Vigilante - a Disruptive Innovation

[JRZFM100]

Vigilante, was a "disruptive" innovation in audio processing such that it was the first ever audio processor that turning it's clock-hand dials had a real, dramatic, and clearly pronounced effect on the audio. You might say the user gained a very large amount of user control given its few settings.

You could noticeably change the ratios of lows, mids and highs, as well as really achieve the desired loudness from its clipper control - and all on the front panel; no internal screwdriver required. Therefore, a disruptive change from all else.

Growing as an Orban knob turner, 8100 even w/ XT & XT-2, the external Orban controls never provided that level of user satisfaction.

Using Vigilante made us dangerously competitive..... Clip all you want, we'll make more!

Take your DSP based processing for granted, dial in the sound you want, so very easy today. I say, Vigilante was the first of its kind.

 

[RadioMan203]

I would venture to say somewhat on the heels of that kind of sound were the old CRL processing "stack" made up of their different boxes. They sounded a bit on the gritty side but I remember one AM I visited that had the mod monitor needle hanging at 120% like it was plain old DC coming out!

I don't recall hearing a Vigilante box so I can't say anything from personal listening but i was one of the stepping stones to hot rodded audio processing.

 

[satech]

The Vigilante's big innovation was the ability to drive the audio processing up to its eyeballs just by turning the front panel controls of one box. You can certainly make a CRL combo stand up and speak, but you have three boxes' worth of knobs, switches, jumpers, and trimmers to adjust. And with an Optimod 8100 you need to put additional processing ahead of and after it, because of Orban's built-in protection against making your station sound bad.

 

[JRZFM100]

And with an Optimod 8100 you need to put additional processing ahead of and after it, because of Orban's built-in protection against making your station sound bad

Is that what they meant by "distortion cancelling" clipping??? - I'm just kidding!

That is so right, the light brown box was meant to be fool proof.

Get a CRL to be loud? I've never seen that with an FM-3 or FM-4 using the outside conrols. Of course when I first arrived in small town Texas, pop 115,000. they had a CRL AGC + CRL Limiter plugged into an Optimod 8000 stereo generator via the test jacks.

They said that was a CRL "FM-2". I didn't think CRL sold the package that way, an FM-2?

 

[WNTIRadio]

One of Frank's original Vigalantes was a "secret weapon" on the old Jukebox Radio. Used it on the translator side to make it LOUD. With 35 watts, needed all the help we could get to keep things above the noise floor. And it suited the oldies format well.

The main station was running a heavily modified Audio Prism into an 8100 with the Cobalt Blue.

It jumped off the dial.

Would never do that now with the Omnia.9 and 11 which can achieve that sound but way cleaner and without the pumping. Of course, a bit of artistic pumping didn't do badly for the oldies format. The new boxes are awesome, but there was something fun about hot rodding a Texar or getting into the guts of an 8100 to see what it could do.

 

[satech]

Get a CRL to be loud? I've never seen that with an FM-3 or FM-4 using the outside conrols. Of course when I first arrived in small town Texas, pop 115,000. they had a CRL AGC + CRL Limiter plugged into an Optimod 8000 stereo generator via the test jacks.

They said that was a CRL "FM-2". I didn't think CRL sold the package that way, an FM-2?

The CRL SEP-400 Spectral Energy Processor was very effective at producing a loud, dense "signature sound", and remained popular with AM stations many years after it was discontinued. I used one on a mono LPFM and it could easily burn a hole in the dial if you cranked it up.

The later Spectral Energy Compressor series were more laid-back and transparent (part of a strategy to make AM Stereo sound more "hi-fi" and "FM-like").

And yes, the FM-2 combo was just the AGC and limiter. CRL later put it all in one box together with a MPX generator and called it the Amigo FM.

 

[dtube1]

A Compellor, Texars, Orban 622B, Vigilante, and then a StereoMaxx driving the bejeesuz out of a "lightly modified" 8100 into an 803 Clipper. Ahh, those were the days... ;D
-D

 

[GeneSavage]

No question, the Vigilante was a milestone in audio processing... but...

Wasn't the Dorrough DAP 310 REALLY the first box to stand up and SCREAM if you turned it up?

http://www.dorrough.com/310dap.html

Back in 1996, starting in internet radio, I rescued one of these from a dumpster & had it repaired by the folks at Dorrough to feed the encoder.

You could blow-dry your hair by playing back the audio coming out of that box. ;D

(I didn't say it wasn't FATIGUING...)

 

[fm-engineer]

310's were out there early on through the 70's, especially on AM, but the 80's saw the DAP610 for FM. CHUM FM in Toronto ran a 610 up through the late 90's, and so did a few other major market FM's.

No question, the Vigilante was a milestone in audio processing... but...

Wasn't the Dorrough DAP 310 REALLY the first box to stand up and SCREAM if you turned it up?

http://www.dorrough.com/310dap.html

Back in 1996, starting in internet radio, I rescued one of these from a dumpster & had it repaired by the folks at Dorrough to feed the encoder.

You could blow-dry your hair by playing back the audio coming out of that box. ;D

(I didn't say it wasn't FATIGUING...)

 

[FFoti1]

Wow! I'm humbled by the comments about "the little box that could." The Vigilante was born in the engineering shop at Z-100, NYC in 1986. This grew out of my quandary about 'managing' the reemphasis boost a bit differently. Until then, I seem to remember all other FM processors inserted preemphasis before the multiband limiter section. I kept wondering what if preemphasis was inserted after the limiters, but there was some fashion to scale the thresholds in order to manage the boost of higher frequencies.

The difference between the two approaches is this: When reemphasis is in front of the limiters, the control loop for each band will also have a bit of level boost at the upper range of that band. When reemphasis follows the limiters, the control loop will operate on a flat response. The idea was to see if the limiters would not sound as 'smashed' (heavy depth of limiting/IMD), and not require to cause the upper bands to operate as often as they did, when emphasis was inserted prior to the limiters.

Basically this was the secret to that box. The little "dial pots" were there to offer easily repeatable threshold settings. It didn't take much movement in the thresholds to alter the audio that much. BTW: My late friend, Jim Somich, found those dial pots.

Later on, we did develop our own distortion masking system, which went into later versions of the box.

Thanks again for remembering the project that got it all started!!

-Frank Foti

 

[fm-engineer]

Frank,

All these years later and preemphasis location is still one of primary differences between the two leading manufacturers. I think the basic sonic signatures are somewhat defined by the emphasis insertion point. A friend of mine had a Vigilante, and I recall Jim commenting on the threshold pots. The days of processing "chains," "black boxes, etc have come and gone, but they sure were fun times!

Wow! I'm humbled by the comments about "the little box that could." The Vigilante was born in the engineering shop at Z-100, NYC in 1986. This grew out of my quandary about 'managing' the reemphasis boost a bit differently. Until then, I seem to remember all other FM processors inserted preemphasis before the multiband limiter section. I kept wondering what if preemphasis was inserted after the limiters, but there was some fashion to scale the thresholds in order to manage the boost of higher frequencies.

The difference between the two approaches is this: When reemphasis is in front of the limiters, the control loop for each band will also have a bit of level boost at the upper range of that band. When reemphasis follows the limiters, the control loop will operate on a flat response. The idea was to see if the limiters would not sound as 'smashed' (heavy depth of limiting/IMD), and not require to cause the upper bands to operate as often as they did, when emphasis was inserted prior to the limiters.

Basically this was the secret to that box. The little "dial pots" were there to offer easily repeatable threshold settings. It didn't take much movement in the thresholds to alter the audio that much. BTW: My late friend, Jim Somich, found those dial pots.

Later on, we did develop our own distortion masking system, which went into later versions of the box.

Thanks again for remembering the project that got it all started!!

-Frank Foti

 

[FFoti1]

Frank,

All these years later and preemphasis location is still one of primary differences between the two leading manufacturers. I think the basic sonic signatures are somewhat defined by the emphasis insertion point. A friend of mine had a Vigilante, and I recall Jim commenting on the threshold pots. The days of processing "chains," "black boxes, etc have come and gone, but they sure were fun times!

I agree with your comment about the sonic signatures, and where reemphasis is inserted.

-Frank Foti

 

[awsherrill]

One of the fun things about the Vigilante: it connected to the Optimod 8100 through the test jacks on the rear panel, bypassing the front end of the 8100. You could still feed audio into the regular 8100 inputs and the G/R meters would still respond, although they weren't really showing what was going on.

I had a Vigilante hidden in the rack and the inactive 8100 controls dialed to some hideous setting, with the metering showing what looked like insane amounts of gain reduction. Fooled more than one visiting engineer that way ;D

 

[JRZFM100]

Frank-

I worked with you at Z-100 as a phone-op until I graduated HS, May 1985. Was there when the ITC 99B's were heating up the 3M cart and dissolving the lubricant on the carts. The whole library had to be replaced with Capitol/Blue carts.

Back in the day circa 1984, you took me in your office just to the right of the shop. The left wall was covered by the full schematic of the Z-100 backup transmitter as I understood.

We had a conversation one day about ESB vs WTC and Z-100. You told me that one benefit of ESB instead of WTC was the sloped/tapered nature of the ESB spire below the FM master antennae was provided a clear benefit to close-in inner city reception as opposed to the flat 200 ft x 200 ft square roof which sat under the master antenna in Lower Manhattan. (I'm sure you remember that conversation like it was yesterday!)

-- And, I used your exact argument just very recently with ESB management when they were searching for a Director of Broadcast, circa 2008.

I purchased two used Vigilante's from Harris/Used Equipment back in the late 1990's and you tuned them up for absolutely free.. (think I sent up a gift card for Outback) but thank you again.

What to do in radio with a BSEE when radio ebbs? Of course, add an MBA, which I did a few years back. So now I don't work in radio anymore... I write about it.

The concept of a "Disruptive Innovation" comes from MBA study in the area of Management of Technology and Innovation (Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard Business School) and implies that there is a "discontinuous jump" between the existing state of the art and the new technology.

(Absent a discontinuous jump then all you'd have is an incremental or "sustaining" type improvement)

Vigilante certainly represented a discontinuity (as in discontinuity of a continuous function) and "jump" as compared to its predecessors, both in the way the user operated it, user operability - via the front panel adjustments, and in its performance via its aural quality / the perception of quality.

So by all means, in the history of audio processing, Vigilante strictly meets the Harvard Business School definition of, and therefore was, a disruptive innovation.

Thanks for the discussion of consideration and placement of emphasis within Vigelente....

Could you / would you give us a hint as to the origins or compositions of the "Gibbs Phenomenon" clipper? I've searched articles (but never patents) on Gibbs Phenom since '97 and have never hit on any smoking gun that clearly ties it back to audio clippers! Love to know where that idea came from.

I don't know how to use Simulink and don't design or make or use processors these days, so no worries.

 

[gtomas]

The concept of a "Disruptive Innovation" comes from MBA study in the area of Management of Technology and Innovation (Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard Business School) and implies that there is a "discontinuous jump" between the existing state of the art and the new technology.

I like this post!

I've never had the opportunity to hear the Vigilante, but it obviously was a game changer when the whole Omnia brand as it stands today, was built upon it.


Regards,
Goran Tomas

 

[FFoti1]

Frank-

Could you / would you give us a hint as to the origins or compositions of the "Gibbs Phenomenon" clipper? I've searched articles (but never patents) on Gibbs Phenom since '97 and have never hit on any smoking gun that clearly ties it back to audio clippers! Love to know where that idea came from.

I don't know how to use Simulink and don't design or make or use processors these days, so no worries.

@JRZFM100, If I told you, then you'd have to deal with my Sicilian cat, "Silvio Dante." Yes, he of Soprano's fame!

Your hint: When you pass a clipped signal through a low pass filter, overshoots occur. The Gibbs Phenomenon deals with the mechanics of how, and when the overshoots happen. BTW: Much of Mr. Gibbs research was done right here, in Cleveland, at Case Western Reserve University.

-Frank Foti