Re: pedal abuse (was sitar)

[mwsmart@insightbb.com]

> What other pedals are you guys using for purposes
> other than their manufacturers intended? (Musical
> purposes, I mean...)
> 
> -t-

I've been playing around with feedback generating devices again in the 
last couple of weeks. Years ago I built a system to generate feedback 
which 
was very similar to the Sustainiac:

<http://www.marksmart.net/gearhack/feedbackgen/feedbackgen.html>

A few weeks ago I was making an mp3 for my sister for her birthday ("Happy
Birthday" as played by Hendrix at Woodstock) and that got me interested in
this again. So now I'm buying some of those cheap Danelectro mini pedals
so I can hack them up and combine them into an improved feedback system.

When I was playing around with the stuff recently, I tried running the 
guitar sound through Reaktor before it went back to the feedback 
transducer. 
I figured out that if you add a short time delay to the signal, you can 
get the feedback to jump to a different note. It's like what happens when
you use a phase reverse switch on the guitar pickups, except you can 
control
it better. Reaktor is the best way to do it, but since I don't currently
have a way to use Reaktor live, I'm thinking of making a little pedalboard
with Dano pedals. For the short delay I plan on hacking a Hash Browns 
Flanger
so that it only outputs delayed signal and the delay can be controlled with
a pedal (instead of the normal LFO). I'm hoping I can mount the guts of 
the flanger inside a Dunlop volume pedal and have a pedal-controlled delay.

I think that classifies as not using it the way it was intended...also
I bought one of their micro-amp pedals which I plan to hack so that the
signal output is actually an external speaker output. This will drive
the feedback transducer. I'm adding a regular echo pedal (PB&J delay)
so that I can get the wonderful screeching sound that results from running
the feedbacking signal through a delay BEFORE the distortion in the audible
signal chain. This sounds wonderfully psychotic. The whole system will 
look something like this:

Guitar---->Compressor --+--->Echo-->Distortion->other FX--> Audible output
                        |
                        v
                     Distortion
                        |
                        v
                     Pedal-controlled short delay
                        |
                        v
                        EQ (low end rolled off to prevent wolfing)
                        |
                        v
                     Micro amp
                        |
        Transducer<-----+             

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Mark Smart
http://www.marksmart.net