My new sitar emulator design?

[darron]

I made myself a simple passive sound degrader. I intend to use it for small solo bridges and intros and stuff at low volume and then kick into a full ranged distortion for the nice contrast. Messing around though, it can sound a bit like a sitar! (:

It's not exactly like a sitar, but in my opinion the Psychtar and Jawari are nowhere near close. This sounds a little bit closer.

Here's a quick sample:
members.optushome.com.au/bluespherecreations/forum/Sitar.m4a

Excuse the playing, I was just mucking around a bit. It's obviously not a song or anything.

I'd really like to see a better sitar emulator out there though.

[mattpocket]

Sounds good, do you think you can get it to just do the sitar thing...

Matt

[GREEN FUZ]

I like it. Care to share any details?

[darron]

had to make a schematic for it... simple huh? you don't need a circuit board for this one (:



like i said, it wasn't supposed to sound like a sitar. i guess one good key for sitar sound though is the extreme asymmetric clipping. this creates that really funny decayed tone also. i have a feeling this circuit wouldn't work very well with single coil pickups, in which case you should use two 1n5819's in opposite directions going to ground, but then it won't sound sitar like at all. still would make a cool effect with the volume down for intros and bridges etc.

not that it's a project for me, but i suppose to get that sitar sound you'd probably need a lot of EQing and some pitch shifting. sitars aren't actually meant to sound crappy though, they are supposed to be precision made.

[JasonG]

I cant seem to get the sample to work. I have a mac do you think that may be the reason?

[pyrop]

I cant seem to get the sample to work. I have a mac do you think that may be the reason?

It should work in Quicktime.

paulw

[sfx1999]

For some reason, the file works in Quicktime and not WinAMP. I am upset with Quicktime at the moment; I can't upgrade it or uninstall it. Not that I use it that often anyway.

That is pretty sweet, though. Be careful with that circuit, though; you could probably blow another circuit driving it.

[8mileshigh]

Hey Darron,

That sounds bloody amazing  !   I'd like to try it but I've never heard of that diode, will any others do ?

Chris

[caress]

ctrl+click then download the file.  simply delete the .txt and it will play fine in itunes, quicktime whatever...

[Dragonfly]

an alternative for you.

[Processaurus]

That sounds great, actually.

[darron]

Hey Darron,

That sounds bloody amazing  !   I'd like to try it but I've never heard of that diode, will any others do ?

Chris

the diode is a schottky. it's pretty much essential for this circuit to work as a normal diode will not clip an unamplified signal. alternatively you could try a germanium diode maybe? or a 1n5817. these are the same kind of diodes used in the black ice passive overdrive unit.

and yeah... for some stupid reason if you are on a mac and try to download the file the server sends it as text. copy it to your desktop and remove the .txt part from the file and quicktime will play it.

the lofomofo does the same thing, except this circuit is only three components hehe. no control for the clipping, and there's more bass drop than the lofomofo. also the lofomofo is designed to actively add additional noise to your signal.

fun and simple point to point soldering in an enclosure (:

[mattpocket]

My lofomofo doesnt sound like a sitar either...

Why do we need to be careful when driving this circuit?

[darron]

My lofomofo doesnt sound like a sitar either...

Why do we need to be careful when driving this circuit?

what do you mean in being careful?

[mattpocket]

That is pretty sweet, though. Be careful with that circuit, though; you could probably blow another circuit driving it.

I was referring to this... any ideas why we need to be careful, and what does "being careful" mean?

Matt

[549]

this circuit don't use +V?

[mattpocket]

Nope, completely passive! 

[darron]

That is pretty sweet, though. Be careful with that circuit, though; you could probably blow another circuit driving it.

I was referring to this... any ideas why we need to be careful, and what does "being careful" mean?

Matt

ohh.. yeah. i'm not sure about that. what is meant by that? nothing's blown up so far... :S

[Mark Hammer]

I'm going to guess and suggest that "careful" means "planful".  The Tim Escobedo Jawari also does a nice electric sitar impression, but you also need to be careful/planful in how you use it.  Fundamentally, the diode/s make it a clipper, and the rule of thumb about clippers is that the quality of the clipping depends on the properties of the input signal.  A hot, bass-heavy, input signal will get you something more like a fuzz than like a sitar in the case of the Jawari, so I imagine other attempts to get a subtle shifting harmonic component is also going to need a just-barely-hot-enough input with limited bass.  Think single-coil bridge pickup and you're probably pretty close.

[Austin73]

Hey Darron, cheers for the circuit, going to through it together later, I think if you check Yun's fuzz circuits he adds something similar to them at the beginning so maybe check it out to see if it gives you any more ideas.

Will post my results later

Cheers

Aus