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Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 12 Jun 2009, 08:42
by MWichni
Hi guys, I found a picture of Pete's tube buffer. Maybe picture show enough to trace it down. So here it is:

https://img8.imageshack.us/i/tubes3n.jpg/

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 14 Sep 2009, 09:07
by salvoinz
Hi MWichni, and hi you all

Have you found the schematic (and the part list) of this tube-buffer?

Cheers

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 14 Sep 2009, 10:56
by lolbou

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 14 Sep 2009, 18:33
by MWichni
lolbou wrote:What about this? http://www.freewebs.com/valvewizard/accf.html
Who knows? :hmmm:

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 19 Oct 2009, 15:38
by MWichni
Here is what my dad traced from the picture above. Anyone bet any values?

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 19 Oct 2009, 15:54
by lolbou
MWichni wrote:Here is what my dad traced from the picture above
Dad?! :D Mine would have say "démerde-toi"... :lol:

Well, sort of a classic tube cathode follower... Since Pete's claiming 1Mohms input impedance and 20pF input cap, with the link I provided above, some values should be easy to determine...

Anyway, it would be perfect to have some clue about what patr of the pic is what part of the drawing (to check for any doubt)?

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 19 Oct 2009, 16:00
by MWichni
lolbou wrote:
MWichni wrote:Here is what my dad traced from the picture above
Dad?! :D Mine would have say "démerde-toi"... :lol:

Well, sort of a classic tube cathode follower... Since Pete's claiming 1Mohms input impedance and 20pF input cap, with the link I provided above, some values should be easy to determine...

Anyway, it would be perfect to have some clue about what patr of the pic is what part of the drawing (to check for any doubt)?
I'll try to do that, but don't have much time nowdays.

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 19 Oct 2009, 21:54
by Ben N
Seems odd--why would a CF have a bypass cap, or take its signal below the cathode resistor, and what is with the R from the plate to the cathode?

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 06 Nov 2009, 12:44
by salvoinz
Hi guys,

Well, about the value of the parts used for the tube buffer on Gilmour pedalboard, they should be just like the Hiwatt pre-amp, infact Mr. Cornish says that : "We decided to eliminate the loading influence of a large chain of effects by incorporating unity gain tube pre-amps, with identical characteristics to his amp input stage, as the guitar input stage and also as isolators between effects."

You can find this on the following link:

http://www.tonefromheaven.com/

on the "All Tube Effects Board" section.

hope this help.....

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 06 Nov 2009, 16:14
by guiddruid
and for schems of every conceivable Hiwatt input stage; http://mhuss.com/Hiwatt/tech2.html

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 06 Nov 2009, 16:50
by salvoinz
guiddruid wrote:and for schems of every conceivable Hiwatt input stage; http://mhuss.com/Hiwatt/tech2.html
Yes, guiddruid

and in particular the following links could help better:

http://mhuss.com/Hiwatt/Schematics/DR_P ... put_v2.gif
this should be just the schematic of the Hiwatt amp used right by Gilmour infact it has the linked input.

http://mhuss.com/Hiwatt/Schematics/STAInputPre.gif
and this link could help better to find the values of parts, i guess (because it is just the slave preamp without the tonestack), but I'm not able to do this.

So please help......

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 09 Nov 2009, 07:28
by flood
lolbou wrote:
MWichni wrote: Well, sort of a classic tube cathode follower... Since Pete's claiming 1Mohms input impedance and 20pF input cap, with the link I provided above, some values should be easy to determine...

Anyway, it would be perfect to have some clue about what patr of the pic is what part of the drawing (to check for any doubt)?
isn't 20pF a bit too small? wouldn't it cut too much low end?

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 09 Nov 2009, 08:18
by guiddruid
1M/20pF is the sort of thing you would find marked on an ancient oscilloscope input or probe (both impedances are to gnd - thee 20pF is a parasitic capacitance, not a physical component). Perhaps _that's_ the type of app note the circuit was copied from?

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 09 Nov 2009, 21:54
by JiM
Using the above schematic, i tried a quick&dirty Spice simulation, using almost random values.
Hmm, not random, but re-using components from an existing amp schematic.

It has probably nothing to do with the actual Cornish Tube Buffer, but here it is anyway, as a starting point for discussion.
The frequency response is linear over the guitar frequencies, within -0.25dB.
The waveform shows very little distortion, and an FFT analysis confirms the absence of even harmonics, the 3rd harmonic is at -40dB.

Let's tweak that !

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 10 Nov 2009, 03:52
by regnad
i am sooo glad i found this forum. eager to see this final schematic!

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 10 Nov 2009, 05:38
by flood
it reminds me of a hi-fi tube buffer i built some time ago called the yaqin tube buffer. this uses the 6ak5 pentode strapped as a triode. the values are a bit different, but the basic topology is essentially the same.

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 11 Nov 2009, 02:27
by regnad
come on guys, dont stop now! has anyone come up with the schematic for the buffer?

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 12 Nov 2009, 03:24
by regnad
so is this topic dead? i have been looking to build some of these tube buffers. can anyone work out the schematic from the pic or compare the highwatt input schem to the pic to see if its the same?

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 12 Nov 2009, 15:53
by Bernardduur
I would use something like the other suggested Cathode follower

Check the schematics of the Vox FX loop, the Valvulator or the Dumbleator.

I used something like this, with a tad more gain, on my newest amp build to overcome the (impedance) problem of 8 powertubes :D

Re: Pete Cornish Tube Buffer

Posted: 18 Aug 2013, 02:48
by AllegedRetroFreek
Bernardduur wrote:I would use something like the other suggested Cathode follower

Check the schematics of the Vox FX loop, the Valvulator or the Dumbleator.

I used something like this, with a tad more gain, on my newest amp build to overcome the (impedance) problem of 8 powertubes :D

I'm bringing this post back from the dead. Gilmour uses a modded Alembic F2B Preamp which is then sent to the power amp sections of the hiwatts. The Hiwatt preamps are bypassed completely. I've read that Pete Cornish modified the Alembic to better suit guitar (it's a bass preamp) but the values are pretty well unknown. It could be that the Cornish tube buffer is the input stage of the F2B. I can't add the schematic as I'm on my ipad but it's widely distributed. Any thoughts on what the buffer schem would look like?