about the new 'open stomp' pedal...digital made easy...

[wampcat1]

I posted this in the digital forum, but not really anything going on in there, so...

I bought the new open stomp pedal, the one that advertises the ease of programming your own digital effects. Here were my findings:
From a guitar player's perspective, it's pretty overwhelming - I've been trying to edit patches for an hour or two already and am not understanding how to do so.

It's very versatile though, tons of effects in a box a little larger than a standard 1590 hammond box.

I did notice some of the controls work backwards from what you would conventionally find in an analog style box for some effects, i.e. chorus rate but am unsure whether this could be changed in the software.

The distortion and overdrive are my least favorites though - I don't really know how to set it up in the digital world but in analog boxes you generally want to roll off the bass pre-clipping, clip the signal, limit the highs after this and then boost the bass and add a tone control. I'd like to emulate this with the software as well but again can't figure out how to do so.

the delay is pretty cool... here is what I'd change if I could figure out how:
-better range of times between 100ms and 600ms
-ability to add a tone control that would go from a low pass to a high pass (implementing a big muff style tone stack would be cool) for the tone of the echoes.
-the ability to oscillate
-the ability to add modulation on the repeats

It seems that if a delay is possible, the same architecture would allow a reverb, I'd LOVE to figure that one out as well.

Chorus:
-ability to change EQ
-too much range on modulation
-very versatile however - tons of depth available!
-unfortunately, it's very 'boxy' sounding

Bypass - A hard 'true bypass' switch would be awesome, it would probably require the box to be larger though...

tremolo is very nice -nice and quiet too!

Divebomb: not very useable from a guitarists' perspective, maybe a nice 'trick' at the end of a solo or something but it doesn't really sound like a whammy type of drop

Something else I'd like to see in the future would be a tuner, compression, eq, and definitely a quick one page "how to use" type thing - something that lets you pull it right out of the box and start using it without having to dig into the manual much.

Just some honest critiques - overall, I think it's the start of something great - many of us in the analog world have been watching this with anticipation waiting for someone to implement digital effects easily.

[oskar]

I bought the new open stomp pedal, the one that advertises the ease of programming your own digital effects.

Never heard of it. Link please!

From a guitar player's perspective, it's pretty overwhelming - I've been trying to edit patches for an hour or two already and am not understanding how to do so.

DSP can be pretty overwhelming but some of it is really simple to understand.
Basically you give the audiosignal a "float" value ( digital decimal... ) and then multiply and divide and conquer and whatelse...   
A simple amp is like this.

in
out = in * 2

now we just doubled the amplitude...


Check out synthmaker, it's a graphic VST generator program/ engine. You will understand more of what's going on after using it.

I did notice some of the controls work backwards from what you would conventionally find in an analog style box for some effects, i.e. chorus rate but am unsure whether this could be changed in the software.

Easily. You can just invert the control value and you can also change the respone curve.

tremolo is very nice -nice and quiet too!

in
out = in * LFO     

Divebomb: not very useable from a guitarists' perspective, maybe a nice 'trick' at the end of a solo or something but it doesn't really sound like a whammy type of drop

The whammy is some thought through piece of equipment... Digitech cooperated with another company ( I read this in a recent thread here... ) who specialise in audio software for fast frequency analysis/determination...
Credits for trying...

Maybe take this back to the digital thread...?     

[kjc]

I had read about the pedal on the AMZ blog last year, and on paper it sounded like it my be something really only limited by the users' imagination. Sounds like with a little DSP know-how and patience it could prive to be quite a useful addition to the arsenal. I'd love to here some soundclips...can we expect to hear them later today? 

[wampcat1]

The thing is, this pedal was designed and marketed to those not schooled in the digital realm - basically creating a "build your own" digital effect type thing.
link:
www.openstomp.com

[oskar]

I hit download on that page and I'm just going through the source code for the distortion...    -He, he...
That's like hardcore assembly language programming. It has some learning threashold to get over but is definitely doable.
Also there was a graphic editor for it... but I can sure understand if it's confusing.
I'll check into it but it's better to take this back to the digital forum. That's where it belongs!

[DougH]

The verbiage at the website implies to me that it is not just "for guitar players", but for guitar players with programming skills.  The reason I say that is because of the extensive use of the term "open source". "Open source" implies to me that the user is a programmer.

It looks like a novel idea and I hope it is successful. Although the average non-programmer guitarist may find the programming environment overwhelming- power and versatility go and hand in hand with complexity of operation. There's really no way around that. And if you simplify it such that you make the control parameters less granular, you end up with something more akin to a patch-editor on a multi-fx box like a Zoom or something. That's not what he intended, I believe. Sounds like he wants to give you the full power of the DSP chip to do what you want, fx-wise. When you step into the DSP world, you are becoming a programmer.

[wampcat1]

The verbiage at the website implies to me that it is not just "for guitar players", but for guitar players with programming skills.  The reason I say that is because of the extensive use of the term "open source". "Open source" implies to me that the user is a programmer.

It looks like a novel idea and I hope it is successful. Although the average non-programmer guitarist may find the programming environment overwhelming- power and versatility go and hand in hand with complexity of operation. There's really no way around that. And if you simplify it such that you make the control parameters less granular, you end up with something more akin to a patch-editor on a multi-fx box like a Zoom or something. That's not what he intended, I believe. Sounds like he wants to give you the full power of the DSP chip to do what you want, fx-wise. When you step into the DSP world, you are becoming a programmer.

probably very true Doug... I myself am very much a novice at that type of stuff...and honestly I was *hoping* it would be a true 'drag and drop' type of thing where if you want to edit the eq of the repeats on the delay (for example), just drag an eq module off of the repeat 'control' in the software and BAM! there you go. Unfortunately, it's not. Live and learn I guess!

I'll do a quickie vid and throw something up on youtube today and then post the link here later.
bw

[wampcat1]

here's a quick soundclip from a hot rod deville, les paul, and sm57
http://www.indy-guitarist.com/soundclips

It'll be up in just a minute
bw

[newfish]

Excellent stuff.

That's a lot of pedal for the money.

In terms of DSP / programming, I'd reckon if you can handle building your own kit (and understanding how it behaves), you're clearly smart enough to program.

It's just another skill after all. 

The recordings are really clear - thanks for posting the link.

[oskar]

That really is a lot of pedal for the money. But if you can make artistic use of that divebomb patch, you don't have to prove your abilities with the guitar in any other way.   
I looked into it yesterday and are seriously considering buying it. There is a lot of time involved there though. The only patch I would be interesting in realising right now is translating a VST bitcrusher I did a couple of years ago, and that would be fun, but it wouldn't be fun enough for for me I think, for such a big investment.

[wampcat1]

you know, the thing is that is REALLY could be the start of something huge - I think it really could be a great thing, but it's definitely for someone who can put in some time with it.
bw

[oskar]

Yeah. It could be really big... Basing it on the parallax community and with a graphic editor is probably both a big plus as compared to the Tonecore...

I had a peek at the chorus and if you now how to compile the code you probably only need to change the variables for LFO range in the beginning and this you don't need to know how to program to do.


COYOTE1_MODULE_Chorus.spin


     //////////////////////////////////


  ' Low frequency oscillator (LFO) definitions
  LFO_PERIOD_MIN_MSEC         = 10                                                 <------- Here!
  LFO_PERIOD_MAX_MSEC         = 5000                                             <-------...or here!     or both!


Good luck...