Harpsichord / Cembalo - FX Pedal

[Feral]

Hi people,

I'm searching for a guitar pedal what sounds like a harpsichord/cembalo. the only thing i found is the ehx b9 organ machine, but this is to far away from a true harpsichord sound and i dont like.
is there somewhere a diy project or does someone have an idea?

best regards
feral

[Zerro]

DIY machine with such a sound? I am affraid, that the best you can get is some acoustic guitar simulator effect for electric guitar. And play with set of filters inside of this. EHX simulators are about microcontrollers, patented systems, and you can hear, that even this approach is not perfect enough.

[matmosphere]

Making a guitar sound like that would be pretty difficult. A keyboard synth would be a much better bet.

My best advice I could give is think about the way you are going to use it. Keep in mind it will sound different while you are practicing at home then it would in the mix with a full band. If you are using it with a full band the B9 may be "close enough".

The only other thing that might work is getting a stereo signal for your guitar and experimenting with using different things on different channels and running two amps. you can do some pretty stunning things that way (that would be buried in a full band mix most of the time) if you try different modulation or octave effects in each chain. You really need two amps though. Maybe some combo of octave up, EQ, ring mod (maybe).

I don't know though because a big part of that sound to me is the attack. It's my understanding that they have virtually no attack sensitivity, so every note is plucked the same way at the same volume every time on every key. because of that pluck instead of a hammer it seems like a guitar should be able to get close. A combination of compression and careful attention to how you are picking and sustaining notes will be a big part of the picture, which makes me think whatever you might be able to do it would probably not work with chords unless you were an expert finger style player. Open strings might also be difficult because of how they ring out, which is not at all similar to the decay on a harpsichord.

Whatever you come up with I'm pretty sure it is going to take a lot of experimentation and refining your playing technique. It's certainly not something you can just get from a pedal. There isn't anything out there that is an easy single pedal solution to "make your guitar sound like some other instrument" that works well or reliably. and if it exists its certainly not around in the DIY world.

Trust me, I've tried. Sometimes you can do it, kind of, but it takes a lot of experimenting and at least a little understanding of how that instrument you intend to emulate works. If you set out to do it you might not get there, but I'm sure you will find some cool sounds on the way, and probably alienate some bandmates in the process 

Or you could just buy a synth...

[matmosphere]

You could also do this, it's got a similar sound although not exactly the same it sounds cool as hell.

[Zerro]

Here is still another aprroach - gui synth interface, together with some sound library. I mean midi controler. Roland, or so, and of course, special pickup for this.

Or that EHX B9 fx, together with some EQ setting after it. This could do good work.

Hapilly, guitar has the same envelope, like harpsichord, because of string instrument. So, EQ filtering of that EHX stomp pedal could be sufficient.

[Bio77]

Maybe I'm crazy but I feel like the EHX's Sitar emulator pedal might get you closer to a harpsichord sound.  You'd need a compressor somewhere to kill dynamics. 

[Aentons]

Check out the EHX Effectology video series by Bill Ruppert. I don't know if there is one specifically on harpsichord, but he shows you how to get lots of different non-traditional guitar sounds from various combinations of pedals.

Here is the one with steel drums:

https://youtu.be/x6mNpmCEsOM

[Zerro]

BTW in those EHX synthe effect set as B9, C9 or SYNTH9 there is no one, to simulate harpsichord. I am not wonder that you don't like it :@) I would work with distortion, octaves and especially EQ settings at first. Maybe MEL9, first item named Orchestra with sharp setting, as a base.

[matmosphere]

Maybe I'm crazy but I feel like the EHX's Sitar emulator pedal might get you closer to a harpsichord sound.  You'd need a compressor somewhere to kill dynamics.

That's a great idea. That danelectro sitar pedal might work as well. I think string attack and compression will be the key overall though.

Check out the EHX Effectology video series by Bill Ruppert. I don't know if there is one specifically on harpsichord, but he shows you how to get lots of different non-traditional guitar sounds from various combinations of pedals.

Here is the one with steel drums:

https://youtu.be/x6mNpmCEsOM

That's super cool, and sort of what I was getting at with my suggestion above. I've seen and heard it done with a signal split to stereo, a lot like what a synth does, but hadn't seen one with just one channel, that is very cool.

[Bio77]

There's a part of the demo where they try a harpsichord type sound.

[Aentons]

Part of the harpsichord sound is that it plucks two unison strings, but one after another, rather than at the same time. You'd need a delay for that set somewhere in the slapback/doubling range. Set to unity volume, super quick repeat, and no feedback. A compressor into a delay set like that and picking close to the bridge, to brighten it up and drop the bass, should get you a long way. An up octave pedal could be used like a draw bar to turn the octave on separately.

It may be possible to doing something like that with an FV1 based diy project.