Hmm, Stomporgan idea...

[JimRayden]

On my odyssey to making my 3-piece band sound bigger, I thought of an organ-like device. As we'll all be busy rocking out (drums, guitar and bass plus vocals), I decided to build a stompbox/organ chord machine.

So, here's the rough idea:
->up to 5 momentary footswotches, each of them representing a chord
->up to 5 oscillators with pitch controls per footswitch
->a phaser circuit in the very end.

One would use the freq. pots to tune in a chord, then start stomping on it. Pretty straightforward.

I'm thinking it would make a nice backing for a band. What do you think? What oscillators would it need to sound the most organ-like? simple sine generators would be fine? Would a clean octave-up effect along with the phaser get me closer to an organ?

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Jimbo

[JimRayden]

Also, you can freely suggest other electronic or mechanic ways to make a tiny band sound bigger. A good use of a certain effect for guitar maybe? for bass?

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Jimbo

[MartyMart]

MIDI Bass pedals, plugged into synth/sampler ... hardware samplers are SOOO cheap
these day's, there's an EMU E6400 fully loaded in a shop I know for £200  !!
You could load up "sets" of chords/sounds/FX for many songs and just "stomp" on the bass pedals
to trigger them .... what do you think ?
( or trigger stuff from a laptop if someone has one with some software synth/samplers in )

MM.

[JimRayden]

I am aware that digital processing could make a bass guitar also fill up the places of the drums, guitars, keyboards, strings and vocals but that's not what I'm after. Secondly we're kind of analogue-nuts, so we try to keep our signals as pure as possible (well, at least as it travels from the pickup to the speaker). Thirdly, I wanna go the DIY-way.

But a good idea nonetheless.

[edit] by "as pure as possible" I didn't mean "no effects" but rather "let's keep it as a variable signal instead of ones and zeros"

[edit2] This turns out to be my one thousanth post around here, wish me luck for another thousand.

[edit3] 1000
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Jimbo

[MartyMart]

Aha .... it may be "ones and zero's" in the box .... but it sounds as good as the
"analog" device that first created it 

I just thought it would be a nice way to trigger multiple sets of "chord sounds/textures"
for a band playing lots o "tunes" .... even your own extra vocal harmonies/guitar parts
could be loaded up !

MM.

[JimRayden]

Aha .... it may be "ones and zero's" in the box .... but it sounds as good as the
"analog" device that first created it 

I just thought it would be a nice way to trigger multiple sets of "chord sounds/textures"
for a band playing lots o "tunes" .... even your own extra vocal harmonies/guitar parts
could be loaded up !

MM.

I know it sounds as good. I don't have anything against the sound of digital processing, it's the ones and zeros. Call me a fool but I just don't like them. Actually there are places where I love a digital solution but guitar processing isn't one of them. I call it "cheating".

And my urge of DIY is stronger than my wallet, so I'd choose an analogue solution over a £200 digital one.

But the discussion doesn't end here. Refer me to analogue techniques for the band sound.

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Jimbo

[Unbeliever]

You'll need one sine (say) osc per 'drawbar' per part, so a simple three-drawbar setting would require 3 oscs per note. Even for a three-note chord, you're already at 9 oscillators. 5 sine oscs will get you .... not much. Oh - you might want at least one oscillator with a quickly decaying envelope to simulate percussion also.

Keep in mind that each chord will also need to retune all of the oscillators - certainly possible, but it seems like a lot of effort. BTW, 75% of the 'organ sound' is a leslie. Putting sine waves through a phaser will not even come close.

[petemoore]

  I wouldn't mind having a:
1  Reliable
2  Easy
3  Neat
  Way to connect a 'cheap' keyboard, [small type] with 'larger oscillator'...
  For foot action.
  Yer probly talkin' buxx, but these newer keyboards have connectors for footpedals.
  A rod throught the [chromatic octave would be 13] footpedals, to pushrods, to inverted keyboard...the pedals splayed to look like a 'reverse' of a manual typewriter]...I don't see why it couldn't work...even easier..
  If all you knew you needed was , say a couple or few BIG Cello notes...
  an even simpler system of pressing only three keys could fairly easily be [duct taped cardboard 'n wood pieces?] simply added to the top of the keys themselves...
  Point of warning is getting enough to overcome the action springs without breaking the keys...feet can get like way heavier than a plastic keyboard can hold.

[JimRayden]

You'll need one sine (say) osc per 'drawbar' per part, so a simple three-drawbar setting would require 3 oscs per note. Even for a three-note chord, you're already at 9 oscillators. 5 sine oscs will get you .... not much. Oh - you might want at least one oscillator with a quickly decaying envelope to simulate percussion also.

Keep in mind that each chord will also need to retune all of the oscillators - certainly possible, but it seems like a lot of effort. BTW, 75% of the 'organ sound' is a leslie. Putting sine waves through a phaser will not even come close.

Well, let's say 5 oscillators will get me a single key of an organ. That makes for a really thick note that might as well be enough for backing. I don't see the need for percussion simulation either.

I am aware that a phaser is not a leslie but it sure makes the sound move around a bit and not be a bunch of sines. I want an organ-like effect, not an exact organ simulator. I'm just wondering how a bunch of sines with a phaser would sound like...

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Jimbo

[JimRayden]

Bump for more ideas either for the organ-ish stompbox or how to make a three-piece band sound fuller.

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Jimbo

[dano12]

How about starting with Howard Cano's Sonosaur? Hook it up to a foot pedal and you have a second bassist

http://cgi.ebay.com/Sonosaur-Analog-Bass-Pedal-Synthesizer-with-Pots_W0QQitemZ7393499387QQcategoryZ38071QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

[Arn C.]

I have an "Archer" engineer's mini-notebook on "555 Timer IC Circuits"
In this lillte booklet is a project called "TOY ORGAN".

I guess you could make several of these circuits and then tune them for chords and ...............

My scanner doesn't work anymore so I don't know how I can put the schematic up for you.  I will try my hand at drawing it out in PAINT.

Peace!
Arn C.

[Peter Snow]

Hi Jim,

Congratulations on passing 1,000       "You're a better man than I am Gunga Din..." - Kipling

Bump for more ideas either for the organ-ish stompbox or how to make a three-piece band sound fuller.

This idea may be too expensive, but how about going stereo for the guitar.  You'd need a second amp/speaker which would be placed on the opposite side of the stage from the main amp. Then you split the guitar signal between the two amps with perhaps a different effect for each channel or a stereo chorus/phaser with each channel going to it's own amp. I have never tried it, but I think that would provide a huge sound.  Anyone else done this?

Take it one step futher and go quadraphonic...

HTH,

Peter

[JimRayden]

Oh yeah, the 555 chip slipped my mind. As I remember, it is capable of generating square waves. So it'll need some filtering too. Great idea though, I'll look more into it.

Thanks Peter. It does feel good to be one of the quadranumbered ones.
As for going stereo, I have thought about it, and it's sort of a backup plan. But before building a signal splitter and a few more effects, I thought of trying out something more... unusual, innovative. Actually I think I'll try out stereo anyway. I'm not too sure about quadraphonic setup... or perhaps I should go straight to Surround sound.

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Jimbo

[AdamB]

Ha, a classic idea. A foot organ, I really want one now too!

I had a think, and perhaps the basis of this could be several schmitt relaxation oscillators...

I'm not sure this is correct, but I think the orgran would look something similar to this:


The IC is a 74HC132 CMOS dual Nand gate chip. The second half of the chip is used as an output buffer to stop whatever comes after the unit from interfering with the oscillator.

You simply adjust the values of the resistors for each key to make different notes. You could just put in pots or trim pots here. Surface-mount control pots would be good, because you could tune in your own notes/chords, with 3 pots in parralel for each switch so that you tune in a three-note chord, which plays when the switch is down.

-Adam

[JimRayden]

I think that's a no-no since when three switches are engaged, it will just result in a lower resistance and thus one note. Your posted schematic is monophonic and works only one note at a time. That's the curse of most oscillators - they only put out one frequency (well, except square and tri wave but that's far from a chord).

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Jimbo

[Unbeliever]

Depending on how fussy you are with tuning, any circuit you use is going to need some form of temperature compensation also otherwise the tuning will vary on those in the snow / in the heat of the day gigs!

[Ponchus]

Jim, Congrats! I think around 824 of your posts were all direct responses to my questions 

[JimRayden]

Depending on how fussy you are with tuning, any circuit you use is going to need some form of temperature compensation also otherwise the tuning will vary on those in the snow / in the heat of the day gigs!

Exactly, it would need tuning just like a guitar and I can live with that.

Jim, Congrats! I think around 824 of your posts were all direct responses to my questions 

And 176 were my own dumb questions or silly ideas (like this one). 

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Jimbo

[Doug_H]

Get a POG or a HOG. That would thicken up a 3-piece.

Doug