Help with idea

[LaceSensor]

Hi. Ive been away for a long time but wanting to get back into the pedal scene.
Recently I lost my job and had a legal battle to fight about how that went down.
Now I am looking to take a career break and focus on things that make me happy (or happier)

I have a few ideas floating in my mind, resurrecting my old "gigahearts_fx" name and doing some pedals that people might even want to buy. hey, we can dream.

To that end, I want some help with a circuit idea. I think I know the answer but no harm asking smart people than relying on my brain.

I want a circuit that turns "on" in response to a threshold or gate influenced by picking strength. That to me would be an envelope detection circuit. however, what I want it to do is (when "on") divert the signal to another effect, or a send out somewhere else perhaps, rather than influence the Q of a filter as in an autowah.

Therefore, what would I need to tie the envelope circuitry to, in order to do that?
In things like the Lovetone meatball, the pick attack causes an LED to get more bright, but I want to avoid LDRs where possible. Is it something that a basic transistor can do based off the change in voltage coming out of the envelope generator?

Hope this makes sense

Thanks for any help

Ian

[Aleph Null]

I don't know exactly how you'd do that, but I'd start by looking at compressor and noise gate circuits. At the extremes, you'd get silence. I imagine you could use that kind of envelope detection to control an LDR or a mosfet to act as a switch.

[gordo]

Damn, this is over my paygrade but I certainly support your ambition!  Hope this all works out for you.  I hit retirement and then panicked, especially lately with the current direction of the country so am still working but really wanted not to.  Social Security is not a given anymore and the stock market is wrecking havoc on my nest egg so I figure I'll do what I do best till I can't.

[NorthCoast]

Have you looked at the Seamoon Funk Machine?

It's got an envelope detector going into a transistor.

[LaceSensor]

Damn, this is over my paygrade but I certainly support your ambition!  Hope this all works out for you.  I hit retirement and then panicked, especially lately with the current direction of the country so am still working but really wanted not to.  Social Security is not a given anymore and the stock market is wrecking havoc on my nest egg so I figure I'll do what I do best till I can't.

I feel you dude. Im not at retirement age yet sadly (a ripe 41 going on 42 here...)
Whilst I am in the UK, what is going on in the US is definitely rippling hard over here - my stocks are down, heavily, too. Luckily I have time to rebuild I trust, and in the meantime my wife has a very solid career and can support us.

[mauman]

On your original question: Something like an Alesis Micro Gate might be a good starting point.  One of these in a "Y" connection with your main signal chain could open the gate to the second branch of the "Y" at a certain signal level.  It wouldn't suppress your primary signal chain, but the secondary branch would be silent until the signal level threshold is hit, and return to silence when the level falls back below the gate threshold.  Or, you could run a separate signal in/out of the Micro Gate and trigger it with your primary signal source level. As a bonus, they're inexpensive and stereo, the two sides trigger together but signals are independent.
Manual: https://ia802808.us.archive.org/5/items/synthmanual-alesis-micro-series-owners-manual/alesismicroseriesownersmanual.pdf

[NorthCoast]

Are you looking for something that is on/off, or something more gradual?

You could run the output of an envelope detector into a comparator if you want on/off.

[LaceSensor]

It would be cool to try both but the on/off would be ok as long as one could determine where the threshold was set to cause "on" to happen.

Do you have any circuit blocks that might be a starting point?

thanks

[NorthCoast]

Yeah, take a look at this:



Vin would come off of the output of an envelope detector.

You could put a pot/trimmer in series with the R resistors to adjust the threshold (with pin 2 going to the inverting input of the opamp), or even replace one or both resistors with a pot/trimmer.

[LaceSensor]

I did some YouTube watching. Seems like with this, I wouldnt actually need an envelope detector up front? IF it would just be on / off

[NorthCoast]

If I understand what you're trying to do, I think you would need an envelope detector or something similar.

You might want to take a look at Aleph Null's One Chip Pony circuit here:

https://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=35279.msg335658#msg335658

[Aleph Null]

I did some YouTube watching. Seems like with this, I wouldnt actually need an envelope detector up front? IF it would just be on / off

Actually, NorthCoast makes a good point; if you set up a comparator, you could feed the signal you want into it and set the threshold by adjusting the bias voltage. Or you could set the bias voltage high, and use a boost in front of the signal to get it above the threshold. In either case, you'd need to at least partially rectify the signal hitting the comparator.

If you connected the output of the comparator to the base of a BJT, wet signal output to the collector and the emmitter to ground, you could use it as a switch. When the input signal goes high, the comparator output will go low, causing the resistance between the collector and emmitter to increase and allowing the wet signal to pass. When the input signal goes low, the comparator will go high, increasing the voltage at the BJT's base, which will in turn allow current to flow from the collector to the emmitter, lowering the resistance to ground and muting the signal.

...in theory, at least—the devil is in the details!