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So let's say I'm a bass player. Just for the sake of this discussion. Now let's say I have an effect that I only want applied if I hit a high note. Like a chorus on the high note. but I want to leave my low chugs unmuddied. Is there some kind of bypass loop that will allow certain frequencies through? Or a splitter that will do this? I don't even know how one would accomplish this. As it stands, I've been tap dancing but its clumsy at best.

Splitting the frequencies is done by something called an audio crossover. There are for example crossover distortions like the 4Eyes Fuzz. This allows you to set different amounts of gain for high, mid or low notes.

There was also a utility pedal that would allow you to split your signal into different fx loops, but I can't remember how it's called. I thought it was by pigtronix or xotic but after looking at their sites I suppose I was wrong. A friend of mine from Hamburg DIY's these in small runs. I can hook you up if you don't find it anywhere else.

Sweet! So its the same basic principle? I could split my shimmery effects into the high band and they would only trigger when I hit above a certain note? Would it also pick up any sharp attack sounds? I would imagine its not exact.

If it's a crossover it would effect all the high freq. all the time. Even when you play low notes there will be lots of high freq. content.

Hmm. I don't know if what I want is doable then. Oh well! The tap dance continues.

Well, there's the Enveloop thing from Toadworks.
Not exactly as you describe but you could trigger the effect in the loop with your playing dynamics that way if I understood correctly.
If you play the low notes softer and you can set the Enveloop to trigger on the high notes it might work.
An audio crossover coupled to an envelope follower coupled to an effects loop would be the kind of thing that I can imagine working the way you describe.
I think what phanta meant was the Wounded Paw stuff.

This would probably be pretty silly and overcomplicated, but:

You could have a conductive strip on the back of the bass neck.
When your hand touched it, you could have something register that change in conductivity and do something.
For example, when your hand touches that strip, a microcontroller switches your bass to a different output.

Or something stupid and way overcomplicated like that.

I think this could be done as a digital effect. Get a good polyphonic pitch detection system with a stereo codec; route signals based on their fundamental frequency.

The most barbaric way to do something like this IMO would be to run a separate pickup for each string (or in pairs, whatever). Then run it stereo or even quadrophonic.
Of course then you would have to route your bass for all of that.

Hire a midget to dance on the pedals only during the high parts... That's about as legit as a conductive strip with quadrophonic pups...

Maybe I just need to be better at the pedal dance. Getting a bigger board messed me all up. That back row. Ugh.

Y'all and ya'lls "boards"...

I'll line them up in a huge line and run around any day no problem...

There are more boards nowadays cause there are less roadies...

Doesn't the cosmichorus have that momentary mode? It's one less tap.

Chorus was just an example. Although Im getting a shaker vibrato to see if I like vibrato. Does the cosmi do a decent vibrato?

Also. Derailing my own thread. But does anyone make a true random pitch vibrato?

Definitely! The one thing I've heard about the Cosmichorus is that it can't really do subtle. But then again, the people I've heard talking about it aren't big on knob tweaking.