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One niche use that I know of that lives on to this day for germanium diodes is in analog guitar effects. The reason is twofold: germanium diodes generally have
by Jeema101 6y ago
One niche use that I know of that lives on to this day for germanium diodes is in analog guitar effects.
The reason is twofold: germanium diodes generally have a softer turn-on than silicon diodes, and they have a lower forward voltage drop than silicon diodes.
This makes them useful in audio applications for clipping circuits (more sensitive and warmer sounding distortion), but also in simple one-diode envelope-detector circuits. One rather famous guitar compressor effect from the 1970s (the 'Orange Squeezer') used a germanium diode as an envelope-detector in this manner.
- squarefoot 6y ago> germanium diodes generally have a softer turn-on than silicon diodes This a million times, and it also applies to germanium transistors too. I keep reading that all it needs to emulate the germanium sound in a guitar fuzz made with silicon transistors is adding a small cap between base and collector, which is only part of the story: those are non linear devices, and there's a non trivial difference between Ge and Si V/I curves, which translate into different sound which can't be emulated just by adding a cap. A softer curve creates a much gentler distortion which doesn't ruin the sound when playing chords for example.
- deeblering4 6y agoAnother famous guitar effect example is the germanium "fuzz face" pedal, which are still in production today. You can get an idea of this kind of fuzz sound in the song "Spirit in the Sky" by Norman Greenbaum.