How to choose a capacitor for filtering an audio signal?

Asked 9 years, 5 months ago Modified 9 years, 5 months ago Viewed 5k times

I've recently become interested in analog synthesizers and have successfully built this VCO
from MFOS.
4
The VCO outputs a signal that varies from 0 to about 10 or 12V DC at 28mA. I want to bring
this down to (roughly) line level so I can record it without blowing up all my stuff.

1. Using Ohm's law I figure that a 20Ω resistor should bring the voltage down to about 0.5V.
Does that sound right?

2. I'll need to use a capacitor to filter out the DC bias of the signal (right?) How do I calculate
what capacitance value I need?

Edit:

Here's a link to the schematic for the main part of the oscillator. The output I want to tap (at
least at first) is the sine wave output next to R49 (near the bottom right.)

capacitor audio resistors

Share Cite Follow edited Sep 22, 2013 at 22:04 asked Sep 22, 2013 at 19:25
friedo
161 1 8

Maybe you can point out on the circuit you linked to where you are taking the output from that is too
large? – Andy aka Sep 22, 2013 at 20:25

@Andy aka, I updated the post with a link to the schematic showing where I want to take the output
from. –  friedo Sep 22, 2013 at 22:04

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For a DC blocking cap, the impedance of the cap should be small relative to other impedances
over the intended frequency range. For example, hi-fi audio goes down to 20 Hz. For some
4 headroom, it's a good idea to design your circuits with high pass filter rolloffs at 10 Hz or so.

The impedance magnitude of a capacitor is 1 / 2πfC, with f in Hz, C in Farads, and the result in
Ohms. When this roughly equals whatever impedance is in series with the cap at 10 Hz, then it
will pass 20 Hz and up well enough to be considered hi-fi.

For example, if 1 kΩ will be in series with the cap, then it needs to be about 16 µF.

Share Cite Follow answered Sep 22, 2013 at 22:13

Olin Lathrop
309k 36 422 904

Why does the impedance of the capacitor needs to be roughly equal to the impedance that is in series
with that capacitor? – m.Alin Sep 23, 2013 at 8:55

It doesn't... I think he made a typo. Probably meant 160uF, which would be 10x smaller than the 1k
resistor. You want the cap here only for its DC blocking; the lower resistance it has (at all frequencies of
interest) the better. – Paul L May 24, 2015 at 5:14

@Paul: No typo. 16 uF followed by 1 kOhm to ground form a high pass filter with a rolloff of 10 Hz.
That's fine for "HiFi" audio, which is usually allowed -3 dB at 20 Hz. I set this filter to -3 dB at 10 Hz to
leave some room for other things to attenuate at low frequencies too. At higher frequencies, the cap
will be less and less of the overall impedance and the gain of the filter approaches 1. – Olin Lathrop
May 24, 2015 at 12:23