Sag simulation stompbox?

[ericohman]

Hi!

First of all, I am not 100% sure that what I think of when I hear the word sag is the same thing that you guys think. Correct me if I'm wrong.

To me the saggy sound can be heard mostly on the stroke of a note, kind of like a compressed (both like a compressor effect and compression as for low bitrate). Very hard to explain how I feel about the word sag... Kind of like an old 'beano' JTM45 cranked up, compared to something knopfler would have used for money for nothing.

I don't want a voltage divider for an existing pedal. I'd rather want to know if it's possible to build a pedal that makes your amp sound more saggy?
Someting that would act like a "bad battery" for your amp. However I don't want to fiddle with the power transformers (for the amp) or something like that.

I want it to be a stompbox.
guitar -> stompbox magic -> amp

Has anyone built something like this?

[space_ryerson]

The first few that come to mind are R.G.'s pedal power supply, Experimental Anonymous's Parallel Universe, and the Tone God's Punisher. This recent thread may interest you as well.

[ericohman]

Tone God's Punisher seems very interesting. However, since I'm pretty much only after the sag effect I can't think of any pedal that I want to connect the Punisher with.

Maybe it would be possible to combine the Punisher circuit with some clean boost or something, in order to get a "all in one sag stompbox".
I'm just guessing here, but what do you think would be a good pedal to sag down in order to get the sag feel without using fuzzes/overdrives pedals.

Guitar  ->  punisher->  X  ->AMP

Where X should be some pedal that doesn't color the tone too much, only should it work together with the punisher to get a sag feel.

[cpm]

first define what you mean with "sag feel", that would be a start

[anchovie]

Given the reference to a cranked JTM45, I'm guessing the desire is for something that sounds like tube rectifier sag.

This thread might be useful: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=74453.0

[ericohman]

All Your Love (Mayall & Clapton Bluesbreakers)
Solo at 1:49
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUUEtCBhn_Q

And maybe a little bit of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrqtmaxVSbY

What I like is the sound that happens the millisecond as the notes are being stroke.
Thanks for the link, I'll have a look

[Processaurus]

The sag effect, of a distorted amplifier's power supply not being able to keep up it's voltage through a note's cycle, could be recreated somewhat by either just a compressor with a slow attack (maybe 100-400 ms) into the amp, or, even better, to affect the volume of the amp distortion, (because just changing the gain of the signal hitting a distorted amp just changes how distorted the note is, rather than changing the actual volume), sidechain the input of the compressor to the clean guitar, but then run the VCA portion after the amp (or distortion pedal), so that the volume of the distortion sags based on how hard you play.

You could make some unique effects by sagging way more than a tube amp would in real life, making a caricature of the Neil Young sag sound...

One could get a similar effect by using the Punisher on a distortion pedal that's clipping level is directly related to the power supply, non diode clipping pedals, like 4049 based designs like the CA tube sound fuzz/Red Llama, maybe some transistor based fuzzes as well.  Possibly the sansamp type diode-less opamp clipping could be a candidate for sagging the power supply.

Thinking about it, lowering the clipping threshold of a distortion, like the 3rd, Punisher example, is closest in operation to real amp sag.  I bet a Punisher type dynamic power supply built into a tube amp would be the bee's knees!

[Solidhex]

A quick thing to do would be running a compressor into a full range booster.... You'd get some of that thwack of the notes but a little more aggressiveness in the top end with the booster.

--Brad