Looking to Build (or have built) Something Special...

[artiefisk]

OK...

Here's the thing: I like vibrato. Pitch-bending vibrato, a la Magnatone amps. I also like Leslie speaker effects, tremolo, and pretty much anything that warbles.

I used to own an EHX Wiggler. It was GREAT, but noisy even after lots of mods, and it was not exactly convenient or pedal-board friendly. Noisy as hell, and hard to get the same sound twice, and don't even get me started on that proprietary 12v power supply wall-wart nightmare.

So, here's what I want to do:

I want to build a Wiggler, basically, without tubes and noise, and with the option of Magnatone-style, varistor-based pitch vibrato. I want a pedal that can do tremolo (ideally, both optical and bias), pitch-vibrato, leslie-ish sounds, and maybe uni-vibe-ish sounds (and maybe a few more) all in one. I'd call it The Warbler, and it would have to be all analog and as quiet as possible. I'm thinking that it would be neat to have a master rate control so that you could choose a warble speed and then switch styles at that speed, but also to be able to preset the speeds and depths of each of the effects.

Of course, such a thing would be huge and ungainly, but I guess what I'm asking is this:

Is such a thing even within the realm of possibility?

If it is, I'd make it my mission to save up and have one custom-built for me.

Whaddaya think?

[Mark Hammer]

If you're willing to settle for about 65% of that, yeah, sure its possible.  It's 100% possible if you don't mind someone else making it for you in digital format.

Here is our starting point:

1) A univibe is essentially a 4-stage phase-shifter, with cap values selected to produce wide shallow dips, instead of narrow deep notches.  The cap values can be easily switched from the one to the other.

2) ANY phase shifter will produce pitch wobble when the dry signal is lifted and only the phase-shifted signal is used.  Slower speeds will produce largely inaudible pitch wobble, but faster speeds can make a lovely emotional jiggle to the sound.

3) The original Uni-vibe was sold by Shin-Ei as the Resleytone, a rather clumsy effort to refer obliquely to Leslie speakers.

4) Ramp-up, ramp-down can be easily achieved and has been intermittently featured in both commercial boxes (Roland AP-7, Pearl PH-44 Phaser, Keeley Phaser) and in DIY form (the GEOFEX LERA circuit)

5) Using a single master LFO to run everything, such that effects can be auditioned and selected without changing speed is best done using an optoisolator (LED/photocell pairup) as the go-between, since it can serve as a sort of universal control element in very flexible fashion.  The same undulating LED can be used to modulate a phaser, a Uni-vibe, a vibrato, and a tremolo.  Photocells are also VERY quiet.

Putting this all together, it would seem that you could get a basic "engine", made of 4 phase-shift stages, that could be easily reconfigured via toggles, to do several things, all harnessed to a master LFO that is, in turn, harnessed to a ramp-up/down circuit.  Achieving successful mimicry of bias tremolo is something I've not seen attempted in solid-state analog form, but there is no reason why that same LFO could not modulate a 5th photocell in an additional stage that produces optical tremolo.

Like I say you can easily get around 65% of what you ask for, in a form that even someone at your level could manage (I'm basing "level" on the sorts of questions you've asked; hope I haven't misjudged).