Real time 3rds/4ths harmoniser pedal

Jalapeno

sgosden said:

digitech whammy pedal? pretty sure you can have 4th / 5th  set for heel down/ up

This.  Jim Hall even used to use one for harmonising intervals

Caffeine_Vampire

Handsome_Chris said:

Fishboy7 said:

Doesn't Pitchfactor do this?

I believe that I got dissed in the hood for mentioning that excellent piece of gear.

No dissing intended. Just me being all sulky because I really want one and can’t afford one. 

english_bob

Jalapeno said:

sgosden said:

digitech whammy pedal? pretty sure you can have 4th / 5th  set for heel down/ up

This.  Jim Hall even used to use one for harmonising intervals

I suspect Jim Hall was shit hot on his music theory. Try using a whammy pedal to harmonize in thirds, toe down for major thirds, heel down for minor.

Maybe get the swear jar ready first though, yeah?

Jimbro66

UnclePsychosis said:

It would be way easier to just have the harmonised part pre recorded and then trigger it live.

Or even better get an extra guitarist! 

AND NOW! We'd like to welcome to the stage CYRIL who is going to play some FOURTHS for us! Let's hear it for CYRIL!!!! (Rapturous applause).....

Caffeine_Vampire

Jimbro66 said:

UnclePsychosis said:

It would be way easier to just have the harmonised part pre recorded and then trigger it live.

Or even better get an extra guitarist! 

AND NOW! We'd like to welcome to the stage CYRIL who is going to play some FOURTHS for us! Let's hear it for CYRIL!!!! (Rapturous applause).....

I do know a Cyril...

WiresDreamDisasters

english_bob said:

Caffeine_Vampire said:

@english_bob I’ve used a harmoniser before but as soon as the harmonic interval shifts it sounds like the worst bum note you’ve ever played. There’s got to be something out there. 

If you were playing over a sequenced backing track it could have built-in MIDI messages that told the harmonizer to do different things at different times, but unless the harmonizer is being "told"- either by you or by some other pre-programmed source- what to do, it would have to somehow have the capacity to decide for itself.

Not too tricky when it only has one set of rules to follow (Here are the intervals of the major scale. Here is the key. Produce a tone a third above the note I play.), but asking it to decide whether thirds or fourths are more musically appropriate for each given note seems like it would need some serious computing power.

Technically it's probably possible (@WiresDreamDisasters does DSP stuff for a living- he might know better), but I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist yet as a thing you can buy. 

I only dabble in DSP, it's not strictly part of my job. But what you could do is use Music Information Retrieval on a real-time basis to extract a chromagram using STFT's, and that would give you the 'most likely key signature' with which you could use the information to decide whether to quantize to a 3rd or 4th in the detected key signature.

Then you'd build a probability matrix so that 4ths are more likely than 3rds, given the observed patterns in typical pop music where 4th's and 5th's are more common than 2nds, 3rds, and 6ths.

Caffeine_Vampire

WiresDreamDisasters said:

english_bob said:

Caffeine_Vampire said:

@english_bob I’ve used a harmoniser before but as soon as the harmonic interval shifts it sounds like the worst bum note you’ve ever played. There’s got to be something out there. 

If you were playing over a sequenced backing track it could have built-in MIDI messages that told the harmonizer to do different things at different times, but unless the harmonizer is being "told"- either by you or by some other pre-programmed source- what to do, it would have to somehow have the capacity to decide for itself.

Not too tricky when it only has one set of rules to follow (Here are the intervals of the major scale. Here is the key. Produce a tone a third above the note I play.), but asking it to decide whether thirds or fourths are more musically appropriate for each given note seems like it would need some serious computing power.

Technically it's probably possible (@WiresDreamDisasters does DSP stuff for a living- he might know better), but I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist yet as a thing you can buy. 

I only dabble in DSP, it's not strictly part of my job. But what you could do is use Music Information Retrieval on a real-time basis to extract a chromagram using STFT's, and that would give you the 'most likely key signature' with which you could use the information to decide whether to quantize to a 3rd or 4th in the detected key signature.

Then you'd build a probability matrix so that 4ths are more likely than 3rds, given the observed patterns in typical pop music where 4th's and 5th's are more common than 2nds, 3rds, and 6ths.

I think I’ll go with a 2nd guitarist. My IQ just got trounced. 

WiresDreamDisasters

Caffeine_Vampire said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

english_bob said:

Caffeine_Vampire said:

@english_bob I’ve used a harmoniser before but as soon as the harmonic interval shifts it sounds like the worst bum note you’ve ever played. There’s got to be something out there. 

If you were playing over a sequenced backing track it could have built-in MIDI messages that told the harmonizer to do different things at different times, but unless the harmonizer is being "told"- either by you or by some other pre-programmed source- what to do, it would have to somehow have the capacity to decide for itself.

Not too tricky when it only has one set of rules to follow (Here are the intervals of the major scale. Here is the key. Produce a tone a third above the note I play.), but asking it to decide whether thirds or fourths are more musically appropriate for each given note seems like it would need some serious computing power.

Technically it's probably possible (@WiresDreamDisasters does DSP stuff for a living- he might know better), but I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist yet as a thing you can buy. 

I only dabble in DSP, it's not strictly part of my job. But what you could do is use Music Information Retrieval on a real-time basis to extract a chromagram using STFT's, and that would give you the 'most likely key signature' with which you could use the information to decide whether to quantize to a 3rd or 4th in the detected key signature.

Then you'd build a probability matrix so that 4ths are more likely than 3rds, given the observed patterns in typical pop music where 4th's and 5th's are more common than 2nds, 3rds, and 6ths.

I think I’ll go with a 2nd guitarist. My IQ just got trounced. 

STFT = Short Time Fourier Transform
Chromagram = Filtering of frequency data down to 12 core frequency bands that correspond to musical notes.

IE: A chromogram tells you what key a piece of audio is in.

I'm reading this book right now that is blowing my mind:

Caffeine_Vampire

@WiresDreamDisasters ;

Genuinelly appreciate your input but this is way over my head (tempted to buy a copy of the book though). 

Jalapeno

Thin Lizzy's harmony parts were only for a few bars at a time AND generally didn't change key (or major to minor).

EricTheWeary

 Certainly Gary Moore did some Lizzy numbers live without a second guitarist ( and if you go back to the Eric Bell days they only had one guitarist anyway). So a few carefully chosen numbers in a set should be fine. If you want to do nothing but Lizzy songs then it would be a particularly and probably unnecessarily challenging choice to keep it all on one guitar. 

english_bob

WiresDreamDisasters said:

I only dabble in DSP, it's not strictly part of my job. But what you could do is use Music Information Retrieval on a real-time basis to extract a chromagram using STFT's, and that would give you the 'most likely key signature' with which you could use the information to decide whether to quantize to a 3rd or 4th in the detected key signature.

Then you'd build a probability matrix so that 4ths are more likely than 3rds, given the observed patterns in typical pop music where 4th's and 5th's are more common than 2nds, 3rds, and 6ths.

I call bullshit, this is just copied out of a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Caffeine_Vampire

Jalapeno said:

Thin Lizzy's harmony parts were only for a few bars at a time AND generally didn't change key (or major to minor).

The harmony parts are integral to the song though and the intervals often wavered between 3rds & 4ths (ie Emerald). 

WiresDreamDisasters

english_bob said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

I only dabble in DSP, it's not strictly part of my job. But what you could do is use Music Information Retrieval on a real-time basis to extract a chromagram using STFT's, and that would give you the 'most likely key signature' with which you could use the information to decide whether to quantize to a 3rd or 4th in the detected key signature.

Then you'd build a probability matrix so that 4ths are more likely than 3rds, given the observed patterns in typical pop music where 4th's and 5th's are more common than 2nds, 3rds, and 6ths.

I call bullshit, this is just copied out of a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Ok.

Caffeine_Vampire

@WiresDreamDisasters ;

May I enquire where you found the book? I’ve just had s look on eBay and it ain’t cheap. 

WiresDreamDisasters

Caffeine_Vampire said:

@WiresDreamDisasters ;

May I enquire where you found the book? I’ve just had s look on eBay and it ain’t cheap. 

Got it on Amazon. It's not a cheap book.

Caffeine_Vampire

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Caffeine_Vampire said:

@WiresDreamDisasters ;

May I enquire where you found the book? I’ve just had s look on eBay and it ain’t cheap. 

Got it on Amazon. It's not a cheap book.

Thanks. It looks worthy of a read. I’ll keep a look out for a cheap copy. 

Jimbro66

Twenty years ago I was using a Digitech 2112 rack-mount processor with Control 1 foot controller. Apart from a zillion other programmable effects and drives it had a very good intelligent harmoniser. It was possible to assign different harmony intervals by key to different switchable banks so, using the foot controller, it was possible to change harmonies or add harmonies mid solo - as long as the required harmony changes were not in impractically fast passages.

I've always really liked Lizzy but don't remember ever performing any of their material. Maybe I'll dig out the 2112 (which I still have somewhere) to see how the harmony banks cope with a song like Emerald. That could be fun (or not )

Caffeine_Vampire

@Jimbro66 I’m going to give the Digitech Whammy a try. Let me know how you get on?

Jimbro66

Caffeine_Vampire said:

@Jimbro66 I’m going to give the Digitech Whammy a try. Let me know how you get on?

Will do