Suggestion for clean pitch shifter?

[Le québécois]

Hi all,

I would like to build a pitch shifter with 2 octave up (I don't mind about fifth and third's or any fraction of octave) and an ideal box would also allowed for 1 or 2 octave down. It need to be be clean and can be analog or digital. Any suggestions? From what I have readed on this forum, clean octave are hard to produce?

Charles

Edit :subject title (thanks Mark)

[armdnrdy]

If I'm not mistaken, I think we're all looking for this pedal!

I've built a Pearl Octaver that sounds pretty good. There's a small componant adjustment to make the high octave sound more pronounced and a bit cleaner.

It sounds like this might be what your looking for out of the available choices.

If someone knows of anything else...please pipe in so I can build it too!

[Mark Hammer]

Buy a cheap pitch shifter.

Why?

1)  Analog doubling, tripling, halving is NOT clean.  You can create the illusion of clean by filtering the daylights out of it, but if you need clean, you need to go digital.

2) Analog doubling produces sidebands when you bend.  If you want a ring modulator sound, fine, but I'm guessing you don't consider that clean.

3) Analog octave down is mono, unless you have a hex pickup and six divider circuits.  Digital pitch shifting is always polyphonic.

4) Analog octaving, whether up or down, only works in multiples.  You can have an octave or two up, but you can't easily have a 5th up.  Digital will do that.

I don't know about where you live, but pitch shifters have become so smart these days - doing things like harmonizing in pitch according to the mode and key you tell it - that earlier generations of pitch shifters sell for cheap 2nd hand.  You can buy Behringer new for very little, or you can look around and find someone who has upgraded selling an older Boss unit for under $75.

P.S.: your header says phase shifter, when you obviously mean pitch shifter.  Big difference.

[Le québécois]

Thank's for the replies,
If I'm in to do a digital build, do we have a working DIY box around? or a good learning place to understand how to obtain octave with digital chip? I can try to work it out on a breadboard if I have a good starting point.

I rather avoid to buy a working unit. I like my fx-box to be all DIY.

Thank you   

[armdnrdy]

I took a quick look around (google) and it looks like c'est pas de la tarte.

More programming than building!

http://mike.salib.com/writings/classes/6.111/lab3.pdf

Buy a pitch shifter and rehouse it with your own artwork and lie to your friends!

[Le québécois]

En effet. It look like I should learn a lot of new thing to do that.  Too much....

I know what to ask for christmas

[Mark Hammer]

C'est ca.  Il y a des défis, pi des murs qu'on peut pas sauter.

[samhay]

I put together an analog 1 and 2 octave up pedal for the recent Turkey Day Competition: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=99142.msg879581#msg879581
It is a bit of work in progress - hence no build thread yet - but will give you an idea of how clean (or not) an analog octave pedal is.

Valve Wizard (Merlin B) has an octave down design called the U-boat that looks and sounds pretty cool (although not clean either): http://www.valvewizard.co.uk/uboat.html

[FUZZZZzzzz]

http://www.andertons.co.uk/compact-pedals/pid25417/cid692/mooer-pitch-box-harmony-pitch-shifter-pedal.asp

you can find them even cheaper on ebay..

[anchovie]

If you want the intervals you desire simultaneously, you'll need a POG.