New breed of guitar tone processor

[Unknown soldier]

Well, I guess it is cool for a few things here and there, but honestly as a guitar player myself the focus is always on great tube tone, dynamics, expressiveness, etc. All these FX type sounds don't provide that "real" tube sound that is lacking in all digital guitar sounds.

I'm certainly not demeaning your product - its cool and has its place. If the cost is reasonable than it might be a nice addition to a rig.

What I'd like to see is some sort of parallel mix feature where the sound can be mixed in with the original signal, so it is used as an FX processor. Going directly into it and having the signal converted means its not going to give you guitar tone like we are all used to.

As it is, the market would be more for beginning/intermediate guitarists.

So what is the price you envision selling it at?

[Boogaju]

nice and interesting sounds. Good luck with your project

[Rich Pell]

Love to try that..great idea ! Good luck getting it off the ground so we can buy it !!

[elambo]

I'm also a guitar player, one with a pathological passion for great tone, and I'd be very much into something like this. It's obviously not meant to replace tube amps, it's a "tone processor" just as the title says, a tool for more radical tone development and shaping.

Good luck with the project! I hope you find what you need to get this going.

[Muser]

be nice to see how the programming works and just how far that unit can be taken. why not speak to adrian belew and see if he'd be interested in seeing what he can get out of it. He's often regarded as Mr cutting edge. you need demos of sounds which make people go wow!!

the idea for mixing in a good dry signal is a good one. often subtle mixing in of synthetic body can be very handy. in that respect someone like Lindsey Buckingham would likely be interested. that way he won't have to rely on midi enabled guitars to mix in his supporting sounds. also rick turner of heartbreakerguitars.com who makes a lot of Buckinghams guitars would also be useful to let know about the unit imo.

sounds promising. you need a killer demo and also to contact innovators like the above. those are my impressions at any rate. hope all goes well for you.

[ToneZzar]

edit -- added a little more info about the version of SHARC being used

[ToneZzar]

Hey Folks,

Thanks for the encouraging comments. I also appreciate the suggestions.

Regarding the wet/dry mix suggestion, the reason many digital processors don't do this is because digital processing always introduces some delay, even if it's mostly just from the converters. Mixing the processed signal with the dry analog signal can introduce a comb-filter effect that will really mess with your tone. On the other hand, it will work just fine with time-based effects like reverb and delays, so the suggestion is definitely valid. Unknown soldier's tone concern would probably be better served by having a wet/dry mix control on the amp's FX loop return. Guitar straight to your amp's tube preamp and still be able to get mixed-in effects – nice. Carvin has an amp that does just that on a second FX loop. Subject for another thread perhaps?

As to price, here's my non-answer. Price will be determined by the manufacturer and its level of resources. How many you build at a time and where you build them has a huge impact on price. For comparison, the hardware requirements for this unit are similar to that of the POD HD Pro.

[matt thomas]

well I'm impressed. I think it's strengths are in some of the more unusual sounds.

If I were you I would try to get one in the hands of a few well known guitarists who might use something as unusual as this. The Edge, Trent Reznor, Matt Bellamy, etc.

matt