynamic microphones have such a delicate output and such a low level that anything and everything you put in line with it will affect the sound and in not necessarily good ways that will be tend to be unpredictable with different mics.

[@AdamGotheridge]

Makes sense. Forever love you trying to figure things out with an open mind, like theoretically this should happen, but if doesn't test out, your try to figure out what is going on. I had (to me) and interesting test yesterday, just getting a bass guitar sound. Plugged into two notes le bass (kind of like a bass amp analog sim di box) into a daking mic pre (1 transformer) into a Neve 542 tape saturation thing (2 transformers), into a line input of another daking preamp (2 transformers) then inserting a pullec clone (1 or 2 transformers). Seemed like every step of the way of adding transformers was just making everything sound better. Obviously fidelity wasn't the object, but it was still super interesting to me. Also hitting the level of each stage hot was super important to that sound. It was just fun and I felt like you for a minute, to just hooking stuff and trying stuff and just trying to be objective and explore. No intention of doing what I was doing besides make a cool sound, but at the end, all I could figure out was that there was a ton of transformers in the signal doing something. Thanks!

[@theshedmonster]

ide love to do a show with you about running multiple radio mics and how to deal with modulation. not sure if you have coved this. great show Dave x

[@harmonysounddesign]

Thank you!! Such useful content

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@Abihef]

Awesome video, very inspiring Thanks mate

[@johncostigan6160]

Good. I've been re-amping 24bit/48Khz. guitar .wav files out of a UAD Apollo Twin interface into a Fender Pro Junior guitar amp using line-level transformers, and the results have been good. I inadvertently introduced a phase flip, but I believe I wired the xlr incorrectly (pins 2 & 3) in the transformer boxes. Computers consider reversing phase an effortless job. Thanks for the experimental data.

[@frankangermann6460]

Thanks. I enjoyed.

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@danladiabasiryu8426]

Thank you sir. So input impedance makes the difference?

[@DaveRat]

Hmmm, line vs mic transformers are bigger with thicker wire and and other differences

[@peehandshihtzu]

Wow, I can see how a bit of overload in some cases could be amazing especially on the bass guitar while other times it's a complete ship wreck. Super cool Dave!

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@Scottjcpp]

Thanks bro!

[@DaveRat]

Cool cool Scott!!

[@murraywebster1228]

Great stuff as usual….keep it up!

[@jttech44]

This is really interesting, and will probably be useful in cases where I don't want fidelity. I do wonder how much of a difference this would make on, say, a guitar track. I think it'd come across as an effect more than it would a loss of fidelity. Certainly seems limited to the low end as well, which, makes sense. There's alot more energy there to move through the transformer, so it gets clipped first. I also wonder if there's anything to the idea of 'magnetic saturation' versus 'coil saturation', which is a thing that some boutique guitar amp manufacturers say about their output transformers.

[@Orvulum]

Thanks Dave! 🤠

[@nj1255]

7:30 what song is that? Love it!

[@DaveRat]

I put the link in the description

[@DarkTrapStudio]

Dave ! Love you man, do you have a course for complete beginner to repair and build/mod hardware gear ? If not would you be interested in making one ?!

[@DaveRat]

I don't have any real beginners courses but I do have a bunch of videos covering a wide variety of content in various levels of complexity. On the member side I do a zoom chat every 3 weeks or so for a couple hours and answer questions and discuss topics and there is probably 100 hours or more of Zoom chats on the member side as well

[@Devdiad]

Thanks Dave! What is the name of the band you're playing?

[@scottdotjazzman]

I believe that's Elise Trouw

[@DaveRat]

I added the band info into the description of the video. But the song is Better than Nothing by Riarosa

[@Devdiad]

@@DaveRat thank you Dave!

[@TheAndyroid]

Does the output of the amp definitely stay clean when it sees a saturated transformer?

[@DaveRat]

I believe it's highly improbable that the high impedance tiny transformer would be able to load down and alter the output of an amp designed to drive 4 ohms or lower. I think the transformer get extremely hot or burn out before it significantly altered the amplifier output. That said, I haven't tested it but it's so unlikely that I don't feel very inspired to do so

[@TheAndyroid]

@@DaveRat I expect you're right but I was just thinking about the inductance drop during saturation making the TX suddenly look like a different load. Modern power amps have such stable outputs that I'm almost certainly over thinking it.

[@DaveRat]

Yeah, the transformers are in the 150 to 600 ohm range so even if they drop to 1/10 which is an absurd drop it's still would not be loading the amp by much

[@jozefkovac5507]

how it sounds when boosted highs with tilt EQ and thend distorted with transformer?

[@ryanmelvey8764]

would be cool to use a transformer as an attenuator for a guitar amp rather than a resistor. or is that a bad idea haha?

[@hydroalternation]

so what is the device used for music player on top of the amp

[@DaveRat]

Is it triangular-ish? Without me watching to see, I am guessing it is me Pono music player. Neil Young made them but discontinued now.

[@hydroalternation]

@@DaveRat yes it is triangular was that the one he did for the train sounds

[@DaveRat]

@hydroalternation Neil set out to make a lossless music player in an anti-mp3 quest. The unit is useful as it has 2 1/8" outs and stores lossless files as well as holds an SD card. Mine is Foo Fighters branded. Battery life and software is not great and they discontinued support. But music on the SD or transferred to the unit is easy. There are other lossless units that are better ... This works well for my testing and it's kind of cool

[@hydroalternation]

@@DaveRat that is cool the last time i worked with foo was when dave was drumming for nirvana i was the bus driver back in the day most everyone that i toured with knew me as Spodie Odie the Roxide roadie Ahh the days of forgetting what month it is while travelling on tour Cheers

[@DaveRat]

Good stuff! I worked for foo for a bit and did nirvana gigs. Ahh road memories! Great to meet ya!

[@Rompler_Rocco]

AWESOME. Knowledge! 💯💯🙏

[@kevinpetit9886]

Great Video. 😃👍♥️

[@DrMackSplackem]

Interesting. I've read about producers using signal transformers on tracks or even the whole mix buss to add 'warmth' (or 'fairy dust', or whatever). I think there was an article in TapeOp about constructing a box with several discrete transformers from which to choose. This never made much sense to me, as there was no mention of any buffer or pre/post gain adjustments, just a passive I/O to the console. And if this video is any indication, adding such features would indeed make such a device function as advertised, but the result is nothing that a few pairs of back-to-back OA91s or equivalent couldn't do and sound much nicer doing it. Perhaps there's more to the story though...

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@bighousemusic628]

Hey dave can i use one of these as an insert on my audio interface for analog flavour on my mix or its just standard

[@DaveRat]

Transformers can be added in line Ted color or soften the high frequencies. If you want some warmth and overload then you want to use a mic transformer for line level

[@bighousemusic628]

@@DaveRat thanks a billion i need to know how to get it in my daw for mixing and mastering

[@DrMackSplackem]

@@DaveRat Oh thank you! I have a few of these around and this gives me a starting point...

[@carlubambi5541]

Huge difference

[@HazeAnderson]

Mic level transformers seem like a cheaper way to get bass fuzz than those expensive germanium diode circuits. 😏

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@duncan-rmi]

I was always told that the +8dBu we were allowed in broadcast was because of transformer saturation & crosstalk onto adjacent pairs on yr facilities lines out of the building to another broadcast centre or whatever. makes sense. I would like to put a spec-an on the result & control the harmonic content, if I was using this for an effect. I'm supposing a transformer is a transformer is a transformer, within reason, & the mic-level jobs just fit into smaller spaces....

[@seanwalsh999]

Too bad you didn't record the smoke coming out of the adapter, but I guess you weren't expecting that, so the camera wasn't ready. When the smoke comes out even the season professionals are surprised.

[@DaveRat]

This is a fun vid down that line kzbin.info/www/bejne/mGLHgGmwo5KVipo

[@colourbasscolourbassweapon2135]

well it sound good aka analog warm distortion tbh no cap

[@mwestcc]

cool

[@DeadKoby]

Transformer overload........the first FUZZ effect.

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@zvotaisvfi8678]

no one cares about l'acoustics in america but anyway thats not transformer overload you are hearing. that is current balance plus ping. approx 4:1 expansion re: plugging something into a transformer and the recieving device is transformerless. The integral aspect of the equation is the locked loop of electrons that touch nothing directly: in this scenario you have some sort of transformerless differential output directly connected to the primary of the transformer. the secondary of the transformer is directly connected to a differential input pair of transistors if transformerless balanced. Okay you have nothing there. accomplished nothing except expanded your signal like a noise reducer but not corrected it : which is OK in a lot of situations and many situations work better with only one transformer versus two. But you won't hear transformer distortion in this arrangement, you will hear high impedance noise and hash filtered by the flyback of the active stage recieving the secondary. It can actually be tricky to truly overload a transformer with current (aka power) rather than flyback or whatever stuff. but it can be done with a few hours of messing around or try plugging the audio balancers back to back.... you have one transformer for the transformerless output device you are interfacing to. The cable closes a balanced loop to the reciving device which also has a transformer in it to recieve it. The length of the cable doesn't matter at this point it is essentially impenetrably to any deficiencies even at 50' long +. Okay now with a di box thing you have reverse on the send and forward on the recieving unit (with the critical balanced length of wire) then you have the opportunity to look through the impedance. its different, a fundamentally different impedance curve. Not only do you have slew rate, you have slew rate across all different frequences and the reason for that is because every frequency has a different impedance at the interface. Not to mention it is possibly odd to mount a transformer on a power amp. who knows. because the power and output transformers throw fields. so its like a funny thing with amps not only do you need a balanced run, you also need an unbalanced run on the recieveing cabinet of the amp... and its better than plugging into it with bare wire xlr and no transformers.

[@zvotaisvfi8678]

also most pro outputs can't drive a mad decent transformer into overload... simply impossible. like Maybe a midas can do it with the EQ up, start to compress but not clip. you have to have like a really high powered... 1.5W+ minimum to hit the top of a properly setup transformer.

[@zvotaisvfi8678]

like anything cheaper than midas?? you will be in marshall territory on the circuit before you even nudge the "undertone bump" of the transformer. The transformer.... "sounds like it has a bump at 0Hz" when it clips. It actually sounds more like a "dropout" than a buzz or distortion nodule. the sound doesn't get louder, it "randomly cuts out at the perfect pitch" what is the pitch? about .15 - 1 Hz or more or less depending on the weight.

[@zvotaisvfi8678]

when a transformer distorts it sounds like "bias rocks" on a tape machine except in the pattern of the program.

[@zvotaisvfi8678]

the distortion errors are pitched up about like a saxophone vertically except starting about 10 octaves "below what we can hear."

[@DaveRat]

Did you actually watch the the video? As far as L-Acoustics, my company owns about 500 K1, K2 and subs and L-Acoustics is one of top 3 most requested boxes in the US for large gigs

[@griffini19]

🙈

[@DaveRat]

🤙🤙