I made a simple pickup to fit my modified baritone guitar (tuned it in fifths, and adjusted it accordingly).
My wife made me promise that it would be a "non-destructive" pickup, so no drilling allowed.

I came up with this:
.
I sandwiched two 25x5x3mm strong magnets between two popsicle sticks. I made a single loop around the magnets using some electric wire which I had lying around, keeping it in place with two tie wraps. I coupled the single loop with a 1:500 current transformer (Talema AS-104). Finally I soldered a microphone cable to the transformer.
The result is a low Z pickup with a balanced output suitable for a microphone input.
The distance between the two sticks is just a bit wider than the thickness of the top, with the use of two screws the pickup is clamped in the soundhole.... read more

With the latest transition to GCC5 the std, glib and sigc++ libs in debian/sid and arch switched to use the C++11 standard which leads to build failuers for guitarix.
To cover that, guitarix-git use now as well the C++11 standard for it's build.
Some changes in the source have been done to reach that.

Recently discussed the building of my Quintar.
This time I'll zoom in on the pickup of the Quintar.
.

Every electric instrument need some kind of pickup to convert the vibration of the strings into an electric signal.
There are several ways to achieve this but using a magnetic core with a electric (copper) wire wound around it (making it a coil) is by far the most commonly used type of pickup.
The electric magnetic pickup was developed in a time when a high input signal was necessary.
This high signal (approx. around 1 V, sometimes even higher) is obtained by winding the copperwire several thousands of times around the magnetic core.... read more

Recently I briefly discussed the building of my Quintar and the pickup I used.
There were some requests for a more detailed description, so here it goes.

Measuring out the Quintar

Bassically the Quintar is made out of a tapered piece of wood.
The three measurements to create the taper are the nutwidth, the bridgewidth and the stringlength.
There are several ways to do so, but I like the following method:
Bridgewidth = 2xfretboardoverhang+(n-1)xDistanceBetweenSideofStringsBridge+SumDiamaterOfStrings... read more

Last week I introduced the Quintar and wrote about why and how I came to the all fifths tuning.
This week I'll discuss the technique behind it and the last part will be about the Quintar's perfect match with Guitarix.

As I wrote last week I've build several prototypes. With every new prototype I started to move further away from the electric guitar clichés.
One of the things I noticed that, there are a lot of convictions and conventions in the musical world that are partly based on myths or are simply there because nobody questions them.
Musicians and builders tend to be a bit conservative, in my humble opinion.... read more

I've build a Quintar, which is the humble fruit of a musical and technical journey I've made over the past couple of years.

In a nutshell; a Quintar is a fretless instrument tuned in fifths, starting from a low C (a half step above a low B of a five string bass) up to a B (tuned the same as a B of a guitar). Although being a simple instrument, it's very versatile. I can play in the bass register, play melodies, even playing chords is possible. Last but not least: being fretless gives the opportunity to play with different tunings such as just, 24-tet or 31-tet.... read more

Today is raining here, so I play around with our Ampsim toolkit.
Well, lets try to emulate the Fuzz Face of J. Hendrix, I said to myself.
First step is to create the schematic of the unit.
Here it is:

Now, create a (python) build script to generate faust source code
with our DK simulator in our Ampsim toolkit.

~~~~~~
import os
from analog import *

schema = "Fuzzface2.sch"
path = "tmp"
module_id = "fuzzface"
mod = os.path.join(path, module_id+".so")... read more

Some people claim about that they didn't like the design of the guitarix rack/units.
I've tried to find designers who like to create new interfaces for us, but, up to now, I'm failed. So, even if I'm not a designer, I try to improve the view of the GUI a bit. Here is with what I'm coming up so far, a single rack-unit, done in cairo.
... read more

Release 0.32.3 is out,

Guitarix is a tube amplifier simulation for
jack (Linux), with an additional mono and a stereo effect rack.
Guitarix includes a large list of plugins[*] and support LADSPA / LV2 plugs as well.

The guitarix engine is designed for LIVE usage, and feature ultra fast, glitch and click free, preset switching and is full Midi (learn)
and remote (Web-interface/ GUI) controllable (bluez / avahi)... read more

Again, a Bug-fix release is out which is aimed to stabilize the experience.

• fix some rcstyle bugs for gtk-2.24.25 and maybe fixed them for KDE as well
• allow load of preset-files witch contain Denormal Numbers (flush to zero)
• add warning when denormal value found in preset file
• if parameter is out of range, set it to the default value
• add missing Icons to glade-gxw
• add wavesharper plugin
• use long int to compare regions size in gx_mlock.cc -> (Gcc: 4.9.2)
  ... read more

Bug-fix release 0.32.1 is out, update is recommended!!
This release fix a long outstanding issue with LADSPA/LV2 plugin load/unload and UI modification.

The Guitarix developers proudly present

Guitarix release 0.32.0

For the uninitiated, Guitarix is a tube amplifier simulation for
jack (Linux), with an additional mono and a stereo effect rack.
Guitarix includes a large list of plugins[*] and support LADSPA / LV2 plugs as well.

The guitarix engine is designed for LIVE usage, and feature ultra fast, glitch and click free, preset switching, full Midi and/or remote controllable (Web UI not included in the distributed tar ball).... read more

Source code and description:
https://github.com/thedrgreenthumb/dsPICAudioEffects

Schematic:
https://github.com/thedrgreenthumb/dsPICAudioEffects/tree/master/doc

Some photos and low quality videos:
http://southaudiolab.com/dspic_page.htm

Creating LV2 bundles from faust source files within guitarix.

You would find the make_lv2_bundle.sh script in guitarix/src/LV2/
Usage is simple, just run

./make_lv2_bundle.sh -p path/to/source/ sourcefile.dsp

to create a LV2 bundle from a faust source file.
The bundle will appear in the guitarix/src/LV2 directory and comes with a included makefile to build the bundle independent, as well it include a wscript to include the bundle into the guitarix build environment.... read more

There is progress in our git repository,

some new LV2 plugs have been added.

GxRoomSimulator

Based at Gardner's room reverberator models,

GxDigitalDelay

port of the guitarix digital delay plugin

GxLiveLooper

port of the guitarix dubber plugin... read more

Within the latest development branch of guitarix, you can load now LV2 plugs into the racks. But there is no GUI support, guitarix will build the internal UI for the plugs in the same way it does for LADSPA and gx plugs. As well, no Extension support is added, only plain DSP plugs be supported.
It extend the large list of usable plugs for the guitarix racks a bunch, and keep the philosophy of click-less, glitch-free, ultra fast preset switching alive. ... read more

The Guitarix developers proudly present

Guitarix release 0.29.0

For the uninitiated, Guitarix is a tube amplifier simulation for
jack, with effect modules and an additional stereo effect chain.

Among with a couple changes in the source and some bug-fixes, this relase comes with a couple of new plugs (gx & LV2), were most of them comes from our new Development Member Fedor Uporov.
The Simulation plugs been developed with the new Analog Circuit Simulation Toolkit by Andreas Degert.... read more

Since some time guitarix include a external program to generate
ImpulseResponse Files, called SpecMatch. As it is widely unknown,
I will introduce it here.

SpecMatch can be used to adapt a sound to Guitarix (a Amp, a Cabinet,
special sound of a Band, . . ), but it can also be used independently
of Guitarix (cf. specmatch --help). Then you will need another
convolver like the LV2 Convolution Reverb
to use the produced IR-file. You can also use just the Python modules
(e.g. from specmatch import SmoothedIR).... read more

The Guitarix source tree contains in tools/ampsim a toolkit for generating effect units using analog simulation in real time. The toolkit itself is in a rather experimental state, but two generated units already found their way into the plugin list: GCB 95 and JCM 800 Preamp.

The crybaby GCB 95 is a circuit with 2 Transistors (the input stage with only acts as a buffer is omitted):... read more

We are happy to get a new development member for the guitarix project, Fedor Uporov introduce himself with some nice new plugs for the guitarix rack. 3 of them he have already committed to the git repository. There is a nice sounding plate reverb:
Based at:
Effect Design Part 1: Reverberator and Other Filters
JON DATTORRO, AES Member
CCRMA, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

and a as well great panorama enhancer:
Based at:
ECE542 T. Tran; Rice University; Spring 2005
"Title: Stereo Enhancement Algorithm"

and a ring modulator.
Additional, on user request, there is now in git a new graphical eq, based on the famous faust-filterbank:

Guitarix now include (mono/stereo) record-plugs, which let you capture your unprocessed input sound and / or as well the processed output. But you can move the record-plugs as well to any place in the rack, to capture were and what you wont.
The UI includes a indicator Led, which will warn you when you run into clipping during recording.
... read more

Dubber is a 4 Channel Loop plugin, which could record, save, load and play *.wav files up to a length of 1,5 min for each channel. Loop files will be saved in plugin presets and can switched seamless by call a rack preset, a plugin preset, or by just press record.

Loops could be trimmed by cut and clip to select the part of the file for looping.
They could play forward/backward with various speed.
The loop output could mixed to the audio stream of the guitarix rack.
As usual in guitarix, all controllers could accessed by Midi CC via Midi learn.