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Topic: Leslie pedal, a new contender: NUX Roctary |
ajm
From:
Los Angeles
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Posted 30 Dec 2018 10:33 am |
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I am looking for something to use with my EHX C9 to get closer to a true organ and leslie combination with a six string.
I was looking for a leslie simulator pedal, and was about ready to go for a Danelectro Big Spender/Money Laundry.
The thing that I don't like about the Danelectro is that it takes a LONG time to go from slow to fast using the ramp up/down.
Somehow I happened across the NUX Roctary.
It is a multi purpose pedal.
OD
Leslie slow/fast/ramp
Dual octave
Ramp speed: The NUX seems more realistic in that regard judging by the demos I've seen, plus it lets you adjust the ramp time.
This thing really looks promising, and for not a lot of $.
I do NOT want to spend a lot of $$$, so a lot of what you might want to recommend instead is disqualified.
There are a few videos/demos on Youtube.
Like all YT demos, they can be quite long.
You sort of have to skip through them to get to the areas that interest you.
I don't know if it is a digital or an analog pedal.
Their information says that it uses TS/AC (True Simulation of Analog Circuits) technology, whatever that means.
They look like they are based maybe in China or Japan.
They have distributors everywhere but the USA.
Anyone ever seen/hear/try one?
Their web page for the pedal:
http://www.nuxefx.com/show-7-209-1.html |
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Greg Cutshaw
From:
Corry, PA, USA
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Godfrey Arthur
From:
3rd Rock
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Posted 30 Dec 2018 12:10 pm
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As with all Leslie sims, the missing element is moving air bouncing off of walls and other objects in the room.
That and the give and take in the motor/rotor/belt systems using centripetal force and when these shift from fast (tremulant) to slow (chorale), it is never exactly the same experience sound wise.
The combination of the reflective sound and the varying rotor animation is characteristic of a real Leslie sound.
Everything else is digital and predictable.
For all intents and purposes what ends up coming out is a vibrato or tremolo effect.
The Nu>X appears to be an interesting pedal though with its multiple effects, polyphonic octave, distortion, organ simulation overtone and rotary. Can turn a guitar into a bass as well as an organ-synth of sorts.
There is no real sense of a separately spinning treble horn rotor sound as is claimed in the site's drawing of a Leslie. The sound out of the Roctary sounds more like a single bass rotor Vibratone Leslie instead of a dual rotor unit even if there is a knob for emphasizing the top or bottom rotor.
By the name "Roctary" they're going for SRV/Led Zep genres in use of a Leslie.
Interesting parsing in the name "oct" as it were.
The Klaatu cyclops "eye" effect speed LED is neat.
Guess it depends on what one settles for in a Leslie sound and ease of portability.
Where these things are made these days is slowly becoming a non-issue.
Sound samples:
https://youtu.be/juztbczHfw8
_________________
ShoBud The Pro 1
YES it's my REAL NAME!
Ezekiel 33:7 |
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b0b
From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Posted 30 Dec 2018 1:51 pm
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It's to get a good organ sound without both a rotary effect and an octave effect. That means pushing two switches on two stomp boxes. Ugh! This Roctary pedal seems to have solved that. And the price is very attractive.
Has anyone here tried it yet? How does it sound for steel?
Watching this video, it seems that the octaver distorts even when Drive is off. 
| Quote: |
| There is no real sense of a separately spinning treble horn rotor sound as is claimed in the site's drawing of a Leslie. The sound out of the Roctary sounds more like a single bass rotor Vibratone Leslie instead of a dual rotor unit even if there is a knob for emphasizing the top or bottom rotor. |
I have the impression too, listening to the YouTube demos.
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Niklas Widen
From:
Uppsala, Sweden
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Posted 31 Dec 2018 4:40 am
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I have one and I think it does an ok job as a novelty organ simulator. It has some smart features such as adjustable slow and fast speeds, octave up and down and ramp up and down effect switching between leslie speeds.
However, it could have some better converters because it does add some digital artefacts, especially using the octave effects. Also, with the octave switch engaged, it does add some latency. Another downside is you can't blend the clean tone with the octaver. It's either 100% clean or 100% octaver. But considering the low price tag, I guess you can't ask for too much.
Since I had the pedal laying around here, I recorded a quick demo using my Excel steel through an Atomic Amplif-firebox into my interface. The drive control is set at approx 9 o'clock throughout. Balance controls are at noon.
Here's whats in the clip:
00:00 Clean steel sound
00.25 Leslie on, slow speed
00:53 Leslie, fast speed
01:46 Fast leslie + octave
02.25 ramp down to slow speed + octave
02:49 fast leslie + octave
04:20 slow leslie + octave + big church reverb
And here's the clip.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/y0ku7tyxaq0ssyo/NUX%20Roctary%20demo.mp3?dl=0
/Nicke |
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b0b
From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Posted 31 Dec 2018 10:07 am
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Your "big church reverb" helps a lot, Niklas, but overall I think that the quality of the octaver is really poor. And the rotary sounds more like a tremelo, as Godfrey rightly pointed out.
Anyway looking for a good octaver should try the TC Electronic Subnup. It's so good that, with a good left hand vibrato, you can get by without a rotary effect. It really nails that "church organ" sound.
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ajm
From:
Los Angeles
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Posted 31 Dec 2018 7:56 pm
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Thanks to Niklas for putting together the home brew demo.
And thanks to all who have chimed in.
I was interested in knowing primarily if anyone had actually ever seen/heard/used one.
Some comments about the comments..........
I'm guessing that the octave function may work much better the fewer the amount of notes that you feed it. Single notes probably work much better than complex chords.
Signal levels for the octaver are important as well (I'm guessing). They sure are with my EHX C9. The EHX is generating octaves and intervals based upon the notes at its input. And the notes in a chord don't decay at the same rate either, which makes the box's job more difficult. Needless to say, if you feed the EHX a distorted input, all bets are off. I have a feeling the same is true with this box. You wouldn't know until you actually tried one.
Speaking of signal levels, using a volume pedal before the NUX octaver is probably a bad idea. It probably needs a strong constant level signal.
The NUX performance may also depend upon the intervals between the notes. My EHX C9, for example, does not like two notes that are immediately adjacent to each other (for example, an A and an Ab played at the same time).
It may also work better with notes that are a steady pitch and do not have vibrato and/or pedals and knees being engaged. These are common characteristics of the PSG which may confuse the box.
Those are the possible issues when using the octave function.
If you already have an organ, or a simulator (like the EHX C9), and all that you need this box for is to simulate a Leslie, it may work better.
Depth of sound compared to a real Leslie: The comparisons to a real Leslie by a couple of posters were made with good intentions. But, of course it's not going to be the same. If you want the sound of a 200 pound Leslie, then you need to haul a 200 pound Leslie to your gigs. Or have room for it in your practice space.
If you want to cut the weight down by about 198 pounds or so, then we look for magic boxes.
As Bob said, this box could possibly do the work of two or three other boxes. Overdrive, dual octaves, Leslie.
If all that you need is the Leslie function, you don't need the octaves. You have the overdrive as a part of the power amp, and then the slow/fast Leslie function.
The ramp speed slow down/speed up function is nice.
I don't know if the top and bottom sections of a real Leslie turn at the same speed. I've heard a rumor that they do not. Someone else may know for sure.
That said, I don't know if this box emulates that characteristic. If they would have put the top section on the L output, and the bottom section on the right output, that may get you much closer to the real deal. This is assuming that they didn't. The manual doesn't give any indication as such. Then again, look at the price.
Regarding the "depth": I noticed that this has a L and R out. I don't know what the phase relationship between them is. If it is stereo, and you use two amps, the picture may change. You may start to get a bigger sense of what is going on and more "ear candy" if you're in the same room. Perhaps Niklas can answer that since he has one. Maybe he has either used it live through two amps, or recorded with it stereo into a board.
More "depth": Using a Leslie or this box or anything else is going to give a different sense when used in small quarters compared to using it in a bigger room. As the room gets bigger and/or you get farther away from the speakers the subtleties are going to fade.
The name "Roctary" doesn't necessarily relate to "rock" and "rotary". (It'd be easy to make that connection, though.) It could also be a combination of "rotary" and "octave". |
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Rich Gibson
From:
Pittsburgh Pa.
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Posted 31 Dec 2018 11:17 pm
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Iรขโฌโขm getting a pretty convincing sound using the line 6 rotary pedal after the C9
I have them in a loop-pedal so I can turn them on and off at the same time.
The line 6 has a nice Ramp up and down and a drive control.You can even hear the belts squeaking.Very inexpensive used.Fooled a good number of sound men this past year. |
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Godfrey Arthur
From:
3rd Rock
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Posted 1 Jan 2019 6:18 am
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| ajm wrote: |
Depth of sound compared to a real Leslie: The comparisons to a real Leslie by a couple of posters were made with good intentions. But, of course it's not going to be the same. If you want the sound of a 200 pound Leslie, then you need to haul a 200 pound Leslie to your gigs.
I don't know if the top and bottom sections of a real Leslie turn at the same speed. I've heard a rumor that they do not. Someone else may know for sure.
That said, I don't know if this box emulates that characteristic. If they would have put the top section on the L output, and the bottom section on the right output, that may get you much closer to the real deal. This is assuming that they didn't. The manual doesn't give any indication as such. Then again, look at the price.
More "depth": Using a Leslie or this box or anything else is going to give a different sense when used in small quarters compared to using it in a bigger room. As the room gets bigger and/or you get farther away from the speakers the subtleties are going to fade.
The name "Roctary" doesn't necessarily relate to "rock" and "rotary". (It'd be easy to make that connection, though.) It could also be a combination of "rotary" and "octave". |
The addition of the drive feature is designed to get the Jon Lord tone that he got out of an over-driven Marshall if an organ is to be used through this NU>X pedal, but then thinking of the guitar player, they would want to be able to rock out as well.
There are Leslie sims that sound closer to a 200 pound real thing but they are more dedicated in their design and cost several times more. Like the NEO Vent.
The description of the NU>X for upper and bottom rotor is misleading. On a better Leslie sim you can hear the top and bottom rotors spinning independently. They, NU>X, would have served themselves better if they just described their Leslie sound as a single rotor. The upper/lower rotor knob appears to just add more highs than it actually controls a dual rotor system.
Having an L and R output on a sim usually means that the Left-Right feature is to emulate micing a Leslie in STEREO with two mics on each rotor as is normal, or two mics up top, one on the bottom.
| Quote: |
| I don't know if the top and bottom sections of a real Leslie turn at the same speed. |
They don't turn at the same speed, neither do they ramp up/down at the same speed. On the traditional cabinets used professionally the rotors don't even turn in the same direction. They spin opposite each other.
The pulleys on the upper rotor and the bottom are different in circumference. Even if they both use the same motor set stacks, the size of the pulleys and rotors creates a different rotation speed. Not to mention the weight of each rotor. In fact the lower rotor has weights put on it to balance the rotation like a tire. The treble rotor is first to accelerate and decelerate. And if the belts are in condition and adjusted properly there is a basic ballpark for its rotation.
The lower rotor being larger, heavier with a larger pulley, receiving more air drag, is slower to ramp up/down
Look at the difference in the pulleys.
Lower rotor pulley.
Pulley on the bottom of the upper rotor horn.
The rotors work on centripetal force so inertia is different for the two as they are of different masses. Even the use of the proper motors and belt, as well as belt pulley on the upper rotor has bearing on the sound of the ramps.
And the motors have to be cleaned and oiled as well as the stainless steel washer shim sitting underneath the plastic treble rotor to maintain proper movement of the moving parts.
Using a real Leslie has its own technique. Gauging the spin of both rotors and knowing when to switch speeds. This is the animation side of the Leslie and there is a sound to that.
What also adds to the sound of the Leslie is the specific woofer and driver used as well as the crossover circuit and their crossover points and slopes. If the wrong woofer and/or crossover point is used, the characteristic of the Leslie ramp sounds will be off balance. The lower rotor's ramp will sound sluggish or too fast, and if the wrong woofer is used, the tone from the lower woofer as it exits the rotor will boost or attenuate the wrong frequencies thereby affecting the tone of the ramp up/down and as it combines with the top rotor's ramps. It is two rotors meshing sounds to combine a whole sound.
There is more to a Leslie than its parts.
Correspondingly the wrong crossover/driver for the treble rotor will accentuate frequencies that will affect its influence in the mix sound of the two rotors. This is why taking off the deflectors on the top rotor became a thing in the 60's which changed the sound and the ramp tone.
Trebel rotor with deflectors or "ears."
The "ears" on the horns sometimes get removed.
The Doppler effect is changed.
The sound you get when a car with blaring horn approaches, passes by your house and goes down the road away from your hearing. There is a rise in frequency/pitch.
That is the Doppler effect of a Leslie.
Hence the design to emulate a real Leslie in a foot pedal started out as expensive. A Vent costs $500. It's still not perfect but can get the sound of two rotors spinning independently although more artificial sounding because the real Leslie throws sound around through vents (slats in the wood cabinet) that puts the sound out of phase and around. Add to that, the inconsistent speeds of the rotating mass effect of the spinning rotors and motors. The cabinet itself lends to the tone so it's not just one thing.
And there were many versions of a rotary cabinet from other companies. But they did not hit the mark as being the classic Leslie sound we heard and hear on records.
This is an actual speaker rotating inside a horn of a Vox rotary cabinet. The little weight on the back is the counterbalance.
Any other rotary speaker sounds clumsy, even some of the ones made by Leslie themselves.
Even Don Leslie reached his Peter Principle when he started to make the Rotosonic rotor with 6x9 speakers rotating inside a drum.
But he/his company did invent a device that connected the speaker sound to the rotating mass. That device, the Mercotac made him more money than the Leslie speaker to where he sold Leslie and started making the Mercotac device for the military.
Mercotac device for connecting the amplifier's speaker signal to a rotating speaker.
Normal lower wood rotor without speakers. More sought after. The pulley (shown above) goes through the center of this rotor as a shaft through rubber grommets and is held in place to the cabinet by bearings seen with the pulley photo above.
The only desirable Leslie speaker cabinets are the real Leslie 122/147/142/145 models made in the 1960's and 70's.
These have the tube amps of course and dual stack fast/slow motors.
Leslies made today do not use this traditional motor stack and the animation is different on the ramps. The reliability of the circuits to control a single motor to switch from slow to fast is constantly an issue and the circuit goes in for repair.
Guess one has to decide what they are looking for as their main effect. Drive, octave, rotary, making an organ out of a non-organ instrument.
An all-in-one is cheap and convenient, but electronics always leaves something out of the equation.
Those that need a good Leslie sound will opt for the real thing and will have the desire and ability to get one and move it.
For basic pad/background use, a Leslie simulator will work.
But there are sims and THEN there ARE SIMS.
| Quote: |
| The name "Roctary" doesn't necessarily relate to "rock" and "rotary". (It'd be easy to make that connection, though.) It could also be a combination of "rotary" and "octave". |
As mentioned a "parsing" of words in the name of the pedal.
It could actually be three words.
Rock, octave and rotary.
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ShoBud The Pro 1
YES it's my REAL NAME!
Ezekiel 33:7 |
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b0b
From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Posted 1 Jan 2019 9:40 am
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In performance, the Leslie sound cannot be duplicated. But when recording or reproducing it through stereo speakers, there are very good simulations available. Even in large concerts, when mics are used to mix the sound into the mains, a simulation can be very close to the real thing. Hammond, Nord and Roland all have portable keyboards that do an excellent job without the need for a real Leslie cabinet.
Their web site says that "Roctary" is a mash of "rotary" and "octave". The word "rock" isn't mentioned.
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Erv Niehaus
From:
Litchfield, MN, USA
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Posted 1 Jan 2019 10:16 am
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Here's one with Leslie's name on it:
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Godfrey Arthur
From:
3rd Rock
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Posted 1 Jan 2019 11:24 am
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| Erv Niehaus wrote: |
Here's one with Leslie's name on it:
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Good one Erv.
That pedal is not even up there with the other sims, Vent and Strymon. And it is made by Hammond-Suzuki who bought both Hammond and Leslie, made in Japan. Most of the clone geeks don't even use it and it hardly, if ever, gets any talk last time I checked the forums. I do like the Leslie script on the pedal though!
Last September I did back-line for Tower of Power. They wanted the real B3/122 but planned a connect to a Vent to control the expression pedal up/down in volumes of the organ out the FOH.
For some reason their interface did not work.
Great for hearing the organ through a real Leslie!
Roger Smith hears himself out of a real Leslie is how they go about it but the FOH gets the Vent.
To my ears they've been sounding artificial in the organ department of late. And I have seen TOP live in concert (with Chester Thompson) at large arenas and small clubs like the Keystone in Berkeley at least 5 times since the early 70's. And the only one hearing the treachery of Roger's monster playing is himself alone and maybe the rest of the band through their IEM's (I guess).
Not the audience.
IMO the real thing makes the organist react better.
It was a great night for TOP and for Roger!
Two things make up a Leslie sound, tone and animation of the rotors.
I also did back-line for Incubus last year and they used a Nord double manual but wanted a real Leslie. And some years before that Tears For Fears who used a clone but asked for a Leslie. Same for Kenny Loggins, a Korg clone into a Leslie. Boz Scaggs, Michael McDonald, clones through real Leslies. There were many.
American Idol wanted the real thing B3/122.
Although the sims are fine on the clones, there's still a desire to run things through the real thing.
The fave clone among clone users is the Numa from Italy. But they are not available everywhere like Nord or Roland in Conus.
Since Fatar/Studiologic (Italy) makes most of the keys for most of the keyboards/synths companies world wide, it follows Italy would enter the organ market. As they did in the 70's with Crumar, but distribution was always a problem in America.
Roger Smith with TOP last September.
I use a Roland VK8M drawbar module but through a real Leslie for much studio work when pads are called for instead of the real B3.
The sim is ok, not as advanced as today's sims on many clones made today.
Note that these clone makers make keyboards but amplification is always a problem, speaker cabinets to satisfactorily produce a Leslie out of a sim. They, except Roland, don't make keyboard amps to support their products.
So the more things change the more they remain the same.
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ShoBud The Pro 1
YES it's my REAL NAME!
Ezekiel 33:7 |
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b0b
From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Posted 1 Jan 2019 6:37 pm
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The Roland VK-M8 is a MIDI device, is it not? AFAIK, there is no polyphonic guitar to MIDI converter on the market.
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Richard Sinkler
From:
aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana
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Posted 2 Jan 2019 8:42 am
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| b0b wrote: |
| The Roland VK-M8 is a MIDI device, is it not? AFAIK, there is no polyphonic guitar to MIDI converter on the market. |
Yes, the VK-8M is a MIDI module. I used one when I had my keyboard setup. Awesome unit. Can't use your guitar with it unless you have a MIDI converter. The Sonuus (sp?) guitar to MIDI converter didn't work well. Not even slightly decent.
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Carter D10 8p/8k, Dekley S10 3p/4k C6 setup,Regal RD40 Dobro, NV400, NV112 . Playing for 54 years and still counting. |
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Godfrey Arthur
From:
3rd Rock
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Posted 2 Jan 2019 10:21 am
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| b0b wrote: |
| The Roland VK-M8 is a MIDI device, is it not? AFAIK, there is no polyphonic guitar to MIDI converter on the market. |
Yes the VK8M is controlled by MIDI.
Run an external keyboard through a MIDI cable or even go wireless MIDI in the case of using Roland's AX-1 and other keytar series.
There is a bracket for mounting this but a DIY piece would allow customization.
B0b is it that you are thinking to run a PSG through the VK8M? Which would be a cool way to get actual organ sounds and control through something you can have sitting on a stand.
The converter is the concern I see even if pickups can be cobbled together to be sensitive enough to capture all the animation, string pulls.
I'm not that versed on MIDI, only use it to connect keyboard controllers.
I have asked a MIDI expert I know, who also knows clones and plays regular guitar and will see what he says.
There are new devices for guitar to MIDI but it involves software and that means a laptop/tablet and more connectivity and latency.
Jim Palenscar seems to have a bead on MIDI for steel.
But the VK8M has a D-Beam feature (https://youtu.be/QaOj4_b3520) where you can set what it controls, either rotor fast/slow or even pitch dive to get that Green-Eyed Lady effect. Point I'm trying to make is if the VK8M can pitch bend, TW BRAKE, perhaps it would be pitch friendly for steel if a sensitive enough converter was triggering it.
I don't have a MIDI pickup to try things out on the VK8M.
So far the blurb on the forum is using 6 string MIDI pickups set under the center of the string width and just using it for minimal solos and chords.
But yeah if a proper converter is used to convert 10+ steel string guitars to organ, that would be something.
Although note bends are not characteristic of organ which would tend to bring the organ into synthesizer territory which has been tried before. Organs have been MIDI-fied and that takes on another level, but as an organist.
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ShoBud The Pro 1
YES it's my REAL NAME!
Ezekiel 33:7 |
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Chris Walke
From:
St Charles, IL
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Posted 2 Jan 2019 10:26 am
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https://www.ehx.com/products/lester-g/instructions
I have a Lester K by EHX. Nice rotary sim. It's the keyboard version, unfortunately, but I can't complain, I won it.
The Lester G version is for guitarists and features an onboard compressor and a variable ramp speed. It also features an input for an expression pedal, so you can change speed at will.
This is a nice sounding product. |
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Godfrey Arthur
From:
3rd Rock
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Posted 2 Jan 2019 10:37 am
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| Chris Walke wrote: |
https://www.ehx.com/products/lester-g/instructions
The Lester G version is for guitarists and features an onboard compressor and a variable ramp speed. It also features an input for an expression pedal, so you can change speed at will. |
I agree the G is the better sim over the K as the Acceleration control allows more real Leslie variant animation.
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ShoBud The Pro 1
YES it's my REAL NAME!
Ezekiel 33:7 |
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b0b
From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Posted 2 Jan 2019 12:07 pm
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Some guitar effects seem to be sensing pitch from the individual notes in a chord. If that is what they're actually doing, a polyphonic MIDI output wouldn't be a big step. But so far, I haven't seen anything short of the "pickup for each string" approach that can output useful MIDI from analog guitar signals.
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Godfrey Arthur
From:
3rd Rock
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Posted 2 Jan 2019 1:30 pm
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Fishman TriplePlay Wireless MIDI Guitar is one advance in MIDI for 6 strings. It comes with software that can turn a stringed instrument into a complete orchestra including backup vocals, recording onto a laptop.
Sweetwater demo:
https://youtu.be/zmcmFrtxBU0
Low latency on this rig
As usual steelers are off the radar on this... or are they?
Turn an Asher lap steel 6 into an interesting controller.
https://youtu.be/Ci3ZOuUKrCU
Price is about 4 Benjamins for the system.
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ShoBud The Pro 1
YES it's my REAL NAME!
Ezekiel 33:7 |
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b0b
From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Posted 2 Jan 2019 2:19 pm
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That's the "one pickup per string" approach I was talking about. Roland has been doing this for decades. A polyphonic MIDI generator that takes a regular guitar/steel signal and outputs MIDI is a much harder problem. I think that the Electro Harmonix boxes like the Mel9 are deconstructing chords, but I'm not sure.
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Godfrey Arthur
From:
3rd Rock
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Posted 2 Jan 2019 2:44 pm
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| b0b wrote: |
| That's the "one pickup per string" approach I was talking about. Roland has been doing this for decades. A polyphonic MIDI generator that takes a regular guitar/steel signal and outputs MIDI is a much harder problem. I think that the Electro Harmonix boxes like the Mel9 are deconstructing chords, but I'm not sure. |
Yes, B0b I understand the concept. Tom Peterssen's 12 string bass (Cheap Trick) of a pickup for each string. Or in this case for each set of three strings.
Interesting about the deconstructing chords side-effect from the EH boxes.
If you can sense it, it may be the case.
But yeah the complex information from a pedal steel would need some serious converter computations.
Some DIY'er are scavenging Sound Garage's Mag Hex gamer pickups Powergig $70 guitars.
From what I've read, for more than 6 strings with the present state of MIDI technology, one would need two synth devices to accommodate the extra strings.
So a 12 string guitar would need two synth modules. 
Warr guitars
Paul Rubenstein of Ubertar makes individual passive pickups that will do MIDI. Ubertar hexaphonic pickups are compatible with Roland VG-99 and GR-20 processors.
$40 each
Ubertar says it will make multiples, 6, 12. Perhaps 10 is available upon asking. Set of 12 is $255.
ubertar@gmail.com
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ShoBud The Pro 1
YES it's my REAL NAME!
Ezekiel 33:7 |
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Godfrey Arthur
From:
3rd Rock
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Posted 7 Jan 2019 7:27 am
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| b0b wrote: |
| The Roland VK-M8 is a MIDI device, is it not? AFAIK, there is no polyphonic guitar to MIDI converter on the market. |
Here is a reply from MIDI expert Jordan Petkov of Midi Boutique in Bulgaria. Jordan makes many MIDI devices (encoders-decoders) to turn other instruments into MIDI devices.
Real polyphonic pickup-to-MIDI converter just does not exist.
It is almost impossible to be done unless using AI, but this is theoretically possible with powerful computers running expensive signal processing software and AI-based recognition software.
So far nothing can even nearly imitate the work of inner ear as pickup/spectral-analyzer and human brain as recognition processor put together.
Today's approach should be separate pickup and pitch-to MIDI converter per each string, then all these converters can be MIDI-merged into single MIDI output.
This still requires using quite powerful signal controllers, in order to recognize the pitch in "real time", using Fast Fourier transform or other spectral analysis method, all of which require quite of calculation performance.
Jordan mentions this has crossed his mind but it would take some time to fabricate and he's too busy with his basic items he sells online.
Perhaps he will consider this more in the future.
https://www.midiboutique.com/
A MIDI encoder made by Jordan one of many systems.
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ShoBud The Pro 1
YES it's my REAL NAME!
Ezekiel 33:7 |
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J.D.White
From:
Lafayette, Louisiana
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Posted 7 Jan 2019 9:17 am
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Bob - I believe what the EH B9/C9 are doing is using the same octave / technology they're using in the POG - to simulate the drawbar presets of some popular Hammond players. - And added simulations like key click.
Listening to the NUX Roctary, I do hear slight phase shifting and vibrato (some phase shifters have a switch to kill the dry signal - which gives a true vibrato at faster speeds - almost identical to the doppler effect that a Leslie gives). The Roctary also has octave up/down - again roughly simulating Hammond drawbars.
You mentioned deconstructing chords which Boss uses in their SY-300 guitar synthesizer. It doesn't use MIDI - just plug in a guitar (no special pickups, etc..) - I've used one on guitar (not steel yet) - and it's not bad. It is fast - pick a note and it's there - no delays. (there is a MIDI jack on the unit - but it's there for expression pedals, footswitches,... - It's not really an organ simulation - more analog synthesizer sounds. - Just mentioned because of the technology. |
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Godfrey Arthur
From:
3rd Rock
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Mike Bacciarini
From:
Arizona
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Posted 7 Jan 2019 11:28 am
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We've kind of gotten away from the NUX Roctary, but here's my 2 cents. I use a B9 and a Neo Vent (obviously more $) and am thoroughly happy (as close to hauling around a 122 as I care to get). A B3-playing friend who also has a 122 helped me tweak the parameters on the Vent and it's really close. A half-moon on the steel is so convenient. Octaves can move it more towards a B3 sound, but I use my POG primarily for a 12-string vibe on straight steel picking. The B9 pedal provides the rich B3-like harmonics beyond simply the octaves. The other B3 component as mentioned is the drawbars. I modified an EB Wah pedal by limiting the travel to midrange to avoid the full-on screech or muffled sound. It gives the sense of "pulling out the stops" ala Rusty Young.
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MCI Arlington S-10 3+5, George L E-66, BJS & Emmons bars, Fender Princeton 65W, Fender Satellite SFX, custom FX rack, 1983 Dobro 60D, SX-8 lap steel, Martin D16GT, Ibanez AS73, 1978 Rickenbacker 4000 custom. |
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