Jetphase said of the Shure Level-Loc:

Shure Level-Loc: The Shure Level-Loc was made famous by Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake, who use their horrible, trashy sound to add character to drum tracks. These squash the signal completely, adding all kinds of nasty distortion to the sound. They're wonderful. Track a mono room mic through one of these, and mix it in with your regular drum mics for a very cool, character-filled sound.

Here is a PDF of the product sheet:

http://www.freeinfosociety.com/electronics...o/shurem62v.pdf

There was kit that is no longer available called the Drewtronics Sherlock. eeldip constructed one of these kits. He said of the Sherlock:

i got it working (pretty much) this weekend. first of all, it sounds freakin insane. i can see why people go apeshit over level-locs. so very wonderfully wrong sounding. goes from moderately fucked up cool compression to totally wrong fucked up broken sounding limiting (let me describe- a loud fast sound comes into it, it lops off the attack totally, then quickly brings up the back end of the sound and then gives you every bit of room reverb you have).

i tried it on high hat, close miced, and it made the hat sound like it was being played backwards.

whoa, i sure had a dirty mouth that day.

i have a nice sample of the sherlock on a room mic for drums... letme find it.

Lacking any real control, the effect is dependant very much on the input level fed into it. The more dB, the more the effect. It isn't going to do much on fingerpicked acoustic guitar, for example.

It was a great project.

Bear

no control? c'mon you got 6" 12" and 18"!

yea. ok. you're right. i find the best way to control it is through mic choice and placement.

Oh and also, this effect takes mic level and gives out 1965 style mic level. which is to say: you need a lot of gain to get this thing going into your recording medium.

and you'll need a phantom box in front of it if you want to use something that needs phantom.

I wonder if anyone has the schematic lying around for the sherlock. I didn't jump on it quick enough when Drew was selling the kits and now I want to build one damnit! Did the kit by any chance come with a schematic, layout and/or parts list? If someone could post them I would give my first born.

nope, no schematic if i remember right. jeez i dont think i have any paperwork laying around for it at all, i think it was all online pdfs.

drew is a super nice guy.. you could ask....

is dMiurge like, Demiurge, like so: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04707b.htm

Mojo Pie definitely seems to get lots of religious references by guys who seemingly don't possess a strong religious bent that they wear on their sleeves.

man I would love to hear that!
Also I want to build one of these.
Drew said he is "no longer supporting these". Do you have any info on the input/output transformers?

The transformers weren't anything high-faluting or anything, which is kind of vintage-appropriate. I think 10:1's, with one used backwards for 1:10 ratio. I'd try anything cheap you can find if you can get the circuit going.

Steve or Ken, do you want me to ship up my Sherlock (and my Fostex MN mixer w/ awesome nuke compression) for evaluation? I'm not doing anything with them in the near future and not in any situation to generate clips.

Bear

do you have the original instructions?
It would be killer if I didnt have to do a layout from scratch.
I found 3 original transformers. I'm going to use 2 of them to start building and send the other one to someone who can make multiple copies.

(duplicate)

I think I've got those instructions in a box somewhere. I'll try to look around if I can find time.

The instructions aren't very technical, but might help - no real info on the circuit, but wiring the guzintas and guzouttas and the switches will probably be easier for them. I think there might have been a parts list that'll give you some currently available component values. (It's been a couple years . . .)

Bear

That would be awesome!
Thanks

any luck?

Got it. I'll see about scanning it shortly. There were some eratta about resistor codes, but I inked that in. I thought I had messed up the whole thing until I remembered to attach the ground to the chassis . . .

Bear

Awesome thanks!

Two finals next week. I advise patience, but when I get a chance . . .

Bear

Thanks so much!

Thanks again! I am looking for a layout for this now. Any ideas? I am trying to avoing doing a layout from scratch - or doing it all point to point.

Have you tried Drew? He didn't seem "in it for the money" so now that the kit is long past its life cycle, he may just give away the board art.

Bear

He never replied. I'm working in out in express pcb. If you have any suggestions re: layout please let me know.
Thanks!

Never mind!

Anybody know the going rate on a real Level Loc these days? I think I might be kicking myself for letting one get away too cheap, even though I already have a Sherlock. I just found one Buy-it-now auction where it went for $750. WTF?

Bear

I've seen them go from $250 on up in the past few months. crazy.

Hmm. I stopped around 150. One was hidden in an auction for a Shure Voicegate. I swear, it's like you have to actually go to the church or high school that's clearing out it's old stuff to pay anything close to what those things would cost if Tchad didn't like them.

Bear

nope, no schematic if i remember right. jeez i dont think i have any paperwork laying around for it at all, i think it was all online pdfs.