Mulltiple build reports in audio form (String ringer, rocktave divider etc)

[Gripp]

Hi all!
Here's a little demo tune I made as a build report.

http://www.gimehost.com/ZURcNQLcPzDz3KfoOzA6

I truly believe that the electric guitar is indeed electric.
All sounds are guitar except a bit of 60 Hz hum.
All tracks recorded direct to soundcard (M-audio FW-410), I wanted a more non guitar type of sound and the boxes I've been making lately goes in this direction too.

Guitars used:
My trusty 97 Parker Nitefly
80's Yamaha RGX something that is fretless (done by myself), just used for the weird intro solo w/ebow (impossible to play without).

Commercial effects used: Ebow, Boss FV-50H volume pedal, Digitech PDS-8000 (only to capture a short segment of me drumming on the guitar, postprocessed by DIY String Ringer), a tiny bit of plug in reverb on some of the "solo" spots, a tiny bit of straigth stereo delay plug in on swell parts, synthish lead  and weird intro solo. Really not a lot of ambience effects. Much of the wide stereo effect on some of the parts is entirely due to the quadra phaser.
No compression or eq, I wanted to present this as natural as possible while still making some sort of music. Just some clever fader riding and mute in mix.

DIY effects used:
String Ringer, special thanks to markusw and nelson!
Rocktave Divider, special thanks to Craig Anderton, GGG, Dean Hazelwanter and Mark Hammer!
Simple Square Wave Shaper Made Simpler, special thanks to Tim Escobedo, Marcos - Munky and jmusser!
McMeat, special thanks to joep, moosapotamus and markusw!
ARP Quadra Phaser, special thanks to Jürgen Haible, hhelland and Mike Irwin!
Orange Squeezer, special thanks to GGG and Mark Hammer!

I have probably missed someone in the thankslist, and a very special thanks to you!
Thanks all for making this hobby the greatest!
Any comments welcome.

Best!
Pelle Garpebring
Edit, link went dead so I fixed it.

[syndromet]

Oh my god!!
That is so.... King crimsonish!!! You just added 5 effects to my "to-do-list"....

[Gripp]

Thanks!
probably not a coincidence, I've been listening to Crimson for 3 months straigth now and still discover new aspects of their music. I guess it rubs off.
And do build these, I've gotten a lot of mileage from these effects, not only for the more bizzare stuff but also for spicing up things in more traditional songs.

[syndromet]

probably not a coincidence, I've been listening to Crimson for 3 months straigth now and still discover new aspects of their music. I guess it rubs off.

Guess it does. I love crimson, and everything they have ever done. I thought I had to spend a lot of money on some guitar synth and change my name to Fripp to achive that sound, and you come here to prove me wrong...  I love it, and have been listening to that finkelstein 6 times in a row now.

What did you use on that arpegiated synth-sound?

[Gripp]

Thanks again for your kind words!
That was tapping on the parker going into McMeat with the Simple Square Wave Shaper Made Simpler set for a sawish wave in the McMeat loop. McMeat was set to envelope follower, lowpass, with little resonance.
I just love polyrythms and odd meters, not in a "look at me I'm a musician wannabee" way. Something happens inside when I hear and play them. I just cant stand still.
Best!
Pelle G

[nelson]

String Ringer, special thanks to markusw and nelson!

I really had nothing more to do with that clone than hosting the file.
It was all Markusw work.

[Gripp]

I know that Markusw is the man behind this project and I can't thank him enough but still, in my book hosting it makes it available so I thought a thanks to you was in order.

[petemoore]

  Nicer places get improved every day.
 Thanks to all the contributors..  
 Gripp ... I think you've got one.
 

[Gripp]

I really do like this place too, I'm not the best helper out there but that's mainly due to me not feeling confident enough about this stuff yet.
I'm also a very slow builder. It just felt like a good thing to do, to at least give some ideas (hopefully) back to the forum.
I've always gotten help when asking for it here.

[Stompin Tom]

Call me an idiot, but I can't find where the string ringer project file is hosted. The link in the old thread doesn't work anymore. Can someone tell me where it is???

[nelson]

I took it down.

I will put it back up so that the link works.

But it will only be up for another week or so.

[Stompin Tom]

Thanks!

[Mark Hammer]

I really do like this place too, I'm not the best helper out there but that's mainly due to me not feeling confident enough about this stuff yet.
I'm also a very slow builder. It just felt like a good thing to do, to at least give some ideas (hopefully) back to the forum.
I've always gotten help when asking for it here.

The reason you got help is because giving help almost always results in something as wonderful as this.  Just a great little clip.  Inventive.  Full of wonderful textures and surprises.  Nothing is used any longer than it needs to be, and every effect serves a musical purpose.  Loved it.  Be proud.

[Stompin Tom]

Yes, I should have said that the clip sounds great! Very much "two of a perfect pair" era King Crimson. Sort of forgot in my excitement of getting the string ringer layout...

[Gripp]

What can I say, great response!

And a little more OT Crimson talk  , I just ordered the dvd Neal and Jack and Me live '82-'84.
Can you believe that it isn't released in Europe yet (maybe ever)??
Luckily I have a very good book/film store here in Umeå, Sweden with a great direct import connection.
It will actually be cheaper getting it from these guys than buying it myself from say amazon.

Back on topic: Nelson, your polychorus seems mighty tempting but I never quite understood if you in the end bought one or build it or both (ie is the layout and schem verified)?

[syndromet]

What can I say, great response!

And a little more OT Crimson talk  , I just ordered the dvd Neal and Jack and Me live '82-'84.
Can you believe that it isn't released in Europe yet (maybe ever)??
Luckily I have a very good book/film store here in Umeå, Sweden with a great direct import connection.
It will actually be cheaper getting it from these guys than buying it myself from say amazon.

Back on topic: Nelson, your polychorus seems mighty tempting but I never quite understood if you in the end bought one or build it or both (ie is the layout and schem verified)?

Neil and jack and me.... Now that is a great music-DVD!!! I also love the eyes wide open dvd. There is not, nor will there ever be, such a great live-band as King Crimson. Gabriel-aera Genesis would have been up there with them, if the music wasn't so boring.

Happy to see other scandinavians on here! I envy you sweedes. You have everything! A greeeeeat rock-festival, great bands and a recordstore named melotronen...

I realy bumped in to tell you I'm still listening to your clipp. I actualy saved it in my "King Crimson related"-folder...
Thank you

Marius

[Also Wik]

So where can the string ringer be found???

[Stompin Tom]

At this address:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.nelson666/StringRingerv12r.pdf

Found in this thread:

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=35398.40

Thanks to Nelson! and MarcusW!

[Processaurus]

Pelle, that song/clip sounds totally cool.  Do you have a band or any recordings out? 

If you have access to a camera sometime I'm sure everyone reading this would love to see your handmade stuff, these are definately advanced projects. 

Out of curiousity how are you liking the rocktave divider? I got the parts for one collecting dust right now.

[Gripp]

Thanks!

I'm sort of in a band...but that situation is unstable, we've had people move and getting jobs/study in other places so right now we have no bass player and maybe no drummer.
We really don't know what to play either. That particular constellation of people we had lead to a certain kind of music. We tried to do some electronic jazz mainly , think Maiden Voyage, early-mid 60's Miles but electronic.
No, no record.  That would probably be a very confusing affair See, I get bored easily and have a genuine love for a lot of different kinds of music, and curiosity is a strong driving force for me as well. That goes both for playing and listening.
As said, right now its a lot of King Crimson playing on my stereo but it could as easily be The Beatles, Emmylou Harris, Bill Frisell, Daniel Lanois, John Coltrane, Flatt and Scruggs, Steely Dan, Tom Waits, Robert Johnson  or....or....and back to John Zorn's Naked City or Mahavishnu Orchestra. My main aesthetic principle seems to be that the music should feel/be honest. I love to improvise with the right people but I also love to orchestrate that little tiny guitar part that's just right for the song. Complexity has no value in itself. To top it off, sound is very, very important, this little tune would never have been if it wasn't for the right sounds, kicking things in this particular heading. Opps, blabbering....

No camera but I could get one from a friend. My box work isn't that inspiring anyway. For me, boxing an effect up is the most boring part of this hobby. I do have a nice powder coating on some of them though. And the Quadra phaser isn't even in a box yet ... on the other hand maybe someone wants to see the guts. Will work on it. As for the advanced bit, I'm with Stephen Giles on this one

Think of it like this - a fuzz box is easy to build, so it has as much circuitry as 20 easy fuzz boxes!!!!!!!

on the topic of building a polychorus. Its just a matter of time and you only have to make one PCB.

Rocktave divider. I like it. I've tried the Boss OC-2 and the EBS Octabass (1st version), and the Rocktave tracks better than the Boss but a hair worse than the EBS. But, it has so much more possibilities than either. It works equally well for that unison playing thing as for straigth fuzz/synth bass. I did the selectable pitch mod and the stereo option that already is on Dean Hazelwanter's PCB layout. There's also a selectable tone cap on mine and a couple of trimmers inside for tracking/sensitivity adjustment (R22 and  R23).
One thing I've learned when dealing with comparator type square wave fuzzes (this one has that front end as well as Tim E's Square wave shaper), is how different guitars put out different amounts of fundamental (what these circuits ideally wants to see; can be missused in a very musical way though) and how stable that fundamental is. That also varies with string, string type/age, fretboard position, it seems to vary with almost everything. Even with the neck pu and tone rolled down no two guitars will behave the same. No need to roll down tone with the Rocktave in my experience and I sometimes run it with the bridge pu too, just have to be a little more careful. I notice that tracking gets worse with old strings on my Parker, strings that still doesn't sound dead to me.
I mean, you have to adjust your playing when switching from a clean low volume sound to a Marshall on ten. Muting becomes even more important and so on. It's like you're playing a different instruments. Playing through the Rocktave or Envelope filter or something is no different, you will have to adjust your playing to some extent depending on what results you are expecting. That's just because of physics, it is not something negative either, it just is. Feed your system something from your guitar and see what you get back (Jimi got a lot of wonderful controlled feedback). You can probably use it somehow.

Wow, long post. Off to morning shower.
Best!
Pelle G