Might sell EVERYTHING and start from scratch, in a new direction.

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I've learned a lot the last 3 years in university.  I'll be graduating with my B.Mus by next Christmas with my major in Digital Audio, and I've amassed a great deal of technical know-how that I think will serve me well in the future.

I've spent SO much money on my gear that I'm starting to get mad at the injustice that we suffer as guitar players at the hands of the big companies that have been taking us for fools the last several decades.

A computer motherboard on the bleeding edge of technology, containing thousands of resistors, transistors, capacitors, integrated circuits, etc. will cost anywhere from 60 - 300 dollars.  And we are paying 150 to 200 dollars on a collection of a dozen or so of each, and maybe one integrated circuit.  That and we're stuck with what other people want to feed us as the right sound, without much option to tweak.  If you've got a 3 band parametric EQ on your distortion pedal, you've got a powerhouse of options, apparently....

So I'm fed up.  I've got enough of a grasp on signal processing and acoustics to build every pedal I own, digitally.  Even the multi-effects stuff and the midi/synth guitar junk.

Setting aside the analog vs. digital debate, (trust me there is nothing wrong with digital, just the way it's usually implemented,  that and crappy converters in guitar pedals) I think what I would like to do is sell all my gear except for guitars, amps, and maybe a wah pedal, and work at rebuilding everything I would actually use, and build it the way i want it.

Using Max/MSP i could get the jist of each effect and build it into its own patch, then use those patches for a base for each effect that I could build on, and revise.  Then I could put all the patches together into one big master program.
I could control it using a mixture of a control board of some sort.  Like a midi controller or something I make on my own, and mutli-touch display.

Arduino is an interesting tool that i could use to build things that require a little more thinking "out of the box".  Like I an idea I had to ditch the pitch to midi converter and build a pitch to OSC converter that will allow me to use a guitar synth that doesn't resort to midi (ugh), and to use it wirelessly using wifi rather than radio.
Mind you, you can do anything with Arduino.

Other interesting things come out of this as well, like the ability to use an Ipad or other such things in your performances.  Or wiimote or Kinect.. etc.

And using a high quality recording interface to patch your guitar into the computer gives the ability to run digital at an impressive sample rate like 96KHz or even higher for really high fidelity digital effects.  Time stretches and pitch shifting would be child's play and sound so much better at these sample rates, compared to what we would normally get in a boss pedal.

It's amazing really, how much stuff costs and how simple it is to DIY everything you do for so much less money.

I guess my question is 3-fold.

1. would anybody here be interested in a pursuit like this and want to help out or have the ability to help out?

2. would anybody here be interested in the results of this endeavor and want to try it out for themselves when i'm "done" ?

3. despite all I've said, would anybody be interested in some 2nd hand gear?

thoughts, please.

ps.  When did the forum go all white?  Where have I been anyway?
 
pabloman said:
So you want to make a Line 6 POD?? ???  :icon_scratch: :dontknow: :icon_jokercolor:

But he can dial everything in just the way he wants so although the tones he gets might be terrible for some people they'll suit his needs way better than a POD.

Sounds like a very cool project. I'll be really impressed if you get things sounding good enough to replace that monster of a rig you have. I might be interested in some of it but now that I'm building my own stuff commercial effects don't have much appeal.

Best of luck.
 
If I am to understand you correctly, you want to start a project to be able to offer DIY hardware instructions and open-source software that for a fraction of the cost and bulk could do the same job as a pedal train or multi-effect guitar pedal of any kind.  Pedals are stupid-expensive corporate to consumer rape when you understand the technology of most and the cost of the materials/construction.  This kind of work reminds me of LINUX or LIBRE just made for guitar players. 

Am I right?

Go for it Man, I dont have the technical skill to help you, but if you list your present gear somewhere, I will certainly try to find some way to buy something Ifins that helps.

Go get 'em!
 
Not enough technical skill here to assist with the required FW, etc, but I can try it out against an AXE-FX Ultra, or an AXE-FX II if my discount coupon comes in.
 
I did this 5 years ago.

But I just got modeling amps (vox tonelab and later axe fx). Too busy playing music to fiddle with technology. And I've got two engineering degrees! :headbang1:
 
I remember when you got your Axe FX, everybody was pretty excited about it.

What I'd like to do goes beyond what Axe FX, or PODs, or Boss GT's or Digitech multi effects do.  Which don't really give you full control over the sound itself.  Its just a bunch of presets you can tweak.

I'm talking about going into the sound itself,  screwing around with fourier analysis and messing with stuff within the frequency domain and not only recreating your typical guitar effects (with much more control than you'd normally have) but also creating new ones.

Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead uses MaxMSP for his funky effects that he comes up with.  I just find it difficult to go with the idea of bringing a bunch of effects or multi-effects as well as a computer to a show.  Why not put it all into one unit right?  I already rackmounted my computer and my audio interfaces, so why not just get rid of all the extra stuff?

Personally I've got the opposite problem you do mayfly.  I never play my guitar anymore. I'm too busy with school, and both bands I was in have broken up.  If I don't do something guitar related soon I'm going to lose all ability.  Since my head has been in the technical and physics and computer science for the last ...  forever.  It seems a good way to try to get back into it.  I've only got a year of school left and all of my hardcore academic classes are over.  Which means no more theory, history, aural/oral skills.  I'm into the strictly technical.

I've seen a lot of interesting research done in new instruments and new control devices that only seems to happen or get noticed within the academic world, and gets confined to "art music" and never really makes it's way into popular music.  For good reason too because so much of it, while interesting, is absolutely horrid to listen to.  I hope to bridge the gap and use some new techniques and some of the stuff on the bleeding edge to enhance my guitar playing and song writing.  This is a logical step toward that goal, as I can integrate literally anything I want into my guitar this way.

Besides. if a new piece of gear comes out, I wont have to buy it, I'll just have to engineer it myself in software. which means less money for gear and more money for warmoths... amirite?

You never know. It could work at some point and be marketable. 
 
I have seen some mention of the Arduino in the DIY forums here and there.  Usually it is linked somehow with a sample and hold opamp or a bit crusher like application.  If you have the skills to get it working, then it looks pretty darn cool. 

I built a sample and hold analog bitcrusher (Hah!) and it was a lot of fun, but the schmitt hex trigger made so much noise it sort of behaved like a ring modulator as well.  While a lot of fun, it wasn't the most usable because of the trigger noise.  I rebuilt it into a wah enclosure, and gave it to an art rock friend.

The Arduino looks cool because the problems I encountered would not be there.  You could set it up to do just about anything if you have the programming ability.  Sounds very interesting, keep us updated if you try it.
Patrick

 
I've been chomping at the bit for an arduino for about 2 years now, but with school I haven't had the time to really dive into it.  This semester though, I'm taking an electronics course for music applications, and our testbed is going to be arduino.

What makes it so cool is that it's basically just a microprocessor.  Every bit of digital electronics we have has a microprocessor, but they're proprietary to the company that created it.  Arduino is a microprocessor that can do anything you want it to if you have the gumption to make it happen.  You can use them to run TV's or laser projectors or robots or anything you can think of.  I wouldn't use Arduino for a guitar pedal, because you can do that with analog circuitry.  But there's lots of other things that you can use them for as well.  Guys have made everything from electronic door locks to full 3D printers with them.

I'll mostly be using them to utilize different sensors for audio manipulation.

It's actually not very difficult to build a full fledged electronic drum kit with them.  You just need a circuit that plays sounds from an SD card, a bunch of piezo-electric transducers and some programming practice.

As I said before.  The only thing I have in mind for arduino at first is to make a wireless guitar synth.  A few guys on here that use the roland synth stuff knows about it.  It uses a 13-pin DIN cable, a signal for all the strings and all the switches on a normal GK pickup.  You'd need 13 wireless packs to trasmit all of that data.  But if I can use Arduino to send the information over WIFI instead of a cable or RF like traditional wireless guitar setups. Then all I'd need is an internet router, and that would be my wireless.  Granted I'd have to write the pitch detection software and flash it onto the arduino board, but there is a lot of Open source software libraries that help with that kind of thing.  Not only that, but I can ditch awful ancient Midi and instead use Open Sound Control. 

Basically whatever you can think of and have an idea for you can make something out of arduino.  Anything.
 
:icon_scratch:  Ummm ... this is an interesting idea you have here.
Slightly over my head BUT....

You might like to browse around on these 2 forums I'm on also. I'm a mod on one (FGN)  :icon_biggrin:
Some interesting things on both, that might have the people & know how or help / interest people for this.

Future Guitar Now ....  http://www.futureguitarnow.com/forum/index.php?action=forum
VGuitar ... http://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php

VGuitar is more Guitar Synth / Roland / Ghost 13pin etc
They are sister forums run by the same knowledgeable people.  :icon_thumright:

Sure you would find some very interested people for this at both those sites.

Yep I'm one of those guys you mention about the 13pin
Redback ... http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=17680.0
The Cigar .. http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=16573.0
 
Thanks for the links.  Very nice guitars btw.  I always wanted to go with a ghost system, but I dont have the extra 500 bucks per guitar to do it.  The GK looks nice and sleek on there though.
 
You can do a ghost system for a lot less than that.

There's a vendor on ebay selling them discounted. Hexpander is $130, I think I paid $80 for my VS100 saddles. You don't need the acousticphonic for midi/hex processing. I'll refrain from commenting on the 13 pin Pitch to MIDI converter I'm watching on ebay until the auction is over, but you can often buy older models cheap. If you're wanting to process on a PC - you can record in hex with an M-Audio 1010LT which can be had for under $100 used. I don't really care about hex processing/modelling, but I would still like the option of recording  in hex.
 
John McLaughlin has been amp-free for decades. He occasionally uses something like the Mesa V-Twin just to get to some fast controls over tone, but there are plenty of people who are living in a laptop, essentially. Peavey has an "amp modeling" program that lets you deconstruct everything and make your own choices, instead of letting the engineers do it. It's a perfectly valid thing to do, I'm like Mayfly in that I like to play music more than anything. I'd rather find a new set of pedal tones or a diminished sneak-up than a new tone, usually. Some of the computer only guys seem forced to make unpleasant sounds just to remind you that they're not playing a 62 Strat into a Super Reverb.
 
I think those guys are a little too concerned with themselves, and not so much with the sound.  I would hope that my plan does all it can to help ME do what I want.  Making the art-snob mentality a priority is not on my roadmap.  I see enough of that at school.
 
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