Chandler Limited Germanium Tone Control User Manual

Thank you for purchasing the Chandler Limited Germanium Tone Control. This unit is proudly hand
wired and assembled in the USA. It uses a 100% discrete transistor circuit and specially wound
transformers. Included are item descriptions and hints to get you on your way.

Please feel free to call our shop anytime for help or questions.

Phone: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]

Send repairs to: Chandler Limited, Inc.
222 S. Cherry Street
Shell Rock, IA 50670

Connections - All connections on the Germanium are transformer balanced with pin 2 hot.

Power supply - This is designed to be used with Chandler Limited PSU-1 MKII power supply.

The power pin out is as follows:

1) chassis and audio ground

2) 48 volt

3) +28 volt

4) -28 volt

Notes on Grounding - On the back of the power supply are two black banana connectors.

These join the audio ground to earth ground with a solid wire between them. Depending on your
studio you may want this connected or disconnected. Turn up your monitors or headphones a bit
and experiment with which has a lower noise floor in your system. You may also need to join the audio
banana plug to other sections of you studio to obtain lowest noise floor. The audio banana is located
closest to the edge of the power supply case. Use something simple like a guitar cord and touch the
tip to other portions of your studio to find best results.

GERMANIUM TONE CONTROL

For peak performance, please allow the unit to warm up for at least 25 minutes before use.

Prior to sending in your gear for repair, please contact our shop at the number below. We will assist
you in troubleshooting the problem and if needed, we will issue you an RMA# to send in the gear.

Controls and Features

GAIN/GERMANIUM DRIVE - A gain switch in 3db steps, this is your standard input level type

control. The actual amount of overall gain, however, is affected by feedback control. With gain at 0
and feedback at zero, overall gain is -30db. Moving the feedback to 10 overall gain becomes -8db
with all the tonal changes described under the feedback control. Available gain of the unit is -30db with
Gain and Feebdack at 0 to +25db with the Germanium Drive and Feedback at full. Using different
combinations of feedback and input gain is essential if you want to take advantage of all the available
tones from the Germanium pre amp.

FEEDBACK - The Feedback control is essential to the sound and function of this EQ’s amplifier..

Audio amplifiers incorporate some amount of negative feedback which is where the output signal
of the amplifier is fed back to its input. This affects the sound and function of the amplifier in many
ways. THD, frequency response, gain and amplifier stabilization change considerably with varying
feedback. Please refer to the section about unity gain for the tone variations available by using
Gain and Feedback combinations.

BYPASS - You may bypass the passive Thick or low frequency section and the active
Presence and Treble sections of the Tone Control separately for maximum flexibility. To
bypass both at the same time, simply place the passive and active pushbuttons in the
out position.

PASSIVE

ACTIVE

BYPASS

Controls and Features continued

INTERACTIVE/INDEPENDENT - As one of the important controls for flexibility, this switch affects

how the Thick boost and cut interact to create variations of the EQ curves. In INTERACTIVE mode the
boost and cut work in a similar manner to Pultec and Lang EQs whereby boosting and cutting at the
same time makes the curves "interact" to create cool variations. For example, by boosting at 70hz and
cutting at 240hz you get a drop near 350hz and a peak at 70hz. Boosting at 70hz and cutting at 320hz
will give you a drop at 450hz and a peak at 70hz. Please note that different frequency choices will
create different boost/cut curves. For example, when cutting at 320hz you will get a lower cut point by
lowering the boost point. To illustrate the effect of INTERACTIVE further, if you were to do similar
settings on a standard console EQ you would simply get the cut at 240hz or 320hz because the cut
would take precedence over the boost. INTERACTIVE allows you to use both together to create
normally unattainable equalizer responses.

INDEPENDENT mode allows you to switch the low EQ to respond as a standard console EQ as
mentioned above. In this instance you would normally use the low cut to shave off the very low muddy
frequencies and possibly boost above it. Remember that in this mode the cut will take precedence!
Uses for INDEPENDENT mode might be these: on a kick drum adding 50 or 70hz and cutting at 35 to
remove the very low frequencies that could eat up your mix. Another would be using just the low cut to
the same 35 or 50hz from a vocal or acoustic guitar track. The nice thing about INTERACTIVE/
INDEPENDENT is that you can accomplish similar results with different settings that create fun and
useable variations in tone. See example settings.

THICK CUT - The cut section has specific tunes sections for use in either INTERACTIVE

or INDEPENDENT mode. The first four settings 20, 30, 40, and 60hz are tuned for use with the
INDEPENDENT mode for removing very low frequncies problems. The curve is a very sharp 18db
per octave and works well when boosting above the selected cut frequency, i.e., boost 35 or 50 and cut
20hz. As mentioned these are very effective at removing rumble from vocals and acoustic guitars
because sharp slope does not dig into higher frequencies that would make the track thin. The second
set of four points 150, 200, 240, 320 are tuned for use with the INTERACTIVE mode. The slope is a
broad shelf type curve that helps make the beautiful interactions of boost and cut possible. It
is also effective for creating thinning effects such as telephone sounds.

INTERACTIVE

INDEPENDENT

CUT

OUT

2 0

30

40

60

1 5 0

2 0 0

2 4 0

3 2 0

5

64

3

2

1

0

7

8

9

1 0