Electro Wagnerian Emancipator

[zeppelinchld]

its supposedly a pedal that Frank Zappa had made for him...is this a real pedal if so does anyone have any info on it

[zeppelinchld]

i found some interesting info from an interview w/ frank. Does anyone have an idea of how to create something like this.
here' a bit from a Zappa interview

"the EWE, which stands for Electro Wagnerian Emancipator. There's only one of them; it was designed for me by Bob Easton at 360 Systems. If you played a single note, all 12 notes of the chromatic scale would be ringing, and you could make a decision as to which of those 12 to leave on and which to leave off - and thereby select a chord that would follow parallel to whatever you played on the guitar. It worked; the only problem was the timbre of the synthesizer sound that came out was, I would say, fairly unattractive - a real square wave sound. That is now gathering dust in the warehouse. I tried to use it on "Big Swifty" from Waka/Jawaka - Hot Rats, but it didn't end up on the final track. "

[stm]

Sounds like the description of a Pitch Shifter to me, which is not to be confused with an Harmonizer.  The Pitch Shifter blindly generates notes in the preselected intervals (major 3rds, 5ths, etc), where the latter uses some extra information provided by the user--the "key" (A, B, C#, etc) and the "scale" (major, minor, etc)--in order to produce intervals that fall inside the predefined key and scale.

[snufkin]

sounds like a some kind of tracking tone generator based of a divider like in organs?

try searching for that and e&mm harmonizer its not the same but close

[alex frias]

It reminds me of the Tim Escobedo's idea about drones generators controled by guitar envelope. It was an idea, if I remember correctly, to be a Jawary/Psychtar partner and emulate the sympathetic resonant strings from a real sitar.

[Mark Hammer]

Given the era in which it was designed, and the comment about the square waves, it bears the strong aroma of a Mostek 50240 Top Octave generator chip driven by some type of master clock. http://www.synthdiy.com/show/?id=172

[Ronsonic]

I shudder to think that there's a pedal  so beastly that Frank Effing Zappa couldn't work it into the mix.

[Mark Hammer]

I would think that once he got his Synclavier, there was a whole lot of stuff that just didn't live up to his expectations anymore.

[axg20202]

I shudder to think that there's a pedal  so beastly that Frank Effing Zappa couldn't work it into the mix.

Doesn't sound like that's the issue. Synclavier or not, it sounds like it was more a question of it being not very good. Maybe the huskies got to it.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

I suspect Snufkin & Mark Hammer have guessed this one.
A phase locked loop (eg 4046) arranged so the guitar note (after squaring up - never a simple matter) is multiplied up & used as the clock for an organ style note generator

Another way you could do it, now the top divider organ chips are scarce, is to take the guitar note, lock onto it with a 4046, then use the voltage from the VCO in the 4046 to drive twelve other VCOs, after adjusting the voltage by a factor to give the harmonic relationships.
The advantage here, is that like a Vox organ that has a separate oscillator for A, B etc you get a much richer chord.

But, if I really wanted one for myself, I'd be following stm's pitch shifter idea.
A dozen separate pitch shifter chips would do nicely, is there anything from the PT series that would do?

[gez]

Another way you could do it, now the top divider organ chips are scarce, is to take the guitar note, lock onto it with a 4046, then use the voltage from the VCO in the 4046 to drive twelve other VCOs, after adjusting the voltage by a factor to give the harmonic relationships.

The only problem with that, Paul, is that the VCO in the 4046 is only linear for a small part of its range so it would detune across the frequency range in question.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Fair enough Gez, but I would have thought it was linear over at least a couple of octaves.
In fact it looks pretty linear on the data sheet, and I don't remember it being odd at all when I was dicking around with them for theremin applications.

[gez]

It's linear enough for most applications, Paul, but when it comes to anything involving accurate tuning I'm pretty sure there are going to be tears. 

I've got some info in a book somewhere - probably Owen Bishop.  I'll see if I can dig it out.  IIR, the linearity is a problem towards the lower end of the oscillators range...but don't quote me on that!

I'll report back if I find the info.

[gez]

Although I did extensive empirical testing of the 4046 many moons ago - which is possibly when I came to the conclusion about linearity - I'm sure I've got it in black-and-white somewhere.  Buggered if I can find it though! 

There was a brief mention in one of Owen Bishop's books about using another chip if greater precision was required.  However, that was when used as a voltage to frequency converter.  Not quite the same, although it does suggest an issue with linearity in precision circuits.

If I'm brave I'll skim through my back issues of EPE magazine (might have got the info from there)! 

[Mark Hammer]

I shudder to think that there's a pedal  so beastly that Frank Effing Zappa couldn't work it into the mix.

Doesn't sound like that's the issue. Synclavier or not, it sounds like it was more a question of it being not very good. Maybe the huskies got to it.

Well that was essentially my point.  Something can thrill you, warts and all, when it achieves something you've never been able to do before.  Once you find a more reliable means to achieve something similar, those warts start to look REALLY big, and the previous device simply and instantly seems undesirable and 3rd rate.

The marriage of a 4046 and a 50240 was one that cropped up many times during the 70's....because that's what we had.  As anyone here who has attempted to track a guitar with a 4046 can tell you, though, it may be cheap and serviceable but is not your preferred starting point.

[axg20202]

I shudder to think that there's a pedal  so beastly that Frank Effing Zappa couldn't work it into the mix.

Doesn't sound like that's the issue. Synclavier or not, it sounds like it was more a question of it being not very good. Maybe the huskies got to it.

Well that was essentially my point.  Something can thrill you, warts and all, when it achieves something you've never been able to do before.  Once you find a more reliable means to achieve something similar, those warts start to look REALLY big, and the previous device simply and instantly seems undesirable and 3rd rate.

Not wishing to nitpick, but that wasn't the point I was making. It sounds like he didn't use this pedal in the end simply because it was unmusical/didn't achieve results he liked (read: crap), rather than it necessarily being a case of finding something else to do the same job better. Who knows for sure, but that's what I was suggesting, if anything to speak to the (perhaps limited) value in making one for anything other than the kicks/learnings from designing and building it.

[9 volts]

I have a tms3612 (AY1-5050 = SAJ180 = TMS3612) 7-stage Divider can anyone point me in a direction to use this somehow eg harmonizer? Thanks

[Eb7+9]

Who knows for sure, but that's what I was suggesting, if anything to speak to the (perhaps limited) value in making one for anything other than the kicks/learnings from designing and building it.

Frank is telling us two useful things here :

(a) a PLL "system" was built in which all twelve twelfth-root of two factors were approximated by division/multiplication ... Mark's copy of the Harmony Generator shows how to do this for a third (approx'd by 81/64) or fifth (96/64=1.5) ... Franks says all twelve pitches were available, I'm assuming this means there was 12 PLL's since otherwise you'd have to divide down to all twelve intervals from one very high frequency to avoid producing gross errors in ratios - using cumbersome dividers in the process ...

(b) he didn't like the tone of square wave output ...

I've been wondering about this myself lately having looked into designing a 3-PLL system that will provide unison, third and fifth intervals and their octaves to mimic a Hammond Drawbar system for guitar ... sine'ish output would make that happen ...

one obvious approach is to filter the square wave output by using VCF's that run off the PLL control voltage of each loop (assuming VCO v-to-f is linear enough or compatible in curvature), with level shifting for each sub-octave filter ... it's a little involved and requires tuning but should work well using simple current-controlled biquads for filters ... that's 3PLL's and nine tracking filters for a mono-phonic Hammond Drawbar system emulator

... then comes the hexaphonic version - a six string Hammond with true pitch bend and vibrato

that's 18 PLL's and 54 tracking filters - each string with it's own set of drawbar controls

[Eb7+9]

this must be it ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJI_76Z_50

[petemoore]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1MHEJT6sjk&feature=related
  Not that I sorted through Frank Vids or ever heard it before, a great demonstration of Franks ability to set others up [in a way which augments and accentuates their amazing natural abilities] in the spot !