Octave Chip

[STATIC]

ok heres my deal

im building a bass right now that will have an octave chip in it, so itll sound like a guitar. i will also have the bypass with a switch so that a signal would go through both the chip and a bypass, thus making it like an 8 string bass

my question is, is that if i were to do this process again, with a second chip in series with the first one and the "1" octave and the "2" octave going around the chip, and then also have the "2" octave go through the second octave chip, would this in turn to making a 12 string bass type sound, or would the chips not be able to process them? i have a basic idea of circuitry and im pretty sure this would work, i just want to make sure it does before i waste my time

thanks

[lovekraft]

Would you mind identifying this "octave chip" that you're planning on using? The only thing I've found that will do what you say this one does is my old BHM-4, and it's a full rack space, so it'd be impossible to fit into the guitar. If you can actually pull this off with an onboard circuit, I really need to buy one! FWIW, stacking two digital octave generators is fairly likely to generate some noise and possibly unpleasant artifacts, but without knowing what it is or how it works, I have no idea if it would be acceptable or not.

[GregP]

Even if it worked, it wouldn't sound like a 12-string, because you'd be one octave up again from standard guitar tuning. On a 12-string, as you probably know, the E, A, D, and G strings are "doubled" an octave apart, with the B and E strings simply doubled on the same octave. That means you only have 4 strings that are octave-shifted, or strictly speaking only 3 since the low E's doubled string matches the high E, as well.

IF you could put the onboard FX in series without crazy artifacts (doubtful-- pitch-shifting is notorious for wrecking tone) you'd end up with a guitar, capoed at the 12th fret, not a 12-string.

Greg

[Hamer Bass Head]

Even if it worked, it wouldn't sound like a 12-string, because you'd be one octave up again from standard guitar tuning. On a 12-string, as you probably know, the E, A, D, and G strings are "doubled" an octave apart, with the B and E strings simply doubled on the same octave. That means you only have 4 strings that are octave-shifted, or strictly speaking only 3 since the low E's doubled string matches the high E, as well.

IF you could put the onboard FX in series without crazy artifacts (doubtful-- pitch-shifting is notorious for wrecking tone) you'd end up with a guitar, capoed at the 12th fret, not a 12-string.

Greg

I agree completely...and the only thing that sounds worse than unwanted string noise is unwanted string noise transposed an octave up.

[Ben]

I want to know what chip this is too!

[Sambo]

Just out of interest, look at this

http://www.tonepad.com/getFile.asp?id=90

could be done to fit in a guitar, and why can't you put two in while you're at it? hummm... the possibilities...

S

[lovekraft]

No, the Ringer is a balanced modulator - it produces the sum and difference of the two frequencies it's fed, so it's not even close to a clean octave. You'll get closer to a clean octave out of a simple full wave rectifier, but you still can't feed it more than one note at a time. The only analog way to generate an identical signal an octave up is to sample it at intervals, and manipulate the sample rate at playback, which is complex and fiddly to pull off with useful/musical results. DSP should make it easy (in theory), but that's not my area of expertise. That's why I was so excited about this octave chip in the first place!