BUILD A SUOX GAIN ‘KIDER VOICE-CONTROLLED MIKE MAKES MUSIC MURMUR NE SURE WAY tu spoil good party is to interrupt the musielive or eanned to make an announcement and have the vol for speceh, with acoustic feed. that shatters ume all wron bac entirely too long a delay just to let people Know that “soup's on.” All of this ean be avoided if yon equip your sound system with a “VOX Gnin Rider.” Tt’s a simple cire that responds to a voice input tea mivrophene and automatieally lowers the volume of the music, This permits you to make your an- nonneement easily and effectively—and the musie will continue at its former level as soon as yon ate finished. ne VOX Gain Rider is battery-powered for portability and ean be nsed in eon jinetion 58 BY DAVID W. BEATY with any sonnd system and a high-impedance microphone. In fact, there are a number of sin whieh it ean be used: to turn oil your hi-fi system when the telephone rings: to low er the volume when the baby cries upstairs; to cut down the din in the reereation room when you want to set message throngh to the kids: suitable situation where one signal ean take precedence over another. Theory of Cire of the Gain Ri Design. The schematic suit is shown in The from a_ high-impedance mier lar source—is coupled to the cirenit through 77 which provides im . The proper amount of signal is taken trom the arm of potentiometer Pf POPULAR ELECTRONICS | | | {° Fig, 1. The FET provides a fast-acting variable resistor between the music line and ground. When audio comes in on the microphone line, the music level drops to the preset value and jumps back to normal when the microphone input is no longer used. All parameters r@ controllable. PARTS LIST Q1.03-—Npn silicon transistor (Motorola RI—15,00-ohm, Y-watt resistor MPS0521) RI4—100,000-ohm potentiometer BI—9-volt battery Q4—Pup silicon transistor (Motorola RIS-RI7—100,000-ohm, Y-wats resistor C1CO—l0-aF, 12-volt electrolytic capacitor MPS6522) ‘SI—Spst switch (part of RY) C2050.) uF, 5 )5—2N'5555 n-channel FET (or similar) T1—Transjormer 1000/200,000 ohms (Archer C3.C4—100-I 1—10,000-ohm potentiometer (with SI at- 273-1376) C7—S-nF, 12 tached) Mise—Plastic case with metal cover, battery C8—I-nk, 12-volt electrolytic capacitor R2—120.000-ohm, %-watt resistor lip, and clamp, spacers, knobs, panel mark: veneral-purpose diode (1N34 or similar) R3,R4—8200-ohm, Y-wate resistor ing, etc. = 1C1—dudio amplifier IC (Motorola MC4010P) R5.RO,R10-RI3—10,000-ohm, Ye-svate resisor Note—An etched and drilled PC board is & JI-I3—%" phone jack R7—33.000-ohm, Si-watt resistor available from: Boyd Hansen, 557 Todd a J4—Phono jack RB—250,000-ohm potentiometer Loop, Los Alamos, NM 87544 for $2.25, 2 tcola Mec 4ol0r - wot MC HOOPSone, we a wee ne w— oe < [pd ge ee ee es ae EEN Fig. 2. Actual size PC board etching sol Cling gules er) ao ane ent layout and orientation (above) Observe the polarity of ICL, transis tors, and. electrolytic capacitors ves its charge thre FRY potentiometer if input cycles have and applied to 701, nu audio amplifier mol- C7, Capacitor C7 ree ule. The IC raises the signal level enongh to KZ and £8, the RE¢ alf When a sufficient numbe rate ocenrred to allow C7 to be discharged below saturate transistor QZ on each positive eyele. This permits C7 to disclurge at determined by the time constant of 16 and — the threshold of Sehmitt trigger Q2 and Q2, hough the prototype used phone jacks, any other suitable type of connector may be used. A short length of plastic strip supports the S-volt battery. 60 POPULAR ELECTRONICSTo oPrionaL MONITOR AMP Im OUT MONITOR OUT IN mic music VOX GAIN RIDER Fig. 3. Connections between the Gain Rider and the audio system using it. Once the music level has been preset, and the recovery period determined, the system is ready to operate anytime the announcement mike is used the latter saturates. This causes Q/ to con- duet and places its collector at approximately the level of the supply voltage, Oceasional narrow noise pulses on the input are not suf- ficient to allow C7 to discharge enough to fire the Schmitt trigger. With QZ conducting, the potential at the wiper of R11 is raised to a maximum of 9 volts, depending on its setting. This provides the gute signal for field effect transistor Qf The latter acts as a voltage-variable resistor to reduce the level of the signal between J? and J4, The signal from the microphone thus euts: the music signal and takes over the amplifier system. When the microphone signal is removed, transistor Q/ is not saturated and capacitor (7 is recharged through resistors A? and KB. Construction. The circuit is built up on a printed eireuit board using the foil pattern and component layout shown in Fig, 2. Note that the various electrolytic capacitors are mounted “standing wp” with one lead soldered To conserve board space, note that the capacitors are mounted "‘on end.” The use of transistor sockets is optional, as is the type of phone jacks shown. 6 June, 1971SHIELDED 80x. _ ' Lrwisteg ‘oR [SHIELDED CABLE Fig. 4. This modificati PAIR shows how to control the volume of ‘an amplifier from a distance. In this case, the microphone control feature is removed. The capacitors reduce hum pickup. directly into its hole and the other lead bent over fo reach the other hole. To. eonserve space, Vj-vatt resistors are suggested; thongh, if you make your own board layout and have the room, you may substitute 14-watt resistors, Observe the location coding for C7; and when installing this and the other semicon~ duetors, use a low-power soldering iron and ne solder. The prototype shown in the photos was built on the metal cover plate of ab" x 344” % 2" plastic box. The three potentiometers and five inpu:/output jacks were mounted across the top of the panel and suitably arked. The battery was held in place by a pla sie band attached to the chassis. A con- ventional Q-volt transistor radio battery: ean be used singe the drain is only 6 milliamperes, Testing and Operation. 1| connections to and from the Gain Rider eireuit should be made with shielded andio eable to reduce 60- Hz hum. Conneet a turntable, AM/FM tuner, or any other low-lovel high impedance audio source to the mnsie inpnt jack 73, Connect an amplifier and speaker to the musie output jack J4, Set the amplifier controls for the desired sound level. Set the Gain Rider sex- suniviry control J°f for minimum and eonneet a high-impedanee microphone to 1. Conneet an andio cable from the microphone output jack J2 to the other channel on the amplifier. ‘AIL of the above connections are shown in Fig. 3 Set RI (atesic peesen) and RS (REcov- rey) to minimum (should be maximun e terclockwise). Then adjust th i control for a sonndl level slightly higher than that normally used While speaking slowly into the mierophor 62 rrivrry control until the mu- sie level drops suddenly. Continuing to speak slowly into the microphone, advance 1°7 until the musie level drops suddenly with each word, It may be necessary to pause between words to allow the music level to recover. Re- con this setting of L22 for future reference. Speaking into the microphone at normal level, adjust 228 (recovery) until the music evel does not recover between normally spaced words, but does recover in a suitable time atier you stop speaking. Record the setting of £3, Obtain the desired level of mnsie while you are talking by adjusting £24 (ateste rResin) Once the three potentiometers are set_as described above, the VOX Gain Rider is ready forn advance the sr: Remote Control. The VOX Gain Rider ean be used to control the level of a sound system from a remote location by using the modification cirenit shown in Fig. 4. The re- mote control unit is eonneeted to the system through a reasonable length of twisted pair or shielded cable, The capacitanee value may have to be increased if the amount of stray pickup is too high, Helpful Hints. Note that the setting of Rt (srxsirviry) depends on the type of input— electric guitars, organs, FM receivers may take different settings. Tt shonld also be noted that when usei| with live performances, the ambient noise level may be sufficient to trig- zer the cirenit unless a good cardioid micro- phone or a “close-speaking” type is used, If a permanent installation is desired, any well- filtered 9-volt de power supply may be used to replace the batte a POPULAR ELECTRONICS