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  #16  
Old 08-04-2018, 04:36 AM
Cuki79 Cuki79 is offline
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Exactly Dave, the rotary encoder is plan B.

Much more stable and no memory problem. The analog potentiometer is usable for live synth.

I have to go to the electronic shop and fetch some

Cuki
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  #17  
Old 08-04-2018, 09:21 AM
Cuki79 Cuki79 is offline
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Shop is closed... But I figured it out. You have to bring the pot to the "last position" before it actually affects the ton.

So let's say mic and guitar gain shared the same pot with switch to go from guitar to mic.

Example:
Let's say the mic gain is set to 1/4 turn and the guitar gain is set to 1/2 turn and you are actually adjusting the mic gain. When you push the switch button to set the guitar gain, turning the pot will have no action until you reach 1/2 turn. So you can't have "surprise" gain explosion.

mmm... I have to think about it...
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  #18  
Old 08-09-2018, 10:45 AM
Cuki79 Cuki79 is offline
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Hi everyone,

here are my latest experiment. I did not try the digital pot yet although I fetched one at the shop.



I have now 8 pots, but only 7 are affected. I use 2 layers, one for the guitar and one for the mic

Layer 1: Guitar channel
Pot 1) N/A
Pot 2) High pass filter frequency
Pot 3) Gain for parametric filter
Pot 4) Frequency for parametric filter
Pot 5) Q factor for parametric filter
Pot 6) Reverb insert for guitar
Pot 7) Blend pickup/IR
Pot 8) Mix between Guitar/Vocal

There is a switch and a LED to go from layer 1 to 2

Layer 2: Mic channel
Pot 1) N/A
Pot 2) High pass filter frequency
Pot 3) Gain for parametric filter
Pot 4) Frequency for parametric filter
Pot 5) Gain for Shelf filter at high frequencies (now around 4kHz)
Pot 6) Reverb insert for guitar
Pot 7) Blend pickup/IR
Pot 8) Mix between Guitar/Vocal



I can't add more feature but probably more tuning (like reverb length). I am wondering if I will not put a traditional 4 band EQ. There is one with transition frequencies at 100 Hz, 500 Hz, 2kHz and 6kHz (no band under 100Hz).

I can definitely also add a Master volume. I wonder if Mix+Master is better than Guitar & Vocals separate volumes.

Tell me if you have any suggestions.

Cuki
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  #19  
Old 08-10-2018, 10:07 AM
Uncle Pauhana Uncle Pauhana is offline
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This is just incredible! My only suggestion is that you be awarded a medal for ingenuity.

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  #20  
Old 08-10-2018, 01:04 PM
Cuki79 Cuki79 is offline
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Thanks but the medals are for the people who have actually programmed all the functions.

Here are the default factory objects (functions):
http://www.privatepublic.de/public/f...tlist.html#mux
If you type filter or fx in the left bar, you'll find all kind of suggestions

Here are the community objects, programmed by people all around the net:
http://www.privatepublic.de/public/c...ml#o-174425133

It's incredible what those people have created.

Remember the Axoloti board costs 65€ without VAT and it works right away!

A pot costs 1.1€.

My only concern now is the DSP power consumption
A guy did an object (function) to pilot a OLED display

Here is the OLED display working with axoloti


Another guy programmed two rotary encoders (digital pots + switch) to basically control any parameter.

The video does not explain anything but I guess one encodeur pilots the parameter selection and the second encoder sets the value of the selected parameter.

Questions are:
* Can I include that with minimum DSP power consumption in order to keep all the functions I want? Some people adds an Arduino just to add pots and screen to their axoloti synths.

Note that it was one of the main difference between Fishman originial AURA and AURA 16. Larry Fishman said he chose the Blackfin DSP because it did not required an extra chip for the pots...

* Let's say I can't make it... Will I drop the mixer and reverb function and only focus on the EQ and IR/blend part?

I mean most portable amps miss good EQ for pickup and mic channel but provide volumes and reverb.

My main objective was to compensate for the Laney AH4x4 drawbacks:
> No adjustable gain
> No EQ
> No IR
But it does have 2 channels and reverb.

If there is DSP power left, I could try to have a short looper. Then I could loop a sample guitar and vocal and EQ without playing. This would be also a cool feature because I could EQ listening from the audience point of view...

* Other possibility is to go with the minimum pots and use a smartphone for the EQ settings. The axoloti parameters are basically tuned by MIDI which is built in (Remember: it was meant for synth). Adding wireless midi could be really cool.

Everything have to be tested and compare with the idea of minimum DSP consumption (to avoid glitches) and real power consumption (to work on Li-ion battery)

At least I know it can do the minimum job... but we always want more do we?

Cuki
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  #21  
Old 08-10-2018, 01:05 PM
bquindawl bquindawl is offline
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This all is very cool. Awesome job!!
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  #22  
Old 08-10-2018, 04:06 PM
jonfields45 jonfields45 is offline
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Cuki79,

Do you think there is a market for a low end FIR pedal and a library of electric to electric, electric to acoustic, and acoustic to acoustic IRs? The Aura library is source limited to their PUP and other stuff I've seen does not really go after the acoustic to acoustic quack busting closer to a mic sound with the kind of rich selection that would be needed.

Jon
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.wav file, 30 seconds, pickup left, mic right, open position strumming best...send to direct email below
I'll send you 100/0, 75/25, 50/50 & 0/100 IR/Bypass IRs
IR Demo, read the description too: https://youtu.be/SELEE4yugjE
My duo's website and my email... [email protected]

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  #23  
Old 08-11-2018, 12:20 AM
Cuki79 Cuki79 is offline
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Hi John,

That's a tough question.

First what is on the market and how hard is it to make.

1) Electric to electric is a totally new field. Only the SIM1 XT-1 exists.
http://www.sim-one.it/
The only feature they added is basically an envelop shaper to increase or decrase the sustain. (morph from Telecaster to Les Paul sustain for example)
That would be clearly feasible for an axoloti for example because sustain control is avery basic thing for a synth.

The recipe to make the IR does not seem to be a big deal. There is a patent.

2) Electric to acoustic is clearly more of a challenge.
If the electric as a piezo pickup, you fall in Line 6 variax/Fender acoustasonic (Fishman) territory.

Making IR will definitely be more of a challenge. If you seek for the truth... Because you have to remove the nature of the electric guitar and reach to the acoustic.

Litterature says it is not impossible. Definitely more hard work... probably needs a robot to play both instruments at the same time to get best results.
Note that I am pretty sure you could get nice result without the robot. after all Fishman IR files are made from different guitars, recordings and sometimes remote places.

3) Acoustic to Electric might be easier as no piezo pickup is required for the electric. But I guess adding a magnetic pickup is the first thing to do.

4) Acoustic to Acoustic. Plenty of actors on the market now. A Xvive Mike costs 69€ ... Note that Fishman did not sue them. Probably because there are the market leader and are the only ones with a digital library of guitars.

To come back to the original question:
My response is no.

Why?

Because I have been making IR for 2 years. I seldom say no to anyone asking for a personal IR and less than 10 people asked. So less than 10 people were interested for a free IR.

The price is not the problem. Having a proper brand-advertisement-magazine test-NAMM buzz is more important even if it costs more.

Tonedexter is only $399. Xvive is super cheap. Radar Mooer is in the $140 range. Second hand Fishman costs around the same.

I think there is no room to make money.

Also remember that a guy who puts less than $100 dollar in a pedal, usually use a poor acoustic amp and a poor guitar. If you play a $100 chinese made electric-acoustic and plugg it in a second hand cheapo electric amp... IR won't help you. There is a long road that usually lead people to buy a Fishman Aura. If you read the threads there, many people tried many different pickups, preamp, amps before the Tonedexter.

So my answer for the market is no.

I clearly believe in an open community as they did for axoloti. The axoloti schematic, drawing files, bill of materials are free to download. If a US based guy would have them made, they would probably sell $50 and the aluminimum boxes are even cheaper in the US.

If the community had like few guys with zoom H4 going into some US guitar shops to record the guitars (you have nice rooms in the US to try the guitars). We could make a digital library of most low end guitars within a year.

That would be super cool.

By the way John, the nasty "resonances" you experienced with your Tonedexter is typical for IR processing. From my point of view, getting rid of artificial digital resonances (peaks or sharp notches) in the IR spectrum is the holly graal of guitar IR making. Although my process is refined every time I get new ideas, Nothing beats the human ear. Once in a while I would go to my local shop where the dealer is a former pro studio guitar player. He would try the IR, play all along the neck and tell me: there you need to notch 3.6 KHz. He would play one note on the fingerboard: and let me here the ring. He'd say: "it does not ring right, cut the amp... see how it rings". Then I would add a parametric or modify the IR live, and we would tell me if it is better. After 15 minutes, I'd be blown away. I don't have his ear or experience. He played, sold and record so many guitars. A guy like him with proper engineering support could run a boutique IR pedal shop.

Cuki
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Martin OM-28V + HFN + internal mic (1999)
Eastman E6OM (2019) Trance Audio Amulet
Yamaha FGX-412 (1998)

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Fender Stratocaster American Vintage 1954 (2014)
http://acousticir.free.fr/

Last edited by Cuki79; 08-11-2018 at 01:23 AM.
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  #24  
Old 08-11-2018, 07:01 AM
jonfields45 jonfields45 is offline
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Hi Cuki,

Many thanks for the thoughtful response!!!

BTW, the Sim1 product does have electric to acoustic IRs when I last checked their web page.

The Xvive MIKE must be pretty new. Only one of the smaller US web stores carries it (AMS/zZounds, $129) and it's not mentioned on the Xvive website. If it developed a following here on the AGF maybe your first 10 IRs for it might get the ball rolling. I believe Fishman licensed the "Aura" technology from a Japanese company. It is probably old enough at this point that the fundamental patents have run out.

Unrelated, I designed a static cling pick guard for 12 fret gloss top RainSong guitars (the Taylor one is a good fit to the 14 fret variety). Admittedly a tiny market. I posted about it on the CF section of the AGF (manufactured in batches of 10 they cost me about $6) and only got one response (I was curious if anyone thought there was interest in it at all). I sent him one for free and never heard back...

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Vu...mAC0321rpStd35

Starting a small hobby business is not easy, but I think the IR thing has legs (at least for acoustic to acoustic quack killing). If you wanted to support that Xvive pedal with a library of $5 downloads I think you've got a way to enjoy a hobby and pay for fancier bench equipment! There are a lot of Baggs Element guitars out there (Baggs, DTAR, Mi-Si...), as a possible starting point.

Jon
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jf45ir Free DIY Acoustic Guitar IR Generator
.wav file, 30 seconds, pickup left, mic right, open position strumming best...send to direct email below
I'll send you 100/0, 75/25, 50/50 & 0/100 IR/Bypass IRs
IR Demo, read the description too: https://youtu.be/SELEE4yugjE
My duo's website and my email... [email protected]

Jon Fields
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  #25  
Old 08-11-2018, 01:51 PM
Cuki79 Cuki79 is offline
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Hi Jon,

Xvive Mike does not enable to load IR, I think. You need a CAB pedal for that, liek Mooer radar.

Here is a quote from Larry Fishman on KVR audio

QUESTION:

Quote:
Did Andras do the Aura?
L Fishman's answer :
Quote:
That's how we met. A few years later we (Fishman Transducers) had developed the concept for Aura and gotten a patent on it, and all the sudden I get a call from Andras and he says, "Larry, this is Andras. I'm working on something here at Akai and I just saw your patent."

I got together with the president of Akai and we decided that—because I'd already got the patents, but I was struggling with the hardware and having trouble with the computer and battery life and this and that, we should do a collaborative thing under the Fishman name. When Akai was acquired Andras joined us full time to work on our digital products.
They used Akai DSP technology to make it work in a pedal but the idea was from Fishman. In my case, I would be Fishman and the guys from the axoloti community would be Akai. I use their platform for my IR convolution.

Note that I could do a $5 IR website but why would anyone on the AGF take time to make the recording so I can win $5???
It means I would have to go outside record the maximum guitar I can... I would not make much money and my wife would kill me (lol).
Acutally, I'd get much more money giving up all my home projects and work late at the office.

Cuki
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Martin 00-18V Goldplus + internal mic (2003)
Martin OM-28V + HFN + internal mic (1999)
Eastman E6OM (2019) Trance Audio Amulet
Yamaha FGX-412 (1998)

Gibson Les Paul Standard 1958 Reissue (2013)
Fender Stratocaster American Vintage 1954 (2014)
http://acousticir.free.fr/

Last edited by Cuki79; 08-12-2018 at 07:49 AM.
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  #26  
Old 08-18-2018, 03:46 PM
Cuki79 Cuki79 is offline
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Hi everyone,

Finally back home, I could work on the axoloti. I am still waiting for the boxes & displays... to be delivered.

but I could program the digital encoder (pot), so I reduced to 3 pots.



So now the whole thing is simpler
1) One pot for IR Blend
2) One pot for Vocal/Guitar Mix
3) One parameter pot. It is a digital rotary encoder and a switch.
4) A mute switch

Pushing it changes the parameter you want to set.
Turninf it changes the value of the given parameter.

The paramters list is the following
0) Master volumer
1) High pass filter frequency (guitar IR)
2) Parametric EQ frequency (guitar IR)
3) Parametric EQ gain (guitar IR)
4) Parametric EQ Q (guitar IR)
5) Reverb send (guitar)
6) High pass filter frequency (Mic)
7) Parametric EQ frequency (Mic)
8) Parametric EQ gain (Mic)
9) Parametric EQ Q (Mic)
10) High Shelf filter gain(Mic)
11) Reverb send (Mic)

Good thing with a digital pot is that it does not get crazy when you switch parameters. With the analog pots I had to turn one full cycle to "find" the last position before it actually "turned".

So on the video, when I will turn the parameter pot, the virtual corresponding pot will turn on the computer screen.

Here are the different "stage/object/FX" that will be affected:




Note that I put all the guitar EQs on the IR. I could have put it after the blend... but it is the way I like it. Not very practicle for the average user I agree but this would be an easy fix.

Now all it needs is a screen and a box!!

PS: sorry for the poor musical performance. First try on "Castle on the hill".

Cheers,
Cuki
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Martin OM-28V + HFN + internal mic (1999)
Eastman E6OM (2019) Trance Audio Amulet
Yamaha FGX-412 (1998)

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Fender Stratocaster American Vintage 1954 (2014)
http://acousticir.free.fr/

Last edited by Cuki79; 08-18-2018 at 05:01 PM.
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  #27  
Old 08-18-2018, 05:18 PM
martingitdave martingitdave is offline
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Cuki that’s amazing progress. Kudos!
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  #28  
Old 08-26-2018, 02:39 PM
Cuki79 Cuki79 is offline
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Default OLED Display & MS decoding

The OLED display was more complex to add than the other features. I did had to do some "real" programming because the community did not produce the functions I needed... For example, displaying frequency in Hz instead of a 2 digits numbers (like old BOSS pedals) took me few extra hours.

So now, we have 3 pots:
* Blend
* Mix Mic/Pickup
* Digital pot + switch that browses all other parameters

they are:
* Guitar Highpass filter - frequency
* Guitar Parametric EQ - frequency
* Guitar Parametric EQ - gain
* Guitar Parametric EQ - Q
* Guitar Reverb - Send
* Mic Highpass filter - frequency
* Mic Semi-Parameteric EQ - frequency
* Mic Semi-parameteric EQ - gain
* Mic Reverb - send
* Master volume
All other parameters have to be preset with a computer.

I did a quick demo. Here is the demo setup


1) Cheap smartphone playing Doug Young's dual source (Amulet + internal DPA) (Thanks Doug for kindly letting me use his recordings)
2) Stereo cable to Axoloti
3) Axoloti output to Focusrite.
Note that the OLED display is held "in the air" for the camera.

Sorry the gain was set too low on the mic channel

Note that the IR used in this demo is my HD-28 IR, however the guitar is Doug Young's... Both have the same pickup... that's why it sounds ok.


I also made another program for the Axoloti to work as a dual source blender and MS-decoder to produce a pseudo stereo image. I got rid of the reverb that eats tons of DSP computing power... and replaced it with this feature.

Left output gets: (Pickup + IR) + Mic
Right output gets: (Pickup + IR) - Mic

The (-) sign in front of Mic means that on the right channel the Mic can be put "out of phase". The result is not that obvious because I need to clean the low end better. I sent the signal in a stereoscope plugin and the stereo image is much wider (there is no stereo image in mono). However it could probably be improved... I am not 100% sure about the code.


On the video it is a correct IR made for Doug's guitar.


Next posts will be the enclosure and battery operation.
__________________
Martin 00-18V Goldplus + internal mic (2003)
Martin OM-28V + HFN + internal mic (1999)
Eastman E6OM (2019) Trance Audio Amulet
Yamaha FGX-412 (1998)

Gibson Les Paul Standard 1958 Reissue (2013)
Fender Stratocaster American Vintage 1954 (2014)
http://acousticir.free.fr/
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  #29  
Old 12-06-2018, 04:18 PM
Cuki79 Cuki79 is offline
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Hi Everyone,

I finally had some time to finish my project

Here is the pedal aluminium enclosure


Here is the Axoloti (DSP) wiring (digital pot and 2 analog pots and OLED screen):


Here is the Mic preamp with gain pot and 12v phantom power (with Voltage converter to get +/- power supply rail for the preamp). The ON/OFF switch at the top and jack input are also added here. The XLR socket has now some wires.



Here is the final pedal (well almost) with the Li-ion battery box (e-cigarette style batteries) and the axoloti board.



Here is the final pedal:


So the direct accessible parameters are:
* Mix vocal/guitar
* IR Blend (tonedexter like with home made custom IR for my HD-28)
* Analog mic gain

The Digital "select" pot gives access to:
* Master volume
Guitar:
* High pass filter frequency
* Parametric filter 1 (frequency, gain, Q)
* Parametric filter 2 (frequency, gain, Q)
* Reverb (amount)
Microphone:
* High pass filter frequency
* Parametric filter 1 (frequency, gain)
* Parametric filter 2 (frequency, gain)
* Reverb (amount)
Reverb:
* Reverb length (i.e. room size)
* Reverb Low pass filter

Only bugs are:
* When I plug all the way the headphones, I have a ground loop with the enclosure... need to enlarge the enclosure hole there...
* Definitely need to program a way to scroll the parameters in both directions. Now pushing the switch scrolls to the next parameter. If you want to come back, you have to press 16 times to go through all parameters in order to return to the last one. I will program a "long push" to scroll backward.

This pedal solves all the drawback I find in most amplification devices I find. (Low gain inputs, no reverb, no IR, no low-pass filter, no Parametric EQs)
__________________
Martin 00-18V Goldplus + internal mic (2003)
Martin OM-28V + HFN + internal mic (1999)
Eastman E6OM (2019) Trance Audio Amulet
Yamaha FGX-412 (1998)

Gibson Les Paul Standard 1958 Reissue (2013)
Fender Stratocaster American Vintage 1954 (2014)
http://acousticir.free.fr/
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  #30  
Old 12-07-2018, 01:58 PM
Uncle Pauhana Uncle Pauhana is offline
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Congratulations Cuki. You've built a very advanced signal processing station that has everything you want with nothing that you don't want, and I bet it sounds great! Nobody would ever guess how much versatility is hidden behind that simple façade, and the fact that it looks like something salvaged from Chernobyl makes it that much cooler.


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