if anyone knows of any electronic text that would help to read schematics (not just symbols) and specifically how different sections are delineated I would really appreciate it.
Or is this a stupid question?
Not a stupid question at all. Understanding schematics is pretty important skill for this project. However, I haven't seen a 'tutorial for guitar pedal schematic understanding' per say. Most of the knowledge is available by just being savvy with your google searches.
However, R.G did a really good series that took a Tubescreamer schem and broke it all down. I think it's called 'anatomy of a tubescreamer.'
Jacob
Yeah, it is a good question, but I think it probably doesn't have a good answer. It doesn't help that there really isn't a standard in the way schematics are laid out. I've looked at tons of schematics now and still if one is organized in a way that's far enough from what I'm used to, it takes me a bit to try and figure out where to start and where things are.
I think the main thing that helped me was learning to recognize the little chunks of circuits that make up the building blocks, transistor amplifier section, op-amp amplifiers, filters, etc. I learned those mainly from basic electronics books and really from the application notes from TI and other companies. The Tube Screamer article on geofex is a good place to learn. He has others there that are good too. If you go to the main page at http://www.geofex.com (http://www.geofex.com) and then click on the "FX Technology" link in the upper left corner, it takes you to all the articles that are like that. This site http://sound.westhost.com (http://sound.westhost.com) has lots of good articles under the "Projects" and "Articles" links. They are mainly aimed at HiFi audio, but there's lots of overlap.
I think breadboarding simple circuits probably helps too. If you start from a schematic and then actually build the thing on the breadboard and then you can physically probe what you've built, it helps solidify what the different sections are doing in your mind.
All of that doesn't necessarily mean it'll be easy to see immediately what a schematic is doing, but it'll give you landmarks that you can spot and that'll help you pull the thing apart more easily.
Jacob and Rob's suggestions are great. Here are my recommendations for basic effects pedal building block circuits to learn:
- inverting and non-inverting op amps
- amplifying and buffering transistors
- hard and soft clipping diodes
- RC filters
- voltage dividers
Once you've learned those bits you should be able to read through a simple distortion circuit like the MXR Distortion+. After that, try a RAT schematic followed by a Tube Screamer. At this point you're halfway there. If you want more after that try op amp oscillators like most chorus pedals or modulation circuits. Good luck!
I love this site.
http://www.electrosmash.com (http://www.electrosmash.com)
here's where I learned to read schematics... http://beavisaudio.com/techpages/SchematicToReality/
Layton