KVR Audio

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 8:17 pm

guitarzan wrote:That's why I brought up another new development in the same post where the whole pitch2CV argument got started, the Electro Harmonix HOG. Now, I'm not pushing these things - I've never even seen one - and I know that they are probably NOT really tracking, probably no oscillators - BUT, they are apparently identifying pitch well enough on all six strings at once to pitch shift/double every one of them without using a hex pickup - and no glitches (they claim). It seems to me that if that is possible, then you could get polyphonic guitar synth without a hex pickup?

It's appears to be a digital pitch shifter. All the intervals offered are in the natural harmonic series (kinda like organ drawbars) so no matter what chords you play into it, you won't make TOO bad a noise coming out.

Has a clipper in the front, to make your input waves more squarish (and therefore organ like). Followed by a single envelope following filter. Yes, its certainly not converting chords to 6 CVs and running oscillators. It's a digital device.

Could make you one of these as a VSTfx if you want. What would you consider it to be worth?

Hell, SE has a pitch shifter module doesn't it? Someone make a free one!

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 8:29 pm

Ah hang on... reading the manual more. The clip is just an input gain indicator, not a tone shaper.

having trouble explaining how their freeze-gliss feature might work too... still reading the manual...

guitarzan · Post by **guitarzan** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 8:30 pm

Yes, but it's polyphonic, it's identifying the pitch from all six strings and applying pitch shift to each seperately - that's new, and very different from the old E-H MicroSynth which was monophonic (and worked exactly as you describe). What I'm suggesting is that since it is identifying the pitch of all six strings simultaneously, without a hex pickup, couldn't something with that ability convert them all into a virtual CV - somewhat like FS is doing, instead of doing pitch shift/distortion?

EDIT: I don't mean this unit - I mean a VST with something akin to the HOGs pitch tracking ability.

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 8:41 pm

guitarzan wrote:Yes, but it's polyphonic, it's identifying the pitch from all six strings and applying pitch shift to each seperately

No, the guitar is polyphonic. It's pitch shifting the chord coming out of the guitar. There is no pitch detection required (except maybe in Freeze-Gliss mode, which has a very strange and complex operation... hard to say exactly without hearing it).

But yeah, ever played with a digital pitch shifter? Ever set one to an octave up and add a little feedback? Suddenly everything sounds like pipe organ. Whether it's on one note or a chord. The pitch shifter doesn't need to know what you played. It can pitch shift any input.

(This is as opposed to octaver effects which clip the input to a square like wave, then use a frequency divider or doubler circuit to create another square shaped wave that tracks the input. Octaver pedals are arguably synthesizers! Though there's no CV.)

(No reference handy for the EH MicroSynth but I'll bet it was an old analog style octaver, with and envelope following filter behind it. Before they had digital pitch shifters. That's why it would be monophonic, just like an octaver is.)

guitarzan · Post by **guitarzan** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 8:52 pm

There are sound samples from Gerry Leonard and Dan Miller listed at the bottom of that page: http://www.ehx.com/ehx2/Default.asp?q=f ... s%2F07_HOG

I'm on dial-up, plus I'm not that sure what your looking for - the pitch shifters I've tried had to be played monophonically or you ended up with a big mess.

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 8:59 pm

Noooooooooo... octavers you've tried only let you play monophonically. Have you ever used a digital pitch shifter? You can play a whole song into it and it'll come out pitch shifted. (What host do you use guitarzan? Maybe I can describe a setup to show you what I mean.)

Yes, digital pitch shifters have artifacts but not as bad as what you're describing. (And some of todays are quite amazing)

But pitch shifting in nice round intervals like octaves and fifths is even easier.

Found the Micro Synth page http://www.ehx.com/ehx2/Default.asp?q=f ... ynthesizer

Manual: http://www.ehx.com/instructions/MICROSY ... CTIONS.pdf

It's definitely an octaver. That's why it makes an octave up and down (and they don't say but the octave up and down tones will be square waves) and also why it produces a square wave at the input frequency. Because it needs to make that square wave to drive the frequency divider/multiplier to make the other two square waves (achieved all in analog with simple flip-flop circuits... this technique is how old electronic organs work too... they only make the top 12 tones with individual oscillators. and get all the others tones by dividing those down in successive octaves.)

Edit: Oh and none of the example MP3s use the freeze-gliss mode. Which the manual says is tricky to master. Manual doesn't specify but I'll bet it actually does track incoming pitch in that mode (and therefore you need to play monophonic input) and uses that as a guide to pitch shift the frozen note or chord. Again, hard to say... really need to hear it. If one chord glisses into an entirely different chord, which I doubt, then that would indicate it's something else.

guitarzan · Post by **guitarzan** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 9:10 pm

OK, yeah, I listened to some of the soundclips - that's not it, not even as much a synth as the MicroSynth (I love those things, by the way - cool in their own right). I'm back to wanting a 13-pin Roland in, 6 audio channel out interface I guess

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 9:13 pm

Awesome. We didn't even have to fight that one out.

And you're right, due to the square wave generation, even a simple octaver is technically a synthesizer! (Except for Octavia style "octavers", which are full wave rectifiers.) So I'd say the MicroSynth IS a synth. (Though there's still no CV being produced in there.)

Pitch shifters and envelope following filters are effects though, even though the EH product is labelled as a "synthesizer".

You should try SCAMP, or if you don't want to buy it, my free Naive LPF. By the way, not liking me is all the more reason to download Naive LPF. It's by far the larger download and I don't make any money off it but I have to pay for the Web bandwidth. So every free copy of Naive actually costs me!

Anyway, both are great, very analog sounding, envelope following filters. Guitarists were my main target, though the dance kids like those sounds a lot too. They use em on entire chunks of the mix.

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 12:03 am

http://www.admiralquality.com/products/ ... arts03.mp3

Poly-Ana Beta 0.40 will have MIDI Mono Mode guitar support, update coming any day now.

spuddle · Post by **spuddle** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 12:23 am

That's good of you sir

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Fri Jan 12, 2007 10:39 pm

http://www.admiralquality.com/products/Poly-Ana/

OK, Poly-Ana Beta 0.40 is out and supports MIDI Guitar controllers in Mono mode on channels 1 - 6. (In fact, as mentioned earlier in this thread, it should support 12 channel Chapman stick control too!)

Just set Poly-Ana to Unison, and either 1 or 2 voice Polyphony (you can double the voices with 2 voice Polyphony, if you do this then use the Detune knob to spread them out a bit!) Make sure your PB Range (Pitch Bend Range) knob matches the range that your guitar controller is set to and that's it! Poly-Ana will add additional mono-synth voices for notes coming in on additional MIDI channels, just like in krraqk's demo: http://www.admiralquality.com/products/ ... arts03.mp3

I'm not sure how many other softsynths offer this feature. I know ImpOscar does. And now Poly-Ana. Any others?

And I almost forgot... Poly-Ana has been optimized to the point that it now uses about HALF the CPU power that the original 0.10 release did, back in October. Expect that number to continue getting smaller.

Cheers!

VSTI world hate MIDI GUITAR?