Sax Effect Distortion or Fuzz

[joegagan]

I've been doing some more research. Is it possible that impedance is an issue? The average guitar pickup is somewhere in-between 4K and 20K ohms (correct me if I'm wrong). But the sax pickup we are using is something like 125 ohms. Maybe this is having an effect on how the pedals are triggered?

yes, hence the recommendation to get the signal to a mixer, then distribute from there.

[bluehevy75]

I've been doing some more research. Is it possible that impedance is an issue? The average guitar pickup is somewhere in-between 4K and 20K ohms (correct me if I'm wrong). But the sax pickup we are using is something like 125 ohms. Maybe this is having an effect on how the pedals are triggered?

yes, hence the recommendation to get the signal to a mixer, then distribute from there.

We tried the mixer. Maybe there is something else we are doing wrong.

[bluehevy75]

SUCCESS!!!!
Last night we played around with pre-amps, compression, mixers, pickups vs. mics etc...some stuff sounded good but nothing triggered the distortion.
What finally did it was running a Flange and (or) the Q-Tron before the distortion. If anyone has any ideas why these kind of effect triggered the fuzz I'd love to hear it.
We will need to some work to keep the feedback from going crazy but it was difinetly working, usable, and sounding exactly like we hoped it would. Thanks for all or your time peeps.

[bluehevy75]

Julian at the EHX forum sent me this that explains the situation nicely:

"A square wave is a signal full of harmonics, a sine wave is one devoid of harmonics.

Distortion adds harmonics, making a signal closer to a square wave.  (additive synthesis)

Filtering removes harmonics, making a signal closer to a sine wave.  (subtractive synthesis)


A saxophone is already very close to a square wave, so I didn’t think distortion would effect it very much.  So if you make it less like a square wave, the distortion will have a better effect on it."

This is why filters worked so well in front of the distortion/fuzz and this is what Strategy was saying earlier in the post. What should I search to just look up filters without modulation? Like a filter without the flange or without the envelope.

[Strategy]

The Tim Escobedo 9V sallen-key filter looks cool. I haven't gotten around to building it yet. His circuits are simple but hugely fun and flexible. He has several filters, I think at least one of them is not envelope based. The Sallen-Key/MS20 filter does not have an envelope, his circuit assumes you will add your own modulation options. Search "escobedo circuit snippets" in this forum or Google.

A lot of the envelope filters should have an 'amount' for the envelope that allows you to turn that down. Some of them you could probably mod the 'frequency cutoff' control to accept an expression pedal input, making the filter accessible similar to a wah.

Also look at the wah circuits. Some of them are very interesting filters. The parapedal for example is a pretty extreme filter, very synth like I think.

I'll try to think of more filters. Without modulation they can be very static sounding but, utilitarian too if what you'd like to do is just roll off highs or lows...Used as such they are like "extreme EQing"

- Strategy

[DiscoFreq]

Stone Audio (UK) made a preamp and an analog multi effect for sax too:
http://www.effectsdatabase.com/model/stone/sax/preamp
http://www.effectsdatabase.com/model/stone/sax/fxunit (filter, octave & double tracking, my unit needs repair)

and probably one of the Vox Octavoices (not sure which one) was also meant to be used with sax:
http://www.effectsdatabase.com/model/vox/octavoice
http://www.effectsdatabase.com/model/vox/octavoice/brass
http://www.effectsdatabase.com/model/vox/octavoice/woodwind

[stringsthings]

I misread, I thought it was
Sex Effect Distortion or Fuzz