ae WHITE AND PINK NOISE GENERATOR R1-6.8k NOISE '26v O A basic noise generator can be built using one transistor and a Zener diode. The 10 voit Zener acts as the noise source and also stabilizes the transistor operating point. Adding capacitor C2 will change the output from ‘white’ noise to ‘pink’ noise. Output level for components specified will be about 15 V for white noise and about 14.5 V for pink noise. The transistor should be a BC 108 or 2N3643 — other similar transistors will do. wet neMaximum-length shift register generates white noise by Henrique Sarmento Malvar Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Brasilia, Brazit Using a circuit based on a maximum length sequence generator,’ this simple unit inexpensively provides a source of white noise over a range of up to 200 kHz. It is far superior to generators that use a reverse-biased base- to-emitter transistor junction, which provides quasi- white noise over a very limited portion of the spectrum. Using two integrated circuits comprising a 25-stage shift register, it can be built for less than $6. A, and Az form the n-stage shift register driven by clock Gi-G2, with A; an 18-stage device and A. being eight stages in length. A, and A: are driven simulta- neously but out of phase with respect to each other. The output from stage 7 of Ai and the last stage of A2 is applied to G; in the feedback loop G3;-G4, so that a register sequence length of 2"! clock periods is obtained. Note that G4 provides signal inversion, so that on power up (the all-zero output state of A, and Az), the noise generator will be self-starting. {t can be shown that the spectrum of the signal at the output of A. will contain several discrete frequencies, separated by f./(2™'), where f, is the clock frequency, in this case 200 kHz. Because n is large, the separations between the discrete frequencies become so close (here, it will be 0.006 Hz with a sequence period of 150 seconds), that the spectrum may be considered contin- uous. So although the noise is pseudorandom because of the method used to produce it, the difference in the spectral properties of the noise as compared with the ideal is minimal. As for the amplitude of the output envelope, it will vary with frequency as (x~! sin x)?, where x = f/f. Here, the —3-dB point will occur at f = 0.45 f,, as shown in the curve at the lower left of the figure. Q; serves as a buffer. The network R;R.2C> is a low- pass filter that has been added for an application requir- ing noise to be confined (bandlimited) to the audio frequencies. Its — 3 dB point, occurs at 25 kHz. 0 Referances 1. 1H. Witten and P. H.C, Madams, “The Chatterbox-2,"' Wireless World, Jan. 1979, p. 77. Spectrum spread. 25-stage shift register creates closely spaced signals of discrete frequency for generating pseudorandom white noise over wide range. Spectral response of source (bottom left) is flat from dc to 0.45 f., where f. is the clock frequency. Electronics / August 30, 1979 G,-Gy = 4030 141WHITE NOISE EFFECTS UNIT Simulate the soothing sound of wind, waves and surf on the beach, or the roar of jet aircraft and steam trains, with this White Noise Effects Unit. THIS COMPREHENSIVE little unit gives an excellent introduction to special sound effects. It contains a white noise generator, a variable-frequency low-pass filter and a variable-frequency tuned amplifier. This com- bination enables you to use the HE unit to generate a whole range of interesting sound effects, including those of wind, waves, surf, waterfalls, jumbo jets and ‘steam’ sounds, etc. As an added bonus, you can also use the unit as a variable-frequency ‘tone’ generator. White noise can be simply described as a signal containing a full spectrum of quite randomly generated frequencies or ‘tones’, all with randomly determined amplitudes, but which have equal mean power when averaged over a reasonable unit of time. The basic sound of white noise resembles that of hissing steam, but this sound can be greatly modified, to give very interesting effects, by passing it through the types of filters that we have used in the HE design. The HE white noise effects unit is battery powered, and has a panel-mounted LED (light-emitting diode) to indicate the ON state. Variable front-panel controls are provided for the control of the low-pass FILTER frequency, the tuned-amplifier TUNE frequency, the tuned-amplifier SET Q or ‘tuning sharpness’ adjustment (which also gives the ‘tone’ generation facility), and for the control of volume or LEVEL. The unit is provided with three output sockets. The main output is via a mode selector (FILTERED or ET! 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Below Right: Internal view of the unit, ready to switch on. Below Left: The front panel lay-out we use on our unit. transistor gain tester } Laat ee at a WHITE NOISE UNIT a TuNEe osc *. J '@ « 2 a osc FILTER LEVEL FLTR BALA ELEGTAOMGS ARE YOU MISSING OUT!! ist you are missing out on %& electronics selections in ye mes smiconductors, capacitors, resistors, traseformers, etc, from more than 400 famous makers like National, Texas, Hammond, Mallory and Philips. SELECTION, MICE TOs -free price : aR q -no minimum order -small parts shipped first clas Aas ** $2.00 flapyate shipping ; handling** and, of course, ourIyers & catalogues -- bringing clear, precise, listings of the. pa gts« “you've been looking for. Why place 3, 4, 2°) es when one order from SNP 5 ¢c : R U M Evecreowes _ Quality printed circuit boards at an affordable price. For only 40 A in.,youll receive a cut, etched.and drilled (single-sided glass- epoxy) pcb of YOUR design. All pebs.are given a conformal coating to prevent tarnishing, of the copper and aid soldering. . Your parts are mailed to you within two weeks of receipt of your prepaid order. BRYAN ELEC# BSwill do ffiall. Write for-a-free price—list of ETI pcbs and Get onour mailifgillst today ! yoaban parts hire we stock.Quantity order oe wr iscounts available on request. ? & REY ELECTRONICS } O ye Send cheque or money-—order to: PO. eee Wit a ir, “Geinale, Ontario. 2" \ Stn.D, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8V 4L5. F nas “355 sy“ Ont. residents add 7Z PST.. " IST pectrum Electronics—a Canadian company dedicated to serving the electronics cee + Bb enthusiasts of today and tomorrow. ADDRESS . DEALERS! We have dealer price schedules. Write our Dealer eon ee ak tat Mam nvbeant at than akmusa adoavacePECTRUM ANALYZER fo a Pi) a! NOISE SOURCE that has predict- able amplitude and frequency char- acteristics is a valuable tool for making real-time audio spectral analyses. For flexibility, it should have two different noise signals—white and pink. A com- mercial noise source with these charac- teristics would probably be too expen- Sive for the home user, but you can build the instrument described here at only nominal cost. This Audio Noise Source was de- signed as a companion to the “'Hand- Held LED Spectrum Analyzer" (PE Sep- tember 1979). However, it can also be used with any other constant-Q analyzer or any other multiple fixed-bandpass filter real-time device that requires a noise source to provide equal power in each of the measurement bands. FEBRUARY 1980 A valuable audio analysis tool White and Pink Noise. White noise, so called because of an analogy to white light, contains all frequencies with- in a specified bandwidth at equal en- ergy. Since white noise contains equal noise energy per hertz, it is most compatible with constant-bandwidth analyzers, such as the heterodyne, swept-filter, and digital fast-Fourier- transform (FFT) types. Since the bandwidth of a filter with given Q is proportional to the center frequency of the filter, a 10,000-Hz filter has 10,000 times as many hertz in its bandpass as does a 1000-Hz filter. A complementary noise characteristic can be derived from white noise by using a 1/ energy filter in which energy must | decrease at a 6-dB/octave rate. Since the voltage of an electrical See on BY JOHN E. PFEIFER AND WILLIAM EPPLER signal is proportional to the square root of the power, the noise voltage must decrease at a square-root of 1/f rate or 3 dB/octave. With a similar analogy to white light filtered in this manner, the resulting signal is called 'pink” noise. The frequency characteristics of both white and pink noise are shown in graph form in Fig. 1. : Noise Generation. Among the vari- ous methods of generating white noise, the most common employs the av- alanche or reverse-breakdown charac- teristics of a pn junction. The ‘Surfer’ (June 1979) is a good example of this type of circuit. In measurement-quality systems, the noise junction must be selected, operating-current trimmed, and gain adjusted to yield the required noise quality and amplitude uniformity. For highest accuracy, junction tempera- ture should be stabilized or compen- sated. Even with these restraints, this technique is widely used in r-f and very broadband applications. A wholly different approach is the use of a random digital number generator as a noise source. If the bandwidth of interest is sufficiently restricted, a digital technique used in many computer pro- grams to generate a pseudorandom 67sequence can be applied. In this form, a pattern of 1's and O’s statistically uni- form in character will be produced. The sequence generated is stable and re- peatable in both amplitude and charac- ter to within a small fraction of a decibel. General implementation of this approach (Fig. 2) consists of an N-stage shift register with a tap at stage M. Both M and N are inputs to a modulo-2 adder (exclusive-OR gate) that feeds the shift register input clocked by an oscillator. Proper choice of M and N will produce a maximum sequence length of 2N —14 clock pulses. About the Circuit. The schematic diagram of the Audio Noise Source is shown in Fig. 3. The N-stage shift reg- ister is divided into M-stage register /C2 and (N—M)-stage register /C3. Both /C2 and /C3 are CMOS shift registers. The /C1D section of the quad XOR gate performs the modulo-2 addition function. The remaining three sections of !C7 are connected as inverters in a standard CMOS oscillator configuration. Oscillation frequency is determined by AR1 and C7? and, with the values speci- fied, is about 300 kHz. Both /C2 and /C3 can be wired to be 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, or 18 stages in length. With these available lengths, two ICs can be cascaded for an M of 13 and an N of 31 to produce a length of 23'—1 clock periods—almost 2 hours in duration. This is the longest sequence that can be generated with two 4006 shift registers and the elemen- tary two-input feedback mechanism. The noise half-power frequency exceeds As shown in Fig. ” continued 100 kHz, and the output can be from any point along the register. In S7's wHite position, the register’s output passes through a one-pole low- pass filter consisting of R8, R9, R10, and C8 at about 72 kHz and is buffered by Q7. The white-noise spectrum available at J7 is flat to within =0.33 dB from 10 to 20,090 Hz. To obtain pink noise, a 3-dB/octave low-pass filter must be synthesized. Since a simple pole or zero filter has a 6-dB/octave slope, several lag net- works can be cascaded so that the zeros of one section partially cancel the poles of the next. The network consist- ing of R4 through A7 and C3 through C7 exhibits a —3-dB/octave slope +0.5 dB from 10 to 40,000 Hz. To maintain the high accuracy inherent in the design, the capacitors and resistors that make up the network should have 5% tolerances. Amplitudes of the white and pink noises are dependent on the supply voltage and measurement bandwidth. The rms potential is roughly 0.01 volt from 20 to 20,000 Hz. With a Q-volt supply, the output potential of either white or pink noise is 90 mV. (Current consumption with a 9-volt battery is less than 8 mA.) 1, the white-noise voltage is adjusted to be equal to the pink-noise voltage at 2870 Hz. The circuit is designed to function properly from a 3-to-15-volt dc power source. Current consumption is very low, owing to the use of CMOS devices. Construction. This is a _ relatively easy project to build, thanks to its limited number of components. Since there are no restraints on component layout and wire routing, just about any wiring technique can be employed. How- ever, to make the project as compact as possible, it is best to use a printed circuit board, an_ etching-and-drilling guide and components-placement di- agram for which are shown in Fig. 4. lf you use a pc board, wire it as shown. You can use sockets for the ICs if desired, and do not forget to install the three jumpers. Be sure to properly orient the ICs, Q7, and C9, Mount the finished circuit-board as- sembly and 87 and its battery holder ina small box. Function switch S/ and output jack J? can be mounted on the front of the box and connected to the circuit board assembly with short lengths of hookup wire. Finally, use a dry-transfer lettering kit to label the positions of S7 and identify J7. Applications. Since both pink and white noise are statistically random quantities, characterizing them by a single voltage or power specification is difficult at best. Special sampling tech- niques using a specified time and fre- quency ‘'window’’ coupled with a true- rms detector are required. When the noise source is applied to a spectrum analyzer, the slowest sweep speed or longest averaging time con- sistent with a reasonable measurement should be selected. If you use the companion LED Spectrum Analyzer in our September issue, set the DECAY switch to SLow when performing noise analyses. Even in this condition, the Fig. 1. Noise spectra of white and pink noise. In the generator described here, the two AMPLITUDE-¢B amplitudes are similar at 2870 kHz. 68 edo FREQUENCY (kHz) POPULAR ELECTRONICS