Synthy sounding pedals?

[corbs]

I've heard some uglyface clips, i'll probably be building one, but are there any circuits that produce the same synthy sound but with less fuzz/distortion?

[moisho]

I like a lot the Autocrash in Moosapotamus, I know it's the basicaly the same thing, but I love the "Auto" part. (And yes, it has a lot of fuzz)

http://www.moosapotamus.com/autocrash/autocrash.htm

[jmusser]

I haven't built it yet, but the sound sample of Tim Escobedo's PWM (Pulse Wave Modulator), is very synthy sounding. I think his Simple Square Wave Shaper is pretty synthy sounding too. Of course it has a little smoother buzzier tone. It's one of my favorite pedals with sustain for a week!

[corbs]

ooh, interesting. do you know where i could get some sound clips for those bad boys?

edit: found them! the sound clip link was linking to the wrong place (guessing it used to be somewhere else).

hmmm i'm not sure thats what i'm after tho

[Bernardduur]

EHX Microsynth.... want to build one for a long time.

Uses a lot of 4558's  

[Gabriel Simoes]

You have a lot of courage if you plan to build the microsynth for bass .... I took a look at the project and its kind of BIG .... and will give a big headache to design and build the pcb =)

[Bernardduur]

Ha, I don't build on PCB's..... too much work  

It is this long time project I am building.... piece by piece, week by week, month by month..... it has no deadline, just building and building.

Other pedals are my priority.

[corbs]

yeah i think the microsynth is a bit adventurous for me ( :shock: ) the uglyface seems like a strong bet.

is the mxr bluebox synthy?

[Sam]

is the mxr bluebox synthy?

Well. It's a bit syntish but not anywhere near the Ugly Face or PWM.

[Gabriel Simoes]

What microsynth on a stripboard You're my hero !

[LP Hovercraft]

Yes the Blue Box has some pretty nice monophonic Atari sounds at extreme settings, but once again, it is accompanied by a distortion tone.  I believe Moosapotamus has some sound samples of his Hazelwanter Pitch Shifter hooked to an LDR for envelope control like on an Uglyface.  It sounds like audio from the future     That pitch shifter has some issues with headroom, though.  Other than that-RING MOD is very synthy IMHO.  Have any of you heard the Jen HF modulator?  I'm very curious but, I guess I'll just have to build it to find out.

[bwanasonic]

It really is the combination of sweeping filter and distortion that makes the Ugly Face sound *synthy*. Just the filter sweep on a *clean* sounding guitar signal would not convey *synth* sound.

Kerry M

[Yun]

Haha, i was able to get the EXACT atari sounds with this setup:

Guitar--->Big-Muff--->Octave pedal (i used the Chilidog miny danelectro)--->Vintage MXR 10-Band EQ--->Marshall stack .  

I think most of it will come out synthy just with the Octave pedal and the Muff, Obviously  :wink: ....

[puretube]

What microsynth on a stripboard You're my hero !

http://diystompboxes.com/sboxforum/viewtopic.php?t=27346&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=synth&start=30

[Manolo Dudes]

I get some synthy sounds from certain settings with my Octavia and mostly with my Mu-Tron III clones.

[mojotron]

I once had an original RAT that I picked up in 1985. If you turned the gain all the way up and the filter all the way down it would give you a great "square wave" sound that really smoth and was not rough at all.

I did not like this sound, but I had a friend who really liked it. It was a very "moog" kind of sound - which was a big deal back then.

[luix]

Hi to all,
time ago i build an ultra simple synth using one big muff stage to square the signal, a LM2917 as freq. to voltage converter and a 4046 as VCO.
It sound good xpecially with an auto-wha pedal in front of it, if I have time I build another with incorporated auto-wha....
You can try this, is simple and very moddable...

(sorry for my bad english)

[Mark Hammer]

The core elements of a synth are:

1) one or more tone generators capable of producing a wide variety of waveforms, and having their frequency and aspects of their waveform modulated

2) A filter capable of being modulated in some manner, whether by LFO, transient generators, or both

3) A gain cell capable of being amplitude modulated in some manner

The guitar itself serves nicely as tone generator, although we can get a "thicker" sound if the guitar is ganged to something that will produce non-identical pitches.  In the case of guitar, this can easily be octave up and octave down.  The Beausoleil/Escobedo square-wave shaper provides a nice means for producing alternate waveforms.  Running these through some sort of swept filter (especially if each filter is separate and tuned to the range of the tone generated) and finding some means to introduce less punctate attacks will bring you 80% of the way towards achieving a "synthy" sound.

Ideally, if one were to assemble some sort of constellation of modules, I'd suggest the following:

1) Use a buffer/splitter stage as the input.  The gain can be adjusted for optimal sensitivity, and the resulting signal can be sent to various places (e.g., octave-up, octave down, envelope follower/trigger generator) in parallel.  It is generally advisable to tap the signal being used to derive an envelope voltage as early as possible in the signal chain so as to retain maximum dynamics.  You don't always need them, but when you need them they need to be there to be usable.  

2) If some clean version of the straight signal may be mixed in with upper and lower octaves, there is really no reason to tolerate a fuzzy octave up.  Careful use of both highpass (to remove the fundamental) and lowpass (to reduce the fizziness) filtering in an octave up can yield something more like a "pure" octave up.  All octave-up and octave down signals need to be generated in parallel, rather than in series.  This means you will need a means of mixing them down eventually.

3) If you are going to use envelope-controlled sweep, build in some means of slowing attack and/or decay.  Different "musical event" parameters are what make synths so special and different sounding.  More interesting sounds can likely be achieved by having different time parameters for different portions of the signal.  For instance, if the amplitude onset for the different portions of the overall note occur at slightly different times, that can make it more interesting.  If the filters for each portion are not synced, that can also make it more interesting.

4) Consider using different types of filters for the different portions.  For instance, a bandpass filter for the octave up signal, and a lowpass for the octave down might be a nice combo.

[corbs]

it's gonna take some time to sink in, but a really nice description -  thanks mark.

do you see traits of these 'modules' being put together like this in any other pedal?

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

What microsynth on a stripboard You're my hero !

http://diystompboxes.com/sboxforum/viewtopic.php?t=27346&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=synth&start=30

i feel sick looking at that.

honestly sick.