life without a bass --> Ocatve pedal with a frequency gat

[Chris S]

Here's a thought...

If you were one of the ever increasing 2 peice bands (our bass player is leaving the country in 4 months) would it be possible to build an octave pedal with a frequency gate. That is so that it would play the octave below for all frequncies below the E on the A string. Or even better as well as this only play the lowest note in the chord you are playing (avoiding playing a E and B for a low E chord). That way you'd get a pretty good emulation of a bass playing the root notes of the chords but not every other note.

Is this at all possible?

thanks!!

[R.G.]

would it be possible to build an octave pedal with a frequency gate. That is so that it would play the octave below for all frequncies below the E on the A string. Or even better as well as this only play the lowest note in the chord you are playing (avoiding playing a E and B for a low E chord).

Sure - trivially easy. You just do a lowpass filter that passes that band, then run that into an octave divider. I can jazz up a schemo for it, but there are hifi active crossover schematics all over the net that show the basic concept.

The worlds best octave down is the Roctave Divider, and it should do the octave down stuff nicely.

[Mark Hammer]

See my comments on the old dbx subharmonic synthesizer in the "I need a bigger bottom...end" thread.

[Arn C.]

Hey Folks! Happy Friday!

R.G. wrote:

I can jazz up a schemo for it, but there are hifi active crossover schematics all over the net that show the basic concept.

Hey R.G.  Could you possibly whip up a schematic for this?

Much Thanks!  I could really use something like this also.

Peace!
Arn C.

[Rodgre]

I've seen a two piece band semi-sort of-successfully do this with a Fender Mustang with an additional half of a P-Bass pickup added under the E and A strings and sent to a separate output, sent to an octaver and a bass amp.

He was using a Boss Octave, which I think might have been improved by using an EBS octave. It sort of worked. It wasn't as good as having a bass player, but it helped out with the bottom end.

Roger

[chumpito]

That's a cool idea!  Put in a stereo jack so you don't need two cables and an off switch for the extra pickup.  Then you can split it and send the bass signal to one of those digital octavers, like that new boss one, to a seperate amp.

[Michael Allen]

Brian St. Clair from the band Local H does that. He has the bass pickup under the two bottom strings that has a seperate output -> octave down -> bass amp that he uses live since they don't have a bassist. Some pretty cool stuff from that band....

[Ge_Whiz]

Yep, I've done it with the filter at ESP:

http://sound.westhost.com/project09.htm

set for crossover just above the first octave of a guitar. I then run the output of this into a Digitech BP50, which not only generates the sub-octave but also can be adjusted to 'clean up' the sound, give it more punch etc. as required.

[morganpedals]

You can do the John Paul Jones thing.

Search for "Moog Taurus Bass Pedals" on the forum.

This only works if coordination is your friend. If chewing gum and doing anything else is a problem for you, then go with the octave idea.

[Chris S]

Cool!

Thanks for all your relies!!!

1) To second Arn C. R.G A schematic of this would be great! If the band could be moveable that would be great too.

2) Is it possible to make the low-pass only play the lowest note? so if you play a low E chord you'd only get the low E and not the low B, but you would get that same B if you played a B chord... - - sorry if this is getting to complex

3) I'll see if I can get away without putting in a bass pickup in my guitars for now

4) Similarly the foot thing could be a bit difficult (having enough difficulty with singing, guitar and a guitar pedals) and there is no way i'll get that schematic right.  :wink: but thanks anyway

5) is there a parts layout JPEG anywhere for the rocktave.

6) Is it possible to make the rocktave split the original signal and the octave down signal - so one could go to guitar and one could go to a bass amp say?

7) Apoligies if this post looks (and sounds) like a shopping list

Thanks Again!!

[black mariah]

I do it the MANLY way. No wimpy octave pedals here (tried it, didn't like it). I just tune my guitar down nearly an octave. :shock: The low E is down to F. I didn't know that for the longest time, I just tuned it down until it sounded right. It requires some super heavy strings, but the sound is worth it.

The best way to split any signal is with an A/B/Y box. Run one side straight into an amp and run the other through the pedal. Problem solved! Sorta.

[R.G.]

1) To second Arn C. R.G A schematic of this would be great! If the band could be moveable that would be great too.

2) Is it possible to make the low-pass only play the lowest note? so if you play a low E chord you'd only get the low E and not the low B, but you would get that same B if you played a B chord... - - sorry if this is getting to complex

Dad gum it. You went and asked for the right thing instead of the easy thing.  

I'll cook something up. Yes, it's reasonably simple to do a moveable band, at least for the simple form.

It is possible, but takes a lot of parts to make the thing select only the lowest note. To do that, you use either three or four narrow band pass filters tuned adjacent to each other in the lowest octave, and then do a peak-detector on each one. The peak detectors signal "hey, I got some signal here!" and then some priority-encoder logic mutes all except the lowest frequency band with content. ... then you get to do the octave down.

I thinkered with this years ago trying to do an octave *up* by partially distorting then frequency spectrum-ing in bandpass filters and then selecting out the octave up. What a pain!

Anyway, I'll go look.

[Arn C.]

Thanks R.G. !!!!      

Arn C.

[Chris S]

I'll cook something up. Yes, it's reasonably simple to do a moveable band, at least for the simple form.

It is possible, but takes a lot of parts to make the thing select only the lowest note. To do that, you use either three or four narrow band pass filters tuned adjacent to each other in the lowest octave, and then do a peak-detector on each one. The peak detectors signal "hey, I got some signal here!" and then some priority-encoder logic mutes all except the lowest frequency band with content. ... then you get to do the octave down.

Hey R.G did you end cooking something?

Thanks! - no stress if you didn't at least I know the ingredients

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

If I was trying to make a 'fundamental extractor', I'd feed the signal into a 6db/oct roll off filter & then into a compressor (set as a constant level amplifier), that should get the lowest freq setting the gain & give discrimination against harmonics. Then of course as per usual. No system is going to be perfect, it's a problem that has best been solved by neural network techniques (not by me!!).

[Ansil]

Here's a thought...

If you were one of the ever increasing 2 peice bands (our bass player is leaving the country in 4 months) would it be possible to build an octave pedal with a frequency gate. That is so that it would play the octave below for all frequncies below the E on the A string. Or even better as well as this only play the lowest note in the chord you are playing (avoiding playing a E and B for a low E chord). That way you'd get a pretty good emulation of a bass playing the root notes of the chords but not every other note.

Is this at all possible?

thanks!!

Chris talk to Sic about this, and see if he still has my schematic that i drew up for him for the same or similar situation.  he said it sounded awesome but i will let him speak for himself, basically the same thing R.G. said about the filters i just did either two or four of them i dont' really remember but basicaly i belive it was a twostage then amplification and then two more stages..  anyway hope that helps.