"Audio Sound eXiters"

[Electron Tornado]

Saw this in an email form Digi-Key today. Thought it might interest someone. "...transform an object's outer surface into an invisible, protected speaker."


http://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/p/pui-audio/audio-sound-exciters?WT.v_sub=5051835&WT.mc_id=em_Email Batch Program-8005-send-email-campaign&WT.z_email=8833_NPA1608BIDUS_supplier9image--668-PUI&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTmpJeFpEQTJZV0l6Wm1NeCIsInQiOiJ6dVwvNjhcLzcxaFdVTUpJV2JVeE5KcnAyQVpPTVFRalQwcktyQlcyZjJkRlZXNWtUUGlybmxjdGhnbzV0TTBYM0x0QjJUeWE5YmNRTlRGVGhUUHk3Z3NjMTNrQ1ZVTkVOMTlMTHB5T00rbmcwPSJ9

[thermionix]

I've seen similar devices advertised before.  I wonder how well they would work as pickups?  Make a giant plate reverb with some of those.

[blackieNYC]

I didn't think it would be long before this digikey blast made it here.
I'm going to get two of these and...  I dunno.

[Quackzed]

i wonder if they'd make a decent 'sustainer' with a 386 driving it on an electric... some kind of parallel guitar>amp>exciter setup. i'd think in the right spot it'd do the trick, if not perfectly.
i like that some of these are pretty smallish like 1 + 1/4 inches and not that thick..

i seem to recall a few threads with similar setups to this, onjly using piezo buzzers as the sound producing element...

[ashcat_lt]

i wonder if they'd make a decent 'sustainer'...

There are commercial units which use a driver very much like these connected to a circuit very much like you describe and I can tell you that those do work for this.  I actually went ahead and cut the driver itself free and attached a proper 1/4" TS plug which I usually drive from my commercial headphone amp (connected to a dedicated output from my DAW).  It usually helps to have some compression or distortion going into it. 

Mine came with some adhesive pads, but they don't last long, so I usually use double-sided carpet tape.  I started out putting it on the headstock.  It worked pretty well, but then there's a cable hanging off the wrong end of your guitar, and I found that somewhere between the bridge and the strap button usually works well enough.

It does spew quite a good bit of EM radiation, though, so if you get it too close to the bridge itself, any of the wiring, or the pickup itself, you end up getting what sounds like microphonic feedback as well.  Also, there's quite a bit of current flowing through the cable, so if the cable gets too close to your guitar cable, the signal can bleed through, even if both cables are shielded.  Depending on what you're doing to the two signals, this can either not matter or be a big mess. 

I got some pretty good results using these things given proper treatment of the signal.  Notes ring and sustain when you hold them and overall it is a very convincing simulation of the kind of string feedback you'd get from a loud amp except that you can't move the guitar around in relation to the speaker to get it to change notes or break to harmonics.  An all-pass filter on the line going to the driver can help for that, if you can find some way to vary the cutoff frequency.  I have tried using an expression pedal, but it works almost as well just to put a slow random lfo on it. 

I had a song that was like 20 minutes long and I wanted to have all of my guitars feeding back through the whole thing, but it would have taken days to find the time where I could actually be loud enough to make that happen with an amp, and I would have had to stand there swaying back and forth the whole time.  So instead I hooked up one of these things with that random all-pass filter, set the guitar on a stand, and went on about my business.  Didn't actually have to listen to any of it.  In fact, there was a baby sleeping in the next room for most of it.  The higher strings do get surprising loud even just acoustically, but...

[Quackzed]

 
thats great to hear, actually EXACTLY what i was hoping to hear... i wasn't sure these little things would be strong enough to vibrate a solid electric. my thinking is that the higher the note, the more energy required for an even amount of 'excitation' through the guitars range, and maybee a dip at the guitars resonant frequency as well. but some tinkering with an eq pedal between the guitar and amp/exciter would give a good idea of the tone shaping desired, depending on your intended use.

   me, i'd mostly want to be able to have a momentary to hold to get single note or chord sustaining, situated to comfortably pick while pressing ( probably beneath the bridge pickup somewhere near but not in the way of the hand rest area). but i'd have to really put it through it's paces to be convinced and cut/mount it on a guitar... but i have a few guitars i use for certain styles/tones where this effect would really fit the bill.

i'm gonna have to try one of these out, looking maybee at this guy... 8 ohms 2W under 1 1/2" dia. for an onboard 386 amp...
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/pui-audio-inc/ASX03308-SM-R/668-1559-ND/6125072

[ashcat_lt]

Of course you'd want to take it too far! 

I honestly didn't do much in the way of scientific testing, but I have had good enough results (for what I was trying to do) on several different guitars. I've had other people try them and be pretty amazed.  The guitar immediately "comes to life" the way it would in front of a moderately loud amp. 

I also have number of guitars.  It's the main reason I've never been able to get behind a magnetic sustainer system: I can't be limited to just the bridge pickup on exactly one guitar.  It would be actually useful like 1% of the time.  That's why I like having this thing with a cable attached so I can just stick it wherever and go.  Considered putting an amp to drive it on my board, but I don't need it for live use, and in studio the headphone amp is just right there.

[Quackzed]

thats true, i'd probably be better off with it as an 'add on' effect.its just the way my head works... ok, how do i incorporate this thing onto a guitar... but as you mention it, it's maybee a bit mad to route a hole in the face of a guitar for it  .