Bass + string section sounds from an analog stompbox?

[davesisk]

Hey folks:

I'm looking for a way to use my bass to get some string section sounds.  This would be mostly long, sustained stuff...very non-busy.  Any ideas come to mind?  Does anything like this exist?  Any ideas on how to build one?  I don't care if it's an "effect" or it's some sort of midi-triggering to a string section sound on a sound module.

OR, if anyone can suggest a collection of effects that would allow me to make my fretless bass sound like a string section, that might at least get me close.  It doesn't have to be absolutely fantastic, it just has to be close!

Any suggestions appreciated!
Dave

[lovekraft0]

You could use a phase-locked loop frequency follower with a series of dividers in the loop to generate several octaves of digital sawtooths above the bass fundamental, send each to a filter bank to simulate a generic string timbre, dealy/chorus each, mix the results, and then envelope-shape the signal to get a bowed attack/decay. That should do it! If you want polyphony, just multiply by 4 and get a split bass pickup.  

I don't see it fitting into a 1590BB, though.  :wink:

[davesisk]

Hey, thanks for the post!  Can you go a little slower for me, though?

What is a phase-locked loop?  What are the approximate filter frequencies?  

Cut to the chase...are you capable of building this for me as a single stompbox?  Email me at davesisk@ipass.net and let's discuss...

Thx,
Dave

[lovekraft0]

The PLL I was referring to is the CMOS CD4046 - there's good info in Ray Marsden's article on Mark Hammer's site about using it for audio. As for string filter banks, there are a couple of articles on the 'Net (notably at Jürgen Haible's synth site), but those circuits are at least an order of magnitude more complicated than anything I've attempted. The rest is simple by comparison, but would still require quite a lot of skill to kludge together into a working unit - we're talkin' like a small hardwired Moog modular in a box. While I'm sure there are a few people here who could pull it off, I'm not one of them!   It's quite possibly too complicated and expensive to be worth the time and effort.

The more I think about it, it would probably be easier to use a tweaked MIDI converter to generate the octaves, and a digital synth/sampler to source the string sounds - you could probably do it with off-the-shelf units if you were clever, and keep the costs down. As much as I like the idea of an (almost) all-analog solution, it's not always the most practical approach.