Oscillation and fuzz: a question

[Christophe]

My experience with oscillating fuzz is limited to the fuzz factory and the great Lal oscillo 88. The circuit feeds back into itself the same way every time, whether you’re playing in the low or high register of the guitar. So what happens is that you let a note ring, and as it fades out, the oscillation takes over and does its own thing.
Now, are there pedals that will oscillate differently, depending on what you play? If you hit a power chord on the low strings you get a low-end oscillation, but if you bend a high string you get a different result ? (And I mean without changing the settings in the meantime)
Thanks for your input !

[K2000]

You can change the oscillation pitch by adjusting your guitar's volume (and maybe tone, not sure about that).

[goroth]

It depends on how the oscillation is generated.

The Fuzzhugger Sonic Shroom /Ab Synth (they're pretty much the same) allows you a looooot of control over the oscillation, but it is related to the impedance the pedal sees - not necessarily the tone you play. So you can play the oscillation with your volume knob.

But really, I should not even be answering anything in this thread. You need the Oscillating Wizard himself, Eivind August.

Watch all of these videos.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... W4wDgJqmAe

He'll probably chime in here before soon anyway.

[Schlatte]

Usually oscillation in fuzzes is generated by feedback. This feedback loop can be manipulated by changing the serial feedback impedance or overall impedance to ground - hence, playing with your guitars volume/tone knobs will change the pitch of the oscillation (if there are no buffered effects in front of your oscillating fuzz, that is). Some oscillating fuzzes can be convinced to oscillate at a different frequency by playing certain notes, but will sooner or later (probably sooner) default back to their oscillation frequency set by the impedances.
If you want oscillation with controlled pitch, you would probably be better off looking for some guitar synthesizer, where you can select the output waveform and it still tracks the input frequency.

[Christophe]

But really, I should not even be answering anything in this thread. You need the Oscillating Wizard himself, Eivind August.

Oh yeah, I'm fully aware of Eivind's channel, that's why I bought a Lal 88 in the first place! But I don't recall seeing that kind of pedal...

Some oscillating fuzzes can be convinced to oscillate at a different frequency by playing certain notes, but will sooner or later (probably sooner) default back to their oscillation frequency set by the impedances.

Yes, that's what I figured, the circuit will generate feedback the same way everytime.
The pitch shifting with the volume knob is not exactly what I had in mind. I'm looking for something less predictable, what would vary with what you play. (Something closer to running 2 high gain pedals, creating intense feedback, and you never know what frequency will predominate)

[Eivind August]

Schlatte covered the sciency shit better than I ever could.

You could look at something to run into the expression input of the Super Oscillo? Like an LFO, or some wizardry from Copilot. Maybe some envelope controlled madness. Though it probably wouldn't do exactly what you're looking for.

[lordgalvar]

On top of all the great posts, just some thoughts.

Get a cheap pickup and wire it to a volume knob. Use a momentary switch to switch between your guitar and the pickup. You'd have two states of tuning and if you run like a spring over the pickup, maybe a nice noise maker.

I wired a third pickup above my Jaguar that I could bend and stuff. That'd be another way (or one of those submarine pickups with the switch between them).

You could probably have copilot (or somebody, or diy) build you an envelope controlled switch that switches between two different pots for the exp jack. Like envelope detector on(I guess more like gate)/switch on = fuzztone, envdetect off/switch off is the turned feedback. The envelope detector could be tied to a comparator so that you could run it after the fuzz so that you don't mess with the incoming impedance with buffers and stuff. Wouldn't work if the the guitar signal and oscillations are at nearly the same levels though.

[Dandolin]

Oh, is Copilot still in business? Asking for a friend....

[lordgalvar]

He was posting on Instagram in March. Did a website refresh this year too. Haven't talked to Adam in a while though.

Did you ever get your autodialer/envelope thing, Dandolin?

[John Matrix]

The bassist in my band uses a 3XFX Fatman V2 fuzz. It has a switchable oscillation feature that is pretty nuts and can work two different ways. One mode has a tune-able oscillation tone, a knob sets the frequency. The other mode utilizes an optical sensor on the pedal so you can wave your foot over it and play the oscillation like a theramin. I dont think they make em any more though.

[Dandolin]

He was posting on Instagram in March. Did a website refresh this year too. Haven't talked to Adam in a while though.

Did you ever get your autodialer/envelope thing, Dandolin?

Nope rhymes with mope.

[coldbrightsunlight]

The bassist in my band uses a 3XFX Fatman V2 fuzz. It has a switchable oscillation feature that is pretty nuts and can work two different ways. One mode has a tune-able oscillation tone, a knob sets the frequency. The other mode utilizes an optical sensor on the pedal so you can wave your foot over it and play the oscillation like a theramin. I dont think they make em any more though.

That's cool.

You can do this with a few things, notably the LAL 88, using external expression controllers (and you can get LDR controllers to do this

[Dandolin]

yeah 3xFx had a lot of interesting ideas....

[Christophe]

Get a cheap pickup and wire it to a volume knob. Use a momentary switch to switch between your guitar and the pickup. You'd have two states of tuning and if you run like a spring over the pickup, maybe a nice noise maker.

I wired a third pickup above my Jaguar that I could bend and stuff. That'd be another way (or one of those submarine pickups with the switch between them).

Thanks everyone for great tips.
So actually, it's all about using different tricks to play with impedance, meaning making the best of a circuit that is doing its own thing oscillation-wise. The kind of oscillation I'm thinking about doesn't really exist, as I suspected, mainly because the way oscillation is achieved doesn't lend itself to be influenced by what you play. You're rather playing with an oscillation that pre-exists your playing (hope I'm clear here!).
So I guess if I'm looking for a set-up where what I play can deteriorate in many different ways, I'm better off with traditional feedback...

[coldbrightsunlight]

Yeah probably. Sadly, because feedback can be tricky and not feasible at home at night ahaha. But I think this sort of thing just doesn't exist