"Lo Fi" type DIY pedals

[Earthscum]

To me, "Lo-Fi" means a few things:

1. extra noise and distortion (not "musical" distortion, more like crossover distortion, speaker being overdriven)
2. volume loss
3. limited bandwidth, like in the telephone range (300Hz-3kHz)

IMHO, you could make a decent "lo-fi" passive box with a well thought out filter. You would get a slight volume drop, and be able to limit the bandwidth. With an active filter, you could add in white noise generation.

I played a bit with an envelope controlled white noise and was quite pleased with the sound, with filtering it would've been pretty sweet effect... Rick (frequecycentral) I believe had done some playing around with the white noise generation in a thread around here somewhere. My "lowaht" circuit is pretty lo-fi, has a nice "oceany" hiss to it since it was designed with low power consumption in mind. Replace the LDR with a 1M pot (manual adjust) and make the input cap small to cut bass, and I bet it would suffice for many uses.

[timd]

Thanks - both those pedals are great sounding and are in the ballpark for what I'm looking for. I just ordered some PT2399's today and I'll start with a breadboard when they come in. I do have a thrift store toy with the echo chip in it laying around. Maybe I'll try to circuit bend it into a pedal while I'm waiting for the chips to come in!

[G.Neyrey]

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=96077.0

Yep. That MadBean "Cave Dweller" should do it for ya. Noisy and ragged repeats on the long delays. Just the way we like it!

[brett]

Hi
Black Keys? Basically, they are medium-fi, with features such as compression and limiting, and speaker-like distortion and roll-off. Because speaker roll-off is usually steep (specially at the top end), you'd need a steep RC filter to replicate it (3rd order? diving at around 5kHz?). But there's probably a better way to simulate a cheap speaker: a small transformer.They trim the bass and heavily compress the output when they saturate (saturation is very frequency dependent (bass) - same as for small speakers). Many of the great small AB amps (like Brian May's Deacy) have small, cheap driver and output transformers. Coincidence? Probably not. And while they are AB class, they have little bias current, so they are almost B class, and tend to have cross-over distortion. Another clue.

If you overloaded something like this: 42TM013-RC  (from Mouser, rated for 300 Hz to 3.4 kHz) you might get some good results (?? make the 8 ohm load mostly inductve??). It is a cheap tiny output transformer (200 mW in the shade). High input impedance, low output impedance, tiny core.

The Strokes have said that they just max out everything on their mixing desk, but I think they're pulling our legs.

cheers

[artifus]

have you listened to some 'early' recordings? as in, the history of sound recording. duke ellington, for example. they used the most up to date technology available at the time. it has a certain 'quality'. read zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance for a an essay on the philosophy of 'quality'. medium fi? wtf? are you a music journalist? or do you work in the marketing department of a record company? an endangered species, i believe.

eq, compression and limiting were necessary due to the nature of the technology of the recording equipment and their inherent limitations at the time as well as the recording and playback mediums, as anticipated by the engineers involved. those guys had ears as well as knowledge and experience.

technology moves on. otherwise we'd be having this discussion via tin cans and string, telegraph or carrier pigeon. each has their aesthetic pro's and cons.

there's more to recording than gear. a lot more. we simply have more choices now.

performance is king.

[garcho]

I think something about 'lo-fi' that appeals to many people is subtle randomness, which superficially behaves a little like a human playing a 'real' instrument. Not random wave shape alterations, but changes to timbre over a longer time scale than a wave cycle. Or a random 'event list', or small glitches that don't create an obvious pattern, etc.
White noise going through VCA with a LFO could make for some cool tape noise sounds.
A PT2399 can make some incredible sounds when the repeat time is really short but mixed way up.
Wire up something made with RFI in mind and make a knob or CV in or something to control the mix, or some other element of the RF. 5 radio stations at once can sound cool with the right processing.
Pour beer all over your Tube Screamer. 

[rousejeremy]

Has anyone mentioned Mid Fi Electronics stuff yet?

[garcho]

Mid Fi rules!

[timd]

+1 MidFi

[gtr2]

This can do a wow and flutter on demand.  In the video I'm using it more like a detune by holding the momentary and then releasing it.  But the project isn't released yet.

Josh

[timd]

very cool.

[timd]

Alright - finished the lo-fi echo builds, and the video. The echo chips were a knockout brand - not the pt2399.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDYeIl_biE&feature=colike

[timd]

*Update - the chips in the video were the CD2399.