Silkworm Manual
Contents
1. switch with the corresponding light Silkworm s soft phantom circuit eliminates the annoying audible crack with MOST microphones However some rare microphones due to their circuit design will still cause a loud pop a few seconds AFTER the phantom voltage is switched off With those you will still need to mute or lower your monitoring level 8 Phase reverse at the very output of the preamp Affects both mic and instrument inputs 9 Mic input attenuation 15dB pad pre transformer Also lowers mic input impedance 10 Input selector up for mic XLR on the back of your frame box down for 1 4 instrument jack 11 Use Imperial 4 40 screws up and down to secure this module to the power supply frame SERIES 500 CONNECTOR PINOUT We use the standard API series 500 pinout and also support some features that a few current series 500 frame manufactures adopted The buss feed pin 11 receives the output of the gain stage through a 4 7k resistor This enables the use of this buss for mixing if the frame provides that option Pins 1 5 and 13 all meet at the power supply s ground point and we guide them separately according to the series 500 standard to minimize hum and interference Proper condenser mic operation requires 48V at pin 15 and all modern series 500 frames provide it along with 16V supply voltage pins 12 and 14 It should be noted here that the same quality of voltage regulation is not delivered by all availabl2. Fal LN Sone Farm Sonic Farm Pro Audio Vancouver BC Canada Tel 310 402 2390 778 863 1613 www sonicfarm com for email please use contact box on our website Sonic Farm Silkworm Series 500 Microphone Instrument Preamplifier USER MANUAL A S A G ye VIBE MIC INST Silkworm 48v yest Dear Audio Professional Thank you for purchasing the Silkworm We hope it will deliver exceptional recordings for many years into the future Please take the time to read this manual It describes Silkworm s design philosophy as well as its most important functions DESIGN PHILOSOPHY Having the very successful Creamer Pentode Preamp under out belts we wanted to come up with a different sounding preamp The increasing popularity of the series 500 format made us choose that package Series 500 has some serious limitations like low supply voltage low maximum current draw and finally lack of room Those can if not addressed with care easily turn the result into an average sounding preamp A lot of time was spent to come up with a solid state unit worthy of the Sonic Farm reputation We also did our best to make this preamp as versatile as possible to increase the scope of its use in the studio or on stage and avoiding the one trick pony tag Silkworm is a clean preamp That means the use of an extremely low distortion gain stage that adds no harmonics to the sound The configuration is as follows Low distortion Cine
3. e series 500 frames With a couple of them during a high gain test using a cheap Chinese condenser mic but not with other ones we noticed a faint but audible 60Hz hum That same mic was dead quiet on the Creamer at the highest gain setting This has nothing to do with the Silkworm other series 500 pre s behaved the same in this test So we suggest you choose a frame with properly regulated phantom voltage to get most out of all of your modules TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS 1 channel Microphone input impedance 8kOhm for middle vibe switch setting only more complex for the other 2 Frequency response 5Hz 50kHz 3dB Maximum gain microphone 66 2dB Maximum gain for instrument 42 7dB Gain stage THD at 1kHz lt 0 0005 Input mic transformer THD at OdBu 0 03 at 100Hz 0 01 at 200Hz 0 001 at 2kHz 0 0007 at 10kHz Output transformer THD 20Hz to 20kHz up to 10dBu lt 0 15 up to 20dBu lt 0 2 up to 28dBu lt 1 Maximum output level 28 7dBu Minimum output load 6000 Instrument input 1 4 unbalanced mono Power consumption 3W WARRANTY INFORMATION Sonic Farm gives a one year warranty on parts and labor from the date of purchase Should you need to send in your unit for warranty covered service please contact us for an RMA number first We will also tell you where to send the unit Any Modification of the unit voids the warranty CONTACT INFORMATION LA a LN Sonic Farm Sonic Farm Pro Audio Vanco
4. mag mic transformer followed by a discrete OP amp circuit which in turn drives the 100 Fe output transformer or if switched in a solid state balanced line driver The iron on both input and output is there to add some sweetness to the sound and avoid sterility often resulting from the wire with gain design approach see specs the transformer THD is actually beneficial The OT has more juice the more it s pushed We didn t listen with our eyes fixed on the distortion meter but made sure we had an emotional response while listening to the sound coming out of the Silkworm The instrument input first goes to a FET buffer IC before if switched in it replaces the mic transformer in front of the gain stage The idea is to keep the signal path of the whole preamp 100 DC with no capacitors in the signal path other than the ones adding character see vibe switch in front panel controls description This ensures even the deepest low end with no phase shift whatsoever something impossible with tube preamps The old vintage solid state preamp designs didn t pay too much attention to that either and today we see a lot of need for replacing dried out capacitors in praised vintage preamps The discrete gain stage was designed for maximum transient preservation and transparency while having a stable operation We kept the open loop gain high enough for low distortion but not too high to have to use extreme feedback which wo
5. that on the panel Think of the Vibe switch as a complex impedance manipulator Medium position is flat 8k input impedance and the associated sound is Present The other 2 use a capacitive resistive network Upper position is a gentle warm up of hi mids and treble and we mark that as Smooth The lower position produces a mild hump in high mids or treble depending on microphone s output impedance typically around 8 or 10kHz We called that Warped 3 Gain range switch has 3 positions High up Low middle and Medium down It enables very smooth and precise gain adjustment using the gain trim pot For condenser mics you will most probably use L or M with pot almost CCW counterclockwise Dynamics and Ribbons on loud instruments M sometimes even L Use H with soft sounds on ribbons or dynamics Instrument input limits gain to L and M 4 Output select low distortion solid state balanced driver IC or transformer driven directly by the discrete gain stage Solid state mode will sound somewhat cleaner and the transformer rounder and fatter 5 Bi color green red LED for signal presence overload indicator Red indicates clipping distortion To eliminate it lower the gain using the trim control 1 or the 3 pos gain range switch 3 The last resort is the pad 9 6 w unbalanced instrument input Good for guitar bass or keyboards The input impedance is 2 2M0 7 Phantom power
6. uld kill transients The very output of the gain circuit is a complementary stage and this is very common However our version is free of crossover distortion even before feedback is applied This pretty much limits feedback to gain regulation only An active servo loop takes any DC offset out The final result can be described as a very clean transparent sound but the one that can never sound boring Thanks to the output transformer option and the vibe switch the Silkworm can take on different personalities easily impersonate vintage solid state preamps current top producers favor or just convey the pristine realism to accommodate the other end of the music genre stick like classical music Please put this preamp to hard work in your studio and be amazed how it takes on any task with ease and in fact shines at it SILKWORM S FRONT PANEL CONTROLS series 500 connector layout 1 Chassis Ground 2 XLR out hot 3 notin use A 4 XLR out cold Aw l VIBE MINS l 5 Signal Ground on 6 notin use 7 notin use 8 m u GAIN PAD XLR in cold 9 notin use 10 XLR in hot 11 Buss see text 12 16V 13 Pwr Sply Ground 14 16V 15 48V SILKWORM SOLID STATE PREAMP 1 Gain Trim control Silkworm s gain is controlled using the 3 pos gain range switch 3 and this conductive plastics pot for fine smooth adjustment 2 The proper name should be character but there was no room for
7. uver BC Canada Tel 310 402 2390 778 863 1613 www sonicfarm com For email please use contact box on our website
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