Originally Posted by outofphase ➡️

Twhat if there is already a "double tracked" guitar, maybe in that case the "PCM42 trick" works in order to make each track bigger...

I'm sure that Nirvana Smells Like Teen Spirit have doubled guitars, panned hard left and right, Did AW used his PCM42 trick there?


OOP

Originally Posted by Yukon ➡️

Originally Posted by u b i k
If you put in on insert on one side of an electric guitar pair with almost no delay and you turn up the input but turn down the output you get this ridiculous big in your face guitar sound.

Same goes on a lead vocal.

Originally Posted by embrionic ➡️

I don't know, others may know more about that then me what AW did to mix that record.

And I may be wrong but I believe that butch vig tracked many many many tracks of guitars for nevermind, and apparently Kurt was very good at playing them so precisely that it sounded very consistent - not muddy or sloppy - but just bigger. This is only from what I have read in interviews with Vig or Wallace, can't remember where. Maybe it was from that documentary with Vig on the making of Nevermind.

I am more familiar with using it on only one guitar track and using this trick to double it but without making it sound too chorus or flanged.

According to one post above...



...it sounds like they may be talking about using it on a pair of guitar tracks. But it is unclear from the post. I am not sure what they mean by "pair".

Maybe someone else who posted above can chime in and clarify. If we are really lucky maybe Andy will show up and set the record straight! heh

Either way, I would not be afraid to try it though. Experiment... Good luck.

Originally Posted by dbbubba ➡️

Did you really think that the plug-in would do the same thing?

Originally Posted by Pastor Obviedo ➡️

Let's not forget that even the hardware PCM42 is a digital delay produced by an algorithm, they just re-writed that with help and license of Lexicon.

Originally Posted by dlmorley ➡️

Much as I liked the sound of my PCM42 (and yes the limiter did do something interesting) I sold it as I enjoy my Prime Time II more which also has the limiter IIRC. I still don't get why they can be had for maybe 1/3rd of what a 42 costs.

Originally Posted by dale116dot7 ➡️

The limiter portion of the PCM42 isn't an 'algorithm', actually - it's done in the analogue part of the circuitry.

Originally Posted by Pastor Obviedo ➡️

the PSP42 sounds exactly like the Lexicon and the PCM84 have even more features.tutt

Original lexicons take more bother than it's worth

Originally Posted by Empire Prod ➡️

Please stop before you hurt yourself. Seriously!

Originally Posted by dale116dot7 ➡️

PCM42 limiter is optical. U15 + U14 make up the dry signal limiter. Note that U14 is a CdS photocell + LED. U9 + U16 make up the A-D converter (dry + feedback) limiter. Bargraph drive voltage is used to run this limiter. U16 is another CdS + LED cell. It's listed as a CLM50 on the schematic.

I do not see a limiter on any of the PCM60/70/80/90 series.

I do not have a schematic of a PCM41.

-Dale

Originally Posted by Pastor Obviedo ➡️

...guess what...the analogue part of the circuitry can be modeled too
Original lexicons take more bother than it's worth

Originally Posted by embrionic ➡️

I have some opinions and theories on this "trick" having used it over the years on both a 41 and a 42. They are herewith served with the requisite grain of salt...

I believe this was maybe discovered when someone (as noted above) had a mix going, took a break, powered down, and came in the next day and went "Wow" - those guitars sound awesome!" only to discover that the delay which was being being used for stereo chorus effect was now set to 00 ms. Despite some opinions that it can not be done on a 41, I believe that it may have actually been discovered on a PCM 41, because the 41 came first and it does not remember the delay setting when powered down. As noted by others here, if it was just the limiter on the 42, then you could achieve this effect by just slamming any limiter and blending it.

And besides, it was taught to me years ago by another engineer, on a 41, (pre Nirvana even!)

Here is what I was taught:

If you set the PCM 41 delay time to 00 ms and 100% wet and pan opposite the mono source track and balance the two, you can create a very lush/thick stereo guitar sound that also also holds up rather well in mono and is not too 80's chorusy. Apparently, if you have a 42, you can also crank the input to get the increased limiting from that device too. But what seems to be left out above is that the delay mix control must be set to 100% delay.

In my experience, you can even blend the dry/effect channels into mono (or in-between instead of hard panned) for spatial effects and to "widen" the guitar footprint but still place it somewhere other than total pseudo-stereo. Bringing up the delay time ever so slightly can vary the effect but too much and you are just heading into flange/chorus territory.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have done the above effect on PCM 41's and 42's over the years without the limiting since I only just learned about that here on gearslutz. And I don't have access to a 42 anymore and I don't recall intentionally slamming the 42's when I did this in the past.

So why might this effect work on these delays and not others?

I may be wrong but it's my theory that it is not just the limiter on the 42 that adds to the guitar sound, but the fact that you are setting the delay to near 00 ms and running a signal through the less than perfect sample/delay circuit of a 42 (or a 41) which alters the wave form (re-sampling) even when set to 00 ms. This thickens the original sound in a way that simply eq or compression alone cannot achieve. It is kind of grungy on its own, and kind of cool when mixed with the source track. ITB effects like echo farm or the PSP emulations can not do this in the same way. Other delays that I have tried it on, like the effectrons and SDE's don't seem to do it either. Something happens to a PCM 41/42 when set to 00 ms and then using a bit of the delay factor knob.

While the 41 is different than the 42 effect (no limiter) it is to me equally valuable, if it's a sound you're after. If you have a 41 lying around, try it, and you may want to keep your 41 (too)!

All this being said, it is just a trick, it can get old fast, and I don't do it much anymore since I mix primarily ITB, but I do occasionally miss it on a track that really needs some help.

Originally Posted by embrionic ➡️

As far as I was taught it is 100% wet, otherwise, theoretically, it would not matter what the delay times is set to right?

At 100% on the 42 the limiter would still be in effect if you had 100% wet because the signal is passing through the device. I don't have a block diagram for either at hand so I can't verify exactly what happens to the signal at 100% dry, but I would guess it is limiter only, no a/d/a. Hope that helps.

Originally Posted by Led ➡️

Hi, wow this old thing has reared it's head again...
The 'tremelo' effect you are getting is because one or both of your limiter IC's is faulty. There are 2 stages to the limiting. If the mix is set to dry you are only hearing one chip, not both, so if your unit doesn't tremelo with the mix set to dry then it's most likely only one chip, probably U16 that's gone. You would need to check the schematic but from memory they are chips positioned at U14 and U16, I think. They are a chip model number 'CLM50' and are about $10 each nowdays but you can usually only find them at some sort of obsolete electronic components broker. I got some a few years back from a place called "Cheaper Electronics" in the US. Maybe google CLM50. There's usually a minimum order of about 10 chips so it's handy to find a few others with 42's and do a group buy. The CLM50 blowing is a pretty common problem so it's worth getting a couple of spares to keep in the cupboard as the 42's are getiing older nowdays and the chips will get harder to source. Make sure you put them in the same way as the old ones.
Good luck.

Originally Posted by embrionic ➡️

As far as I was taught it is 100% wet, otherwise, theoretically, it would not matter what the delay times is set to right?

At 100% on the 42 the limiter would still be in effect if you had 100% wet because the signal is passing through the device. I don't have a block diagram for either at hand so I can't verify exactly what happens to the signal at 100% dry, but I would guess it is limiter only, no a/d/a. Hope that helps.

Originally Posted by embrionic ➡️

output mix, not feedback! turning feedback all the way clockwise gives an altogether different effect!

output mix adjusts between dry (fully conter-clockwise) and wet (fully clockwise).

feedback controls how many repeats.

Originally Posted by embrionic ➡️

If you set the PCM 41 delay time to 00 ms and 100% wet and pan opposite the mono source track and balance the two, you can create a very lush/thick stereo guitar sound that also also holds up rather well in mono and is not too 80's chorusy. Apparently, if you have a 42, you can also crank the input to get the increased limiting from that device too. But what seems to be left out above is that the delay mix control must be set to 100% delay.

Originally Posted by atari800 ➡️

Hi guys-

When setting the delay time on my PCM-42 to 00 milliseconds as above, and hard-panning the dry and delay outputs, I definitely do *not* get stereo -- I get a mono image in the center of the stereo field, as you'd expect from a 0ms delay time.

Originally Posted by marwutz ➡️

Hey guys!
I hope it is allowed to revive old topics, but I just had an awesome idea on the shitter. heh

Let's say, I don't need an external Delay, but I only want to use the PCM limiter stage for grit and keep my plugins for the delay stuff.
Would it be possible to extract the limiter stage from the PCM42 schematic and put that into a Stompbox? Just simple controls (input/output gain) and 2 1/4 inch jacks and/or XLR.
What would one need to do in order to change the limiter output into a line signal?

Schematic here: http://www.lexiconpro.com/product_do...Schematics.pdf

cheers,
Mario

Originally Posted by atari800 ➡️

Incidentally, for the curious, ran a few tests. Played a dual-mono test track off a laptop, to another laptop, with the PCM 42 in between. Only one of two channels went through the 42, the other leg went straight to the recording machine. Examining the resulting recorded tracks, here's what it looks like:

Set to 00ms and 100% wet, the PCM 42 introduces about a 4-sample delay. This is about a tenth of a millisecond at 44.1khz. That's pretty fast. Mac OS X itself introduced about 2ms of delay when I ran the test track from output to input on the same machine. (This actually varied somewhat take to take -- which is why I ended up running from one machine to the other, to eliminate that issue.)

Set to 9ms, it took 422 samples of delay to null the two signals -- or about 9.5ms.

Set to 19ms, it took 832 samples to null them -- about 19ms even.

As tiny as 4 samples is, it's surprisingly audible as phasing when folded to mono. However it isn't a long enough delay to introduce a stereo widening effect. It takes 3ms of delay -- the next highest increment available on the PCM 42 -- to start hearing any stereo spread.

So... if there's stereoization to be had with the 00ms technique, I can't replicate it!

Also wasn't able to replicate the limiting, just extreme choppiness -- though I may have a unit with the defective IC.