A "broken" flanger guitar effect recreated in Reaktor

Hi there, i have a flanger guitar effect and I remember that when the battery was almost empty it started making, for a few moments (till the battery died), very interesting and unpredictable noises responding to what i was playing on my guitar. I was wandering if it would be possible to write such an effect in Reaktor and simulate that "lack" of voltage.

yendrrek

 

this is a great idea but i don't know how to do it

hopefully someone else does?

sowari

 

AAAHHHH YES - I had an Ibanez Flanger 25 years ago with exactly that behavior.

I'm not really into the electronics but from my understanding those analog delay kind of effects have an analog "audio table" running at about 20kHz giving about 10kHz quality. I'm not sure about the "bit" resolution but as it's in the analog domain I guess it's equal to 32 bit or something, but noise is then introduced to a high level, giving equal effect as of a 8 bit dynamics.

http://www.geocities.com/scaprile/fxa.html#bbd

Just making a wild guess what happens when the battery runs low, is that the sample rate gets low, making the delay time longer, so it's not a flanger but a short slap back echo, but with very poor sample rate/audio quality. And also the the effect might be proportional to the signal level - the stronger the signal the lower the sample rate.


I'm just speculating...

I've had it back of my mind for years and years - that sound, of the flanger dying.....

If you can make some mp3 of that effect with both the clean signal as well as the processed sound (using left and right channels e.g...) then it would be much easier to analyse what's going on.

 

I never had a chance to record it as it's so unpredictable. You can't really now when the battery is going to die so you would have to be prepared every time you play and in fact keep recording everything. But maybe there is a very short moment when the voltage drop is not so remarkable and audibly interesting so you could know when to start recording. I don't remember but will investigate it.

 

Don't those stomp boxes have the option of an external power supply? If you would connect an adjustable voltage to that connector, you could adjust the power right down to the point where that behaviour starts.

 

The Ibanez Flnager I had didn't die that fast from what I remember. I think I had like 30 minutes at least... not 100% sure we are talking about exactly the same thing.... but still the general idea. What mark of flanger do you have?

Yes, tymes2, I think that's a good idea. The voltage can be regulated on some wall warts, so it's a good starting point. I'm not sure how the batteries provide current when dying? And how low current effects the circuit?

Sadly I'm not in possession of a stop box flanger anymore...

 

I thought about it some time ago and first I tried a common power supply with changeable voltage (3, 5 ,7 ,9V), but nothing interesting happened. What I could do, I think, is to measure the voltage and know how much exactly I need to achieve that sound and then eventually make a power supply. I found something like "Adjustable-Voltage Regulator LM317T". Maybe this would make the thing easier.

 

Bugbrand make some fx and soundmakers that simulate voltate reduction have a look at their website:

http://www.bugbrand.co.uk/pages/sounddevices.htm

sowari

 

I'm soo much an amateur in electronics but it might be the current that influence the circuit and not the voltage.... and therefore more difficult to simulate the effect unless you have a lab power supply where you can regulate the current as well.... Still, it might be that you need to go below 3 volt to get the effect. As it appears over very short time it could be the case.... I don't know how batteries dies....