Distortion/Fuzz with Octave Effect

[overdrive]

A couple of questions were raised the other evening & having no experience with these particular combinations of fxs, I need some clarification from the more knowlegeable effects users/builders here in the forum.

(1) While I am somewhat familiar with the sound of a Tycobrahe Ocatvia (fuzz+octave combination effect) is this tone/sound identical (or similar) to running something along the lines of a Green Ringer & a separate fuzz pedal?

(2) Is the frequency adjustability of a Ring Modulator & its more distinct/cleaner-sounding separation of fundamental & octave what differentiates true ring modulation effects from 'pseudo' ring modulators such as the GR which is sometimes referred to as a 'dirty octave effect'?

(3) Other than as a 'noise effect' (in conjunction with hard distortion) or special tonal effect (i.e. an Octavia) what other uses are there for these things? It doesn't seem to be the kind of effect one would want to leave on all the time for the risk of it eventually becoming tiresome, gimmicky or downright irritating.

[Mark Hammer]

1) The Green Ringer IS an octave up fuzz, It just happens to be a bare-bones one that produces fairly robust sideband products, so they named it "Ringer".

2) All octave-up units that use a divide-and-rectify strategy (and that list is very long, including the GR, Tychobrahe, Fender Blender, Foxx Tone Machine, Univox Superfuzz, and many many others) will produce the sideband products that make them sound like ring modulators, when the string is bent. If we all used heavy gauge flatwound strings, none of us would have noticed that side-effect yet. But pick up any one of the aforementioned pedals, bend a B or G upwards, and you are sure to hear a descending note underneath it.

3) The divide-and-rectify strategy is practiced in various ways, but the central element is generally the use of a single-transistor phase-splitter. This is easily recognized by use of identical-value resistors on the emitter and collector. Doing so produces two identical versions of the signal at the emitter and collector; one opposite in phase to the other. If one uses a diode or transistor arrangement to block one half cycle of each of those outputs, and then combines them, you replace what would have been a trough in one of them by a peak from the other, yielding an apparent doubling in frequency. Now, since the signal MUST pass through a diode or equivalent to do this, there will be clipping. This means the octave effect will nearly always be accompanied by distortion. In the case of the Foxx Tone Machine, even the non-octave setting passes through a diode, resulting in clipping.

4) You are certainly correct that attempts to play anything other than single notes will get you audio hash. Since such units simply double whatever they get, and don't particular distinguish fundamentals from harmonics, doubling everything gets you a lot of audio crap. One of the many reasons why they almost always behave better when playing above the 7th fret or so. Up there, the string is starting to behave more like a stiff flatwound, with more fundamental than harmonic content. Most folks will say that rolling off the treble at the guitar, and using the neck pickup helps a lot...although you can get some nifty sitar-like sounds by using the bridge pickup and picking really close to the bridge.

5) Others will have more cogent things to say about ring modulators, but their chief characteristic is that one signal is deliberately modulated by another, Historically, ring modulators employed relatively pure tones, generated by oscillators, such that the sideband products could be easily and clearly heard and identified. Guitars have far more complicated signals, so even if you modulate them with as pure a sine wave as can be derived, modulating something with shifting harmonic content will not sound completely like a true ring modulator from Moog times. As an aside, you can produce a RM-like sound by hiking up the modulating frequency into the audio range in a variety of effects. Phasers, chorus, flangers, tremolo, vibrato, univibe, et al, can all produce RM-like sounds if you bump the modulating frequency from its typical upper limit of maybe 8hz or so to the 30-40hz range or higher. Often, this simply involves changing the value of one capacitor in the LFO circuit to a smaller value. If your phaser has a .1uf cap determining LFO speed range, replace it with a .0022uf-.01uf cap and you'll get RM effects. My old blue MXR Digital Delay has a pull switch on the speed pot that hikes up the speed by a factor of x100.

[Sweetfinger]

It doesn't seem to be the kind of effect one would want to leave on all the time for the risk of it eventually becoming tiresome, gimmicky or downright irritating.

That is the GOSPEL truth for most effects, and is is especially true of this family of octave fuzzes. The best use I've heard live was a friend of mine who is an excellent traditional blues player. He would switch it on during a slow blues and do a "crying" solo with a pedal I made that was essentially a LM 386 driving a transformer based octave. He'd roll off the tone and play higher register to really push the octave effect. He'd only use it a couple times a night so you didn't lose the WOW! factor when it hit you. Quite a stunning effect in that context.