I know that Disting can do this, but the results I've heard seem a little lacking.
I found this module from Sonicsmith.
https://sonicsmith.com/products/convertor-e1/
Looks pretty compelling and a little spendy at $390. However I suppose it does 3 different things - mic pre, envelope follower, and VCO. Thoughts?
Any other good options here?
Damn, that's spendy...but given that high-quality pitch-to-voltage conversion has been a "holy grail" of sorts in synthesizers, it's not surprising. The big problem lies in tracking...for example, with a lot of synth sounds, there's some significant manipulation of that sound's fundamental and harmonics. What eventually results, if one harmonic really pops out, is mistracking. Sometimes this is interesting...but most of the time, it's an annoyance.
It's also worth noting that trying to adequately implement p-2-v tracking is one of the main factors that wrecked ARP c. 1980. Look up their Avatar guitar synth for a dive into music business HORROR. Also, Korg's tried this twice...once with the MS-20's input section, and the other was the X-911 guitar synth. Neither worked as advertised on that one point, but they're great for glitchy chaos on unpitched signals such as electronic percussion; this is, in fact, much of the secret behind Aphex Twin's ear-bending drum patterns, as he used (and probably still does use) drum machines through an MS-20 and some "creative" settings to generate those distortional and damaged drum bonks and snarls. This is a lot of the reason why the reissue still has that section.
Yes it is. I'm going to inquire what it does better other than an internal VCO than the competition. At 6HP it is nice and compact though.
Very interesting about the history of pitch tracking and synths in terms of p-2-v tracking. I'd think if you prefilter the instrument you can cut out the interfering harmonics coming into the envelope follower. However, if you wanted to mix acoustic and electronic, I'm not sure this is beneficial as you're taking away character of the instrument.
I think I'll muck with the Disting first before diving in. To make this work I'd think I'd need a mic pre first to get it up to a decent level.
I received my copy some days ago and had time to dive in a bit.
I'm a trumpet player and I can say that the hardware rocks. It's absolutely self-sufficient. No need of preamp-prefiltering. Be aware that with non-monophonic instrument like guitars, you have to play very clean to avoid any surprise. But with monophonic instrument and voice, it works really great. The firmware still needs a lot of work, but it's very promising.
Good to know your observations. Sounds like if I was playing single notes it'd work fine. A chromatic harmonica should work well then. What about bending notes like on a diatonic harmonica? I'm assuming with chords things fall apart or get more difficult.
Good to know your observations. Sounds like if I was playing single notes it'd work fine. A chromatic harmonica should work well then. What about bending notes like on a diatonic harmonica? I'm assuming with chords things fall apart or get more difficult.
-- ScottyDizzle
Bending works perfectly.
Be aware that even if playing through this module with a mic and speakers I front doesn't really produce audio feedback, the pitch tracking will completely get lost. Personally I'm using a pickup mic inside a mute for my trumpet. For harmonica, you'll have to play with headphone for good results. Or with speaker set with a gentle volume.
Just got my module a few days back.
First impressions - it's usable with some glitchiness with a harmonica. Haven't tried anything else. Looking at the youtube video with guitar seems like playback is perfect. It's not quite that. Could be my settings or lack there of. The youtube video on Sonicsmith's website and the manual are quite different. Seems there are a bunch of missing features on the current firmware - .9. Bending works fine. I think the whole thing is best when mixing dry vs. wet. Wet would be a bit too glitchy for my liking. It has a charm tho.
I think there a bunch of improvements that need to be made or better communication. Maybe make a new video of just the current feature set. And take the demo video down. For example, the video has features that don't seem to exist at all. The manual seems to match what is available. Where are the extra compression settings, changing VCO type by knob, or the fact that you need the Q button turned on for pitch to track correctly? Also, the settings to manually change gain don't seem to work. I just do auto gain for levels and that works fine.
Hopefully there is a way to better tune this module in the future to remove glitches or make them less likely. Or maybe I'm doing something wrong. Is it worth $390? Not sure. The jury is not out yet.
Nope, you're not doing something wrong. Fact is, pitch tracking has been a sticky point about synth + acoustic instrument setups since one of them played a big part in blowing up ARP in the late 1970s (ie: the Avatar). And the problem is that whenever you attempt to use this, you either have to have a no-foolin' monophonic instrument, or you're going to get glitches of varying sorts. With guitar, you have to cut the flash WAAAAAAY back...hit a second note with the first one sounding, have excess resonance from the other strings, and so on, and you've got glitches galore. The ONLY fix that ever came along that worked are Roland's hex pickup-based synths, since each string gets its own pickup and there also appears to be some circuit-fu that keeps the glitchy issues under control.
HOWEVER...there are reasons to want to use those glitches, and that starts with one Mr. Richard D. James, aka Aphex Twin. He started using the Korg MS-20's "input" section, which contains a pitch tracker, bandpass filter, envelope follower, etc for processing things it literally CANNOT process...like a TR-606. With some twiddling about, the end-result comes out to those squealy, clattery electronic patterns that characterize his early work...and it all comes down to "creative misuse", something I like to call "abuse potential" when it pops up. The MS-20's abuse potential is pretty much off the charts. So if you're getting glitches with the Sonicsmith converter, well...can you use the glitches musically? You might be about to stumble across a whole new sound...
