Cycfi Hex PU Examples

Started by chlorinemist, May 17, 2017, 09:22:14 PM

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chlorinemist

Quote from: chrish on May 25, 2017, 05:03:14 PM
thanks for the production notes. I see what you mean when you say the 6appeal can have a super saw wave sound. Lots of clarity in that Distortion if that makes sense.

It would be cool to see some of the 6appeal waveforms on an oscilloscope.

No problem!

Yeah I think the resemblance to synthesizer timbres is uncanny. But it makes a lot of sense really. The supersaw synth sound is basically the synthesizer's answer to heavy distorted walls of guitars. Both techniques are designed to achieve basically the same ends: making the instrument sound as huge, harmonically rich and intense as possible.
Rock guitarists use overdriven circuits to generate lots of 2nd and/or 3rd order harmonics, converting the sine wave-ish (extra sine-ish due to the limited freq bandwidth of passive guitar pickups) waveforms of their dry guitar strings into more exciting saw-like waves, and compress the dynamic range. One could say that the mono distortion method is tried and true, and certainly it might seem that way, but the only reason they got away with it is because they were using amps with speakers that essentially acted as low-pass filters, cutting out all the high end frequencies over ~3-5K or so. This is why cabinet emulations are now seen as essential tools for recording guitar. If you try plugging a monophic guitar into a distortion pedal, and plugging the pedal directly into a mic pre like I did here, it sounds awful. Tons of ugly nasty harmonics in the very high end, due to conflicting frequencies on 6 strings sharing a mono signal. Messy. As a consequence, any guitarist using distortion with mono pickups is forced to use a limited bandwidth cabinet or use a simulation in order to get a decent sound.
A supersaw synth is constructed by heavily stacking full range sawtooth oscillator voices, complex modulation, and a LPF with freq cutoff set in the <10kHz range and the resonance cranked to boost the really high end frequencies. Supersaws don't need to cut as low as 4kHz like a monophonically distorted guitar does. They can be set to be very bright, much more than you would set a regular guitar, because there is no inherent harshness; all the harmonics are intentionally generated and controlled. Also it can sound much fatter than a guitar, because each individual voice can have its own detune applied, creating much more complex sounds than if you just applied a detune effect to the sum of all the voices. A traditional guitar can't achieve a sound like this because of the inherent limitations of the monophonic approach.
Polyphonic guitars with full-range pickups and hexaphonic distortion results in an instrument with a more even playing field with the synthesizer. It eliminates the inherent problems with mono guitar distortion that in turn create the need for narrow bandwidth pickups and cabinet sims, which add up to rather excessive low-pass filtering. Suddenly you are able to crank your distortion, go straight into a preamp, without any amp or cab simulations at all, and have a perfectly pleasing, though very bright, guitar sound. Add a resonant low pass filter to the equation and you have an all analog guitar system that gives you acccess to tones across the entire range of human hearing, that can be quickly manipulated in a very simple to understand way, and provides to access an effectively infinite range of tones on the fly. I find an approach like the much more appealing than modeling-based approaches, because it gives me full control and the ability to create my own tones no ones heard before.
Additionally, each string can be treated as an individual voice, which can be effectively "stacked" and "detuned" with various modulation, pitch and delay effects. Arguably this system is even more flexible than your typical synth (aside from fully multitimbral designs).
With pitch-to-MIDI from a Roland device or FTP, the filter can be set to follow the notes you play; a "keyfollow" paramater for guitar. The note triggered envelope can also be assigned to modulate the filter, achieving polyphonic envelope filtering. I'm contemplating running my FTP into a hardware midi arpeggiator, to trigger the envelopes to turn strings on and off and cascade across the strings in the chord in response to the midi data...

forgive my long-windedness lol. This system just has me brimming with ideas... Very rare to find something so musical and with so many potential unexplored applications

chlorinemist

Here's another demo I made showcasing the Cycfi XR/Nu pickup combination and its synergy with the analog fx processing capabilities of the Spicetone 6Appeal. The pickups are perfectly suited for 6Appeal, as their extended treble response (20hz-20kHz) makes the resonant low pass filter a much more powerful and interesting tool than it would be with traditional pickups, which typically have no more than ~5kHz cutoff. I believe it is a hugely important part of the synthesizer like tones I achieve here.

https://soundcloud.com/chlorinemist/envlfos/s-tOA9F

All tremelo fx, volume swells, string pans and filter sweeps were achieved with 6Appeal. No volume pedal swells, all automated via 6Appeals ADSR.

The envelope ADSR is assigned to modulate all level parameters simultaneously on both hexaphonic paths (dry and distorted) but the mono pickup is left unaffected. I start off with the attack set very low, then gradually increase it to achieve a polyphonic "slow-gear" type effect. At some points I blend in my monophonic pickup, which is unaffected by the envelope, to layer a traditional guitar sound over the synth-like swelling hexaphonic sections.

The 2 LFOs are assigned to alternating strings (lLFO1: E, D, B LFO2: A, G, E) and are both modulating the level parameters as well, achieving a sort of poly-tremolo effect. I adjust the 2 LFO speeds with my BCR2000 throughout, creating lots of polyrhythmic patterns. Using the 32 step sequencer (I don't in this clip), which has all the same modulation capabilities, you can imagine things could get much more complex.

These are just some of the most simple, basic techniques you can achieve. The envelope and both lfos can do much more than swells and tremelos. They can be assigned to control the cutoffs, resonance and gain of the filters, or modulate the panning of the individual strings. The LFOS, Sequencer and envelope can be setup to be controlled by pitch bend messages, breath controllers or mod wheels. I feel like I'm just scratching the surface at this point, which is crazy considering how much cool stuff I've already managed to get it to do. Wish more pedalmakers had such ambition

GuitarBuilder

"There's no-one left alive, it must be a draw"  Peter Gabriel 1973

admin

#28
https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?posts/25791090/

j.s.tonehound wrote>

QuoteI do currently have the wiring diagram for three dual coils, three volume, three tone, and five 6-way toggle switches on my wall. I've been thinking about this for years since I first saw a Myka with similar controls, but I've never found a way of making it seamless. Then CycFi came along with their Nu pickups and, crucially, the breakout box, and I started thinking differently. What if you take all of the controls out of the guitar and put them in an outboard, programmable, foot controllable unit? All of those useless combinations of coils available at the stomp of a footswitch! With assignable and expression controllable volume, tone, capacitors, bleeds and buffers. And why not throw in a sequencer to cycle through each coil and combination in whatever fashion you want?!

An alternate version of the above was to have a single rotary switch (one of those Seiden 43 way jobbies found in expensive hifi's) that goes from thinnest and weediest to thickest and darkest pickup selections.

Also, on the Cycfi front, I posted an idea on these pages a little while ago about the individual string pickups being mounted on motorised rails. Rather than having to model different pickup positions or having more than one pickup on a guitar at any given time you could just spend a little time calibrating the classic positions and controlling it all with a footswitch. Of course, you can also have some fun with it and scatter them around as you wish.

I'm not sure either are totally insane but I'm sure many/most would question the purpose or quality of such over complicated contraptions. For me, it's a curiosity.

I have (and have had for some time now) my own Homer Simpson guitar on the drawing board but I don't think it's that insane. Just a teardrop + scroll single cutaway with a 27" scale length, classical guitar nut width, tungsten carbide nut saddles, a wrapover pivot bearing vibrato, and an adaptation of the Red Special switching. It's a semi/mostly hollow chassis with an arched top and 'vents' hidden in a shadow gap. It's all subject to change and has done through various cycles over the last five or six years. I think I did post a full, insane spec version of it on here once. But I've moved on since.

Ultimately it's design for the sake of it, in my case. I have no musical or technique based ideas that are driving me. I just like guitars and designing and want to reward my infantile self with something.

admin


QuoteHere's a short video clip from my guest performance and lecture at MMT on March  7, 2017, featuring the eight string guitar fitted with Cycfi Research's Nu-Multi pickup system running through my spatial music performance system created in Pd. Many thanks to Enda Bates for the invitation and documentation.

http://rickygraham.net/?p=176402033
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=8207.msg58296#msg58296
Pure Data engine for embedded devices
http://puredata.info/downloads/libpd
http://libpd.cc/
http://libpd.cc/documentation/

which was used to create this
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2013/02/make-a-pd-patch-run-it-on-android-ios-right-away-two-free-solutions/