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Extending the soundscape of a hexaphonic guitar pickup
sorveltaja:
Joules, that's interesting. I thought that the ball mating outer metal surface had similar form, like on ball bearing. Thanks for clarifying.
What my aim to achieve with this, is simply to make it easier to find sweet spots, which seems to occur at rather narrow ranges of a 1M pot.
It's a case of listening for the audio output, so the actual resistant value isn't important.
Joules:
For the benefit of anyone struggling with how this works, the parts contacting the balls need to be metal, but the rest could be 3D printed, such as the carrier that holds the balls and transfers their motion onward. I know this form of reduction drive from telescope fine focus controls. The drive can be configured push or pull by the direction of the cones, this is in fact the opposite to the potentiometer in question, only low load applications need apply 8-)
sorveltaja:
Joules, thanks again. I'm thinking of making one(or more) at some point. Currently I have only 4mm bearing balls on my shelf, which would make the thing too small for my paws to build.
At least 8mm ones would be easier to handle, so I'll order a bunch of them, and other sizes too. But yeah, it'll be fascinating project to get into. Although the working principle is quite simple, it would require its own, separate building thread.
In the meantime, some temporary (and bulkier in size) two-gear based solution will be used. Once I get to the point of building the enclosure for the vocoder, smaller is better, as I don't know yet, how many more pots/knobs/plugs it will have in its front panel.
sorveltaja:
To get back to the original subject, it's time for another audio sample. First is the original, that has tango on the left channel, and steam train on the right:
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The very same audio file was fed through the vocoder:
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To get the actual effect, both inputs (mic and instrument) should have signals, that have common frequencies(like above). I've tested both the tango and train tracks separately with animal sounds, like birds, horse, chicken and crow. Not much common frequencies between them.
One trick could be to slow down, or to speed up either of the channel's signal, to get them to the same frequency range. But that's just a tip of an iceberg of possibilities.
Current to-do list: build the fuzz, as it's working well with the vocoder.
Build the 'Super tone control', that has separate high- band- and lowpass controls in it:
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It should add more flexibility for tone shaping of the input signals. If it does well, I'll build another one for the output also.
In the end, the enclosure, being an empty cassette deck, would be a lot better to work with, than the current cardboard mock-up. Also it would have its own +15/-15V power supply, instead of using the bench psu with wires and clips. In other words: a developing stand-alone unit.
sorveltaja:
For testing the vocoder effects between different audio samples, there is an easy way, using Audacity's(free audio editing software) vocoder, which I discovered just recently.
I tried it with the same tango-steamtrain audio sample, that was previously posted. With default settings, similar effect is there, but has somewhat different 'pronouncing', when compared to the analog device.
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Today the ordered bearing balls arrived(for the potentiometer 'gear' reducer). There doesn't seem to be 3d-models of them available on the net, so why not make one.
So far, I have fiddled with different ball sizes to see, what the approximate ratios could be. Printing the ball mating surfaces/objects might work, or then not.
Preferably the ball mating surfaces should be machined out of metal, but I'd like to find out, if there are simpler ways to achieve acceptable results, without using the lathe.
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