squelch unit?

[WeAreAs1 at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/13/99 11:13:52 AM, you wrote:

<<
I would like to make sort of an effect unit (stompbox-like with knobs)
with what i can add more "squelch" to a sound, and a knob for
the amount of squelch i would like to have, how could i do this
and what do i need? (i don't know too much about transistors & things..)
Or is this all making no sense? i mean i have this
idea, but i don't know if it is at all possible.>>

"Squelch" is one of those words that gets thrown around quite a bit by the 
synth=paying crowd, but doesn't really have an accepted musical definition.  
In the world of shortwave radio and amatuer radio, "to squelch" means to 
attenuate unwanted noise.  The "squelch" knobs found on many old radio sets 
make a sound that is kind of like a cross between tuning the carrier wave in 
a ring modulator and adjusting the cutoff frequency of a high-pass filter.  
Among those who were born after the TB303 was, there may indeed be some kind 
of modern consensus as to what "squelch" means, but I grew up around Ham 
radio, so when I use the word "squelch", I mean either ring-modulated or 
highpass filtered, or both.  I'm willing to bet that if you built the Ring 
Mod and the Super Tone Filter in Craig Anderton's Electronic Projects for 
Musicians, you'd find yourself in Squelch Heaven.  (go to http://www.paia.com 
and look for the EPFM page)  Paia has inexpensive ready-made kits for those 
two projects.

Michael Bacich