New hexaphonic fx processor app

Started by MedicationTime, November 30, 2020, 01:20:36 AM

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MedicationTime

Hello everyone,

First post here and I should have done it way before that  :D !
I'm doing a Phd on hexaphonic guitar and hexaphonic audio effects (even if as discussed in your previous posts, and I totally agree, hexaphonic is not the best term and the audio effects I developed could easily be set up for bass, 7th string, etc.).
I've been developing some hardware and software and made it experiment by several guitarists. One used it in a long-term creation process and the other ones used it in an experiment context. The first guitarist also worked with note, interval and playing techniques (only hammer-on, pull-off and harmonic) detection system to control the triggering and audio processing of a bunch of audio files.
Some elements of this last part have been published:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235677696_Left_and_right-hand_guitar_playing_techniques_detection
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259178663_EGT_Enriched_Guitar_Transcription
There's also this older publication related to hexaphonic pickup and processing: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318818518_Multimodal_Guitar_A_Toolbox_For_Augmented_Guitar_Performances

The audio effects are done in Max MSP. There is some latency, but after a small amount of time, guitarists tend to forget it, "integrate it" would be probably more accurate. Here are some pictures. 




You can see that there are different "classical" and less "classical" individual string guitar effects: Fuzz, overdrive, delay, tremolo, reverb, flanger, ringmod, harmonizer and freeze. The second version adds something that was missing on the first one which is individual string bypass. The simplest thing but one of the greatest creative potential to me until now. The matrix of switches of the second pictures represents all the bypasses of all effects for all the strings.

We (just two people  ;D) are currently working on porting hexaphonic effects (or multi-effects) on hardware in order to have hexaphonic delay, tremolo, freeze and so on. The overall shape is the one of a guitar pedal but a rack version for multi-effects is of concern too.

We are also looking at making a business out of it, but as it was mentioned in previous posts, market size may be an issue even if we definitely don't plan to be as big as Roland or others . I've been looking at this forum for quite some time now and it is obviously the best place to find people interested in hexaphonic processing. There are roughly 30,000 members but I'm not even sure how many of these people would be interested in hexaphonic audio effects... Any guess on that?

Apart from that I would love to have your feedback about what I mentioned above and talk more about the different hardware we developed as well.

MedicationTime

#1
Hello all,

I'm working on effects for hexaphonic guitars for my Phd and here are some demos and improvisations of some of them.
Hexaphonic effects (one or two at a time) :
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJeXP_bYcIUkg2thzyJ_RNekDdchIoLYT
https://soundcloud.com/medicationtime/sets/hexaphonic-effects
Hexaphonic Multi-effects :
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJeXP_bYcIUloXV2UvWcnngJ2lJtPH_Ok

Any feedback will be much appreciated ;) !


billbax

#2
Hi MedicationTime,

You might find some of the media below useful in your studies.

pdf guide on optimizing separate strings, and separate string plugin inserts etc.
http://www.separate-strings.co.uk/VGuitarSeparateStringsMakeover.pdf

V-guitar breakout cable demo with hex distortion and autotune plugins etc.


Finally, there's an attempt at binaural separate strings.  Some parts of the demo are quite good, especially with moving guitar strings.  The rest sounds simple left/right to my years:(


Best of luck with your Phd!

Regards,

Bill


chlorinemist

Quote from:  MedicationTime on November 30, 2020, 01:20:36 AM
Hello everyone,

First post here and I should have done it way before that  :D !
I'm doing a Phd on hexaphonic guitar and hexaphonic audio effects (even if as discussed in your previous posts, and I totally agree, hexaphonic is not the best term and the audio effects I developed could easily be set up for bass, 7th string, etc.).
I've been developing some hardware and software and made it experiment by several guitarists. One used it in a long-term creation process and the other ones used it in an experiment context. The first guitarist also worked with note, interval and playing techniques (only hammer-on, pull-off and harmonic) detection system to control the triggering and audio processing of a bunch of audio files.
Some elements of this last part have been published:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235677696_Left_and_right-hand_guitar_playing_techniques_detection
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259178663_EGT_Enriched_Guitar_Transcription
There's also this older publication related to hexaphonic pickup and processing: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318818518_Multimodal_Guitar_A_Toolbox_For_Augmented_Guitar_Performances

The audio effects are done in Max MSP. There is some latency, but after a small amount of time, guitarists tend to forget it, "integrate it" would be probably more accurate. Here are some pictures. 




You can see that there are different "classical" and less "classical" individual string guitar effects: Fuzz, overdrive, delay, tremolo, reverb, flanger, ringmod, harmonizer and freeze. The second version adds something that was missing on the first one which is individual string bypass. The simplest thing but one of the greatest creative potential to me until now. The matrix of switches of the second pictures represents all the bypasses of all effects for all the strings.

We (just two people  ;D) are currently working on porting hexaphonic effects (or multi-effects) on hardware in order to have hexaphonic delay, tremolo, freeze and so on. The overall shape is the one of a guitar pedal but a rack version for multi-effects is of concern too.

We are also looking at making a business out of it, but as it was mentioned in previous posts, market size may be an issue even if we definitely don't plan to be as big as Roland or others . I've been looking at this forum for quite some time now and it is obviously the best place to find people interested in hexaphonic processing. There are roughly 30,000 members but I'm not even sure how many of these people would be interested in hexaphonic audio effects... Any guess on that?

Apart from that I would love to have your feedback about what I mentioned above and talk more about the different hardware we developed as well.


Great idea! I would suggest cross promoting your product with Cycfi's Nu pickups since they do well to explain each other's existence. The Nu is a pickup that makes people think "poly fx processing" rather than "clunky MIDI tracker", which helps people start thinking about it in more creative ways.

I definitely agree that a hardware solution would be essential from a usability standpoint. Setting up 6 tracks in a DAW is just too clunky for most people. It really calls for a dedicated device.

I think ADAT lightpipe would be an interesting I/O choice. Could help reduce the price having people optionally add their own 8 ch dacs or chain multiple hex devices together over ADAT

MedicationTime

Quote from:  chlorinemist on March 05, 2021, 02:16:42 PM
Great idea! I would suggest cross promoting your product with Cycfi's Nu pickups since they do well to explain each other's existence. The Nu is a pickup that makes people think "poly fx processing" rather than "clunky MIDI tracker", which helps people start thinking about it in more creative ways.

I definitely agree that a hardware solution would be essential from a usability standpoint. Setting up 6 tracks in a DAW is just too clunky for most people. It really calls for a dedicated device.

I think ADAT lightpipe would be an interesting I/O choice. Could help reduce the price having people optionally add their own 8 ch dacs or chain multiple hex devices together over ADAT

Thanks for your comment !
I agree with the promotion in the Cycfi group. I followed them almost since the beggining and promotion have been done on that group too  ;).
ADAT is indeed one way to go. Right now we are going with analog outs but digital outs are still in our minds.
We haven't finished the first pedal prototype so we are just trying one effect at a time and sound is good :).
One of my concern with ADAT is the wire which doesn't seem to be very performance proof.
But maybe some of you know stronger ones ?
The other concern is that we are using hex analog outputs as well, so the D/A conversion is already done in the current prototype.
Using only ADAT would mean to also buy a convert box (back to analog) at some point. But as we already have stereo outputs that may not be that much of a problem (the need of a convert box to acces the hex outputs through analog).

What do you think ?

rockmancentralbob

The demo of the Cycfi's Nu pickup where it's a Stratocaster with each string panned around doing arpeggios sounds very full and beautiful, so I had high hopes for your research.

What I've heard based on the videos you've posted, yours sounds more chaotic and dissonant than I expected.
No offense, but it's not "musical" at all.

Maybe I'm missing something or it's not being shown in the best light?
I guess I was expecting that if you played a chord and each string was being distorted separately, it would sound more like a bunch of violins, each playing a different note in the chord.



admin

#6
Compare Poly Distortions


V-guitar breakout cable demo with hex distortion and autotune plugins etc.


or SixAppeal vs GR-100 Poly Distortion



MedicationTime

#7
Regarding the chaotic and dissonant sounds, well, there might be several possibilities :

  • As I've spent a lot of time working on this PhD and definitely less time playing the guitar. My playing, right now is definitely not very good. So this may be one point for the chaotic and dissonant. I'll find better players to do more videos. These one were done in quite a hurry.
  • If you're talking more specifically on the OD + Ringmod example, well the ringmod induces the dissonance in the way it transforms the sound. In the second part of the video (00:34), I set the ringmod frequencies values with the  frequencies which brings some beating when playing chords with . This gives, to me, a sound that is a bit more fat that I like, especially with the lower strings
  • Regarding clarity of distorsion, the examples given by billbax are a good way to go in terms of hexaphonic distorsion. As there are so many take on distorsion circuit and algorithms, there would arguably have the same amount of hexaphonic distorsion as well. The example of hexFuzz on my soundcloud link seems clear enough to me while being super distorted/fuzzy and completely different from the sound of billbax videos. What do you think ? https://soundcloud.com/medicationtime/hexfuzz-extract?in=medicationtime/sets/hexaphonic-effects
  • If you're talking about the multi-effects example, then this is the way this guitarist improvises and whether or not it is musical is up to anyone

The effects I've developed are definitely perfectible, this development is only a part what the Phd covers and I easily admit that I've spent more time in developping the multi-effects to make it usable live than perfecting each effects. My goal was to give it to guitarists to sort of analyse how they would embrace it and what they would come up to.

supersoul

In the pictures of the MaxMSP patches it looks like you're using a patch pin matrix inspired by the EMS Synthi.

I'm using a patch pin matrix for an instrument I've made with TouchOSC and Supercollider. What I like about it is that I think about modular patch construction differently than just a mess of cables. It lends itself to synthesis using feedback loops instead of just linear patching, and the results are simultaneously organic and alien.

If I have a question, it's about the aesthetics of your project, because it seems like (also from your SoundCloud) perhaps you're interested in these more exploratory type of synthesis.

billbax

I was very impressed with a GP10 poly distortion and DAW hex poly distortion combined - 12 hex distortion strings and effects controlled individually. Sounds like double-tracking width and dimension versus simple mono-ish sounding GP10 poly distortion.

I'm going back a couple years, and vaguely remember it's possible with GP10 usb re-amping, if not then it's breakout box time.

aliensporebomb

Yes, both GP-10 and SY-1000 allow for separate string processing into a DAW via USB connection.  Sure wish the VG-99 had that capability but given there's people out there making breakout boxes to allow for that, well it's all good.

My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

GK Devices:  Roland VG-99, Boss GP-10, Boss SY-1000.