Aliaser Stutter fuzz demo  [documentation]

Original effects with schematics, layouts and instructions, freely contributed by members or found in publications. Cannot be used for commercial purposes without the consent of the owners of the copyright.
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Nocentelli
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Post by Nocentelli »

I bolted a few schematics together to produce this beast on the breadboard yesterday. The bulk of it is derived from Freppo's "Sonic Reducer", which is an improved version of Colin Raffel(experimentalists anonymous)'s Analog Bitcrusher. They both have parts in common with the Catalinbread Heliotrope. I breadboarded the heliotrope a few times in the past and it's a cool effect, but the incessant bloody whine of the carrier oscillator in the background meant that I never bothered boxing it up. However, Freppo added a very nifty little gate section, which cuts the oscillator completely when the guitar signal falls below a preset threshold, which works brilliantly. I added a fuzz section to the input (essentially a beefed up version of the Heliotrope's gain stage), and used a switch that cuts in a much larger timing cap to the oscillator, dropping the lowest rate right down to a fast choppy tremolo/stutter frequency, and the higher rate to a synthy bass sub-octave range.

The wonderful side effect of Freppo's gate control is the ability to dial in a comfortable threshold trigger level to the effect, so the stuttering, aliasing or sub octave-type effect can be triggered easily by playing dynamics: This is more easily achieved with a fuzzy input, as quieter playing won't trigger the effect but the guitar is still clearly audible due to compression from the fuzz.



I'll post up a schematic and vero of the final version when I've got it built and working.

The Sonic reducer schem can be found in guitar effects->original designs at http://www.parasitstudio.se

Colin's Analog Bitcrusher: http://www.experimentalistsanonymous.co ... rusher.gif
modman wrote: Let's hope it's not a hit, because soldering up the same pedal everyday, is a sad life. It's that same ole devilish double bind again...

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Post by Nocentelli »

Aliastutterfuzz_nocentelli2.jpg
modman wrote: Let's hope it's not a hit, because soldering up the same pedal everyday, is a sad life. It's that same ole devilish double bind again...

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Post by Freppo »

Very cool, nice work! :thumbsup
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Post by Freppo »

I took the liberty of making a layout for this one (actually I just modded my Sonic Reducer layout)
I hope you don't mind. :) If it's ok with you I will share it on my blog if/when someone verifies it.

Image
Full size version

I made the gate pot an external pot, thought it would suit this version better.

cheers / Freppo
Check out my building blog at http://www.parasitstudio.se

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Post by DrNomis »

Cool, I might have a go at building one of these for verification, I think I have some TLO74 and TLO72 ICs spare....... :thumbsup

The TLO74 IC should work fine as a sub for the LM324, since the pinout is the same..... :thumbsup


I'll do a write up in the workbench section if/when I get round to building one so stay tuned..... :thumbsup
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Post by Nocentelli »

Freppo wrote:I took the liberty of making a layout for this one (actually I just modded my Sonic Reducer layout)
I hope you don't mind. :) If it's ok with you I will share it on my blog
I don't mind at all, I was planning to base my vero on your original anyway! I think you need another cut to the left of the jumper from quad pin 4, or the JFET drain will be at +9v.

simon, i think I read that Freppo reckoned a 324 was needed for it to function (I/he may be mistaken though). Maybe worth trying it on the breadboard first.
modman wrote: Let's hope it's not a hit, because soldering up the same pedal everyday, is a sad life. It's that same ole devilish double bind again...

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Post by DrNomis »

Nocentelli wrote:
Freppo wrote:I took the liberty of making a layout for this one (actually I just modded my Sonic Reducer layout)
I hope you don't mind. :) If it's ok with you I will share it on my blog
I don't mind at all, I was planning to base my vero on your original anyway! I think you need another cut to the left of the jumper from quad pin 4, or the JFET drain will be at +9v.

simon, i think I read that Freppo reckoned a 324 was needed for it to function (I/he may be mistaken though). Maybe worth trying it on the breadboard first.

No worries, I was actually thinking of breadboarding the circuit first before I went ahead and built it on vero, will let you know how it goes...... :thumbsup
Genius is not all about 99% perspiration, and 1% inspiration - sometimes the solution is staring you right in the face.-Frequencycentral.

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Post by Freppo »

Nocentelli wrote: I think you need another cut to the left of the jumper from quad pin 4, or the JFET drain will be at +9v.
Well spotted. :) Here is the updated layout
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/ Freppo
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Post by Nocentelli »

Small update - I didn't build this at the time, but returned to it recently. I wanted to add a blend/fx level/depth control, but purely on the aliaser effect, so straight fuzz is possible or lots of fuzz with a little graunch dialled in.

I thought of various ways of buffering and blending the fuzzy output of IC1 with the aliased fuzz, but had an idea just to try straight bypassing the JFET with a pot, and it works great! I just grabbed a 100kA and hooked lugs 1 and 2 across the drain and source and when shorted there is no audible bit rate reduction, and at maximum resistance I couldn't hear a difference with or without the pot. The taper seems OK too. Now I have no idea if shorting the JFET is a problem (I don't imagine so) but when I get around to replacing my soldering iron and free up some time I'll definitely build Freppo's vero with this mod and hopefully verify it.
modman wrote: Let's hope it's not a hit, because soldering up the same pedal everyday, is a sad life. It's that same ole devilish double bind again...

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Post by notnews32 »

Thanks for posting that YT demo.. awesome!

I really really liked the threshold setting on the stutter effect at about the 2-minute mark.. you were soloing, and softer notes wouldn't have the stutter while harder notes had a deep percussive stutter. Is that threshold adjustable? Looking at the vero and schematic I can't tell if one of the pots is assigned to that parameter.

Great work!

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Post by Nocentelli »

Yep, it's totally adjustable: It's the B100k pot labelled "gate". At minimum, the aliasing is there all the time (along with the carrier whine when not playing) and turning up the gate increases the sensitivity until you reach a sweet spot around noon that you've described.
modman wrote: Let's hope it's not a hit, because soldering up the same pedal everyday, is a sad life. It's that same ole devilish double bind again...

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