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Andy Pillidge
Приєднався 31 сер 2008
Slightly Eco-maniac, but not quite ready to superglue myself to an aeroplane.
Learning Banjo - Progress Report
Learning something new is a good thing to do, they tell me. I've decided to learn to play the banjo. This is a progress report. It is a lot of fun!
It is quite possible to learn new skills later in life. You have more time to practice. It just takes a bit of motivation.
It is quite possible to learn new skills later in life. You have more time to practice. It just takes a bit of motivation.
Переглядів: 30
Відео
Digitising LPs to Audacity using a BR 800
Переглядів 4088 місяців тому
The BR-800 is a digital recording studio, but it makes a great Digital Audio Interface. Audacity is a great way record LPs. There are many UA-cam tutorials about this. Look at these, for example... ua-cam.com/video/MRrT3Q67YX0/v-deo.htmlsi=00iPuw_Jl-PWXsg9 ua-cam.com/video/oDbNIieMYdA/v-deo.htmlsi=9w3K5PBVMS_vRF40 ua-cam.com/video/oDbNIieMYdA/v-deo.htmlsi=B0jLzopSY6ZZbXiR ua-cam.com/video/krWIv...
Home Made Capacitor!
Переглядів 508 місяців тому
The input capacitor in a guitar pedal distortion circuit has a big effect on the sound created. Just for fun I wondered if I could make a capacitor and incorporate it into the circuit. Yes, I can! It works, but is not very convenient. It does sound quite good, surprisingly, apart from the fact that it picks up radio interference.
Distortion Circuit Experiments
Переглядів 3288 місяців тому
What happens when we swap the components on a distortion circuit? I have no idea, but I am trying to understand what each component is doing to the sound, and why. Ultimately, we might be able to design the sound we want. I have loads of components to try in other pedal circuits. They are very cheap.
Guitar Distortion Pedal on a Breadboard
Переглядів 1049 місяців тому
It works! Thanks to Tone Charm Audio for the tutorial. This is a fun bit of learning, and it sounds quite good. The outro was recorded through my mess of resistors and capacitors. Now that I have a load of different components I will be able to swap bits in and out and see what does what. It is unlikely that I will ever make a pedal that is any use, but it is interesting to discover how they wo...
Making a Guitar Pedal - Part 2
Переглядів 1279 місяців тому
Almost there! I found out how to use a breadboard and started to assemble the components, but I still need some capacitors in other sizes. I am following Tone Charm Audio's excellent video. A distortion pedal should be an easy one to start with.
New banjo!
Переглядів 1579 місяців тому
I got a banjo! It is good to learn new things, especially as you get older. For some crazy reason I decided to get one made specially for me by Phil Davidson in the Forest of Dean, and I LOVE it! www.davidsoninstruments.com This is the honeybee banjo, and now I guess I have to learn to play it properly. How hard can it be for someone who can already fingerpick an acoustic guitar? Well, not too ...
Pedal Circuit Part 1
Переглядів 1369 місяців тому
How difficult can it be for a complete novice to make a guitar pedal? This is part one; acquiring the components and tools, working out how they work and what they do. In part 2 I hope to make a simple distortion pedal, but I have already discovered a few things.
Andy Makes A Pedal
Переглядів 519 місяців тому
Spoiler - I don't really make a pedal that does anything! Just being silly. Don't watch if you were hoping to find out how to make a guitar pedal. One day I might, though. Need to do a bit more research first.
Synthesising a String Sound
Переглядів 319 місяців тому
This is my second attempt to find out why a guitar string sounds like a guitar string. I try to make the sound of a guitar string in a computer program and discover some very strange things about the frequencies that it contains. Spoiler: I failed to get sufficiently close, but learned some interesting stuff on the way.
Drumming Pattern Maker Progress Update
Переглядів 789 місяців тому
The project to make a drumming pattern creator and editor is progressing. In this video I will make a single simple pattern and export it to the BR-800. There are many remaining challenges. The biggest one is how to hear what you are creating as you are creating it. I think I know how I am going to do it. The process I use on the guitar chord diagram web page assembles the chord in the backgrou...
Interactive Chord Diagram - Why?
Переглядів 7110 місяців тому
Quick answer - just to see if it can be done. It can. Work in progress. Every WAV file chord that gets created is currently saved on the website. These need to be removed after use. I think the diagram needs a label for the chord name. You might want to save your chords, and call them up for use later. This is all part of a learning journey on a different project about drum kits, for which merg...
Chord Diagram Generator - Work In Progress
Переглядів 8710 місяців тому
This is a very geeky video. Please do not feel compelled to watch it. For no good reason I decided to make an online chord diagram generator. This is silly because there is already a very good one made by a chap called Brendan, here: swords.id.au/guitarchords/ You might want to make little chord diagrams to embed in your song documents. Brendan's solution is very good. Mine is a little differen...
NOT a Micro BR shootout
Переглядів 12510 місяців тому
The plan was to make a comparison video between the 4-track digital Micro BR (1st generation) recorder, and the 8-track BR-800. It is a bit pointless because the BR-800 wins in every way except two; portability and the MP3 mode. I could not record the Micro BR to my laptop, so connected it through the BR-800 and came across an interesting tone. That distracted me for the original mission. Now I...
Making a Guitar Pickup
Переглядів 25210 місяців тому
How difficult can it be? Actually, not difficult. The quality of the end result is not great, but surprisingly it actually worked! There might be some things that I could do better, but I think I would never be able to make a pickup worth actually using. Interesting experiment though.
Importing Music Files to Boss BR-800
Переглядів 51811 місяців тому
Importing Music Files to Boss BR-800
Bass Effects on BOSS Digital Recorders
Переглядів 11211 місяців тому
Bass Effects on BOSS Digital Recorders
Travis Picking is nothing to do with Travis Perkins
Переглядів 140Рік тому
Travis Picking is nothing to do with Travis Perkins
Thank you Andy very useful
Greetings from the states. Quite enjoy your videos. As for the subject matter here, I think the r&d for the vs (roland) and br (boss) recorders went into the impressive gigcaster series which have a lot of what is discussed here, for the exceptions of battery operation and pc dawless arranging and editing. They have an impressive swiss army knife feature set, but alas, I may miss the aforementioned attributes.
I can't get it to work....
I don't think you have missed much! Thanks for the comment. Andy
@@AndyInTheUK hahaha So,I got it to kinda work,but only controls the faders in Reaper DAW That said I have figured out how to use it as my MIC interface. I enjoy your videos.
Sounds like you are coming along on the Banjo! I got a BR800 awhile ago, and have been watching some of your videos. They are helpful to a BR800 novice like me. Thank you. I am sorry that your wife is so ill. A very difficult time in life. I pray for comfort, peace, and improvement. Take care.
Thank you sid! I will get back to making more videos soon.
Was tweaking an Amp/Cab effect this past weekend. So many options to sculpt your tone on the BR-800 (and I assume other BR series). It would be cool to have a computer app like the Rhythm Compose to tweak on one screen and load. Again, not big deal. But the options to tweak are many.
This device is absolute rubbish believe me. Way too tedious to work with a computer 😣
Does it work with one amp?
Well yes it would but the BR-800 output is stereo, and most amplifier input jack sockets are mono. If you have 3.5mm line in iPod socket that would be fine, except you don't get the stereo sound from one amplifier.
Very cool! Funny open!!!
i go to youtube to learn how to setup the effects for Brothers in arms. all i get is a lot of smoking mirrors....
Andy. Is there a possibility to use the 4 inputs at the backside and the guitar input at the frontside together so you have 5 inputs ?
I don't know, but I think probably not. But that raises an interesting question - the four inputs at the back each have TWO sockets, so I wonder if i could record TWO instruments on each of the four inputs, making 8. I'm going to try that now.
Well blow me down! That works. A guitar into the input 3 jack socket AND a microphone into the input 3 XLR, on 4-input, and they are both recorded. Of course you can't balance up the two volumes on the same input, but guitars do have a volume knob. So you can have 8 simultaneous inputs. That's crazy! I feel that this needs a silly video.
i want them to come out with more things i have the br600. i wish they made a modern battery efficient long lasting version
Thanks for posting. Now I learned a lot more about rhythms
Very good tips. Some are funny aswell. You are a very creative person. Thanks for posting these hacks.
Nice video. Thanks, Andy. But how come the Micro BR does not fit the bill anmymore?
Hi. Sorry for the slow reply. The main problem with the Micro BR is that I keep getting "drive busy" errors. Also it only has four tracks, or two stereo tracks, and I can't use it as an audio interface to the computer via USB. There is one thing it does better than the BR-800. It can play MP3s at any speed, but I use Capo on the computer for that kind of practice now.
Thanks for the pointers. I bought a used BR 4 a month ago and I absolutely love it. I found out the Kingston 1GB SD cards work best. One recommendation is to load your MP3 files into Audacity (free) software and normalize them to -6dB so you can get a better volume mix of guitar-keys to MP3 in your headphones. I was thinking of trying a used BR4 to decide if I wanted to buy a new BR80 but now I don't think the extra complexity is worth it. The exported recordings also import perfectly into Cubase. I will try it directly into my DAW next based on your pointers because I love the built-in guitar presets and no latency is nice. Good battery life on rechargeable batteries. :)
I WOULD LOVE THAT WISH YOU WERE HERE ALBUM ANDY ! lol
I just digitised that one. It's a great album. Then I did Ummagumma. What a load of rubbish that one is! How could Pink Floyd make that, and WHY did I buy it?
Does the satisfying swish pop of listening to an lp carry over?
Unfortunately yes. LOL. The digital recording sounds pretty much identical to the sound of the record, clicks and crackles included.
It's shame they never made a larger version to compete against zoom r 24 .
neat
Always learning with Andy!
The sound quality is great! Using Effect, Normalise in Audacity makes a big difference. I haven't bothered to remove noise but Audacity can do that too.
Are there any limits to what the mighty BR800 can do? 😮😂
My old br8 was giving me troubles with zip drives so I ended up giving the lot away, I was really looking forward to purchasing one of these only to find out they are discontinued!!! So ended up with a zoom r20 instead. I miss the old boss features like punch in and out and stuff. But I only use the zoom to put ideas down and import tracks onto the DAW these days.
Don't electrocute yourself. LOL. Dig it.
Nearly did!
“I can see your name in lights, and I can see the queue” at the guitar shop. Pillidge Pedals are going to be the next big thing 😂
You are far too kind Bert! What type of pedal should I try next to add to the product line?
@@AndyInTheUK I think a sweeping phaser should be next in the lineup. Since you’re on a roll. 😆🤣
4:30 the cap you’re talking about AC couples the filtered input signal to the base of the NPN. It forms a high-pass filter with the impedance of the base-emitter junction (which itself looks mostly like a diode in series with a resistor). So long as the capacitance is adequately large, the filter will pass everything of interest through to the base unimpeded. Once the pass band is within around -2dB @ 80 hz a larger capacitance will make virtually no difference. Conversely, smaller capacitors values will indeed start to attenuate the low-end of the signal.
Wow! How do you know this? I am finding out by experiments.
@@AndyInTheUK I’m an electrical engineer (professional nerd)
@@jacobfaseler5311 Well thank you! Now I can try a few capacitors and see if it does what I now expect, after your help.
1:25 the resistor forms a 1st order LPF with the cap to ground - the output of which is AC coupled to the base of the npn. The perceived lack of difference in tone is likely because A) all the values you tried still result in a filter with little effect below 20kHz B) the values used did have some effect in the audible range, but the gain stage is adequately saturated such that it still produces similar output from a signal with reduced harmonic content. I lean towards A on account of the filter being the first thing in the filter path - it was likely originally added to prevent oscillations that could occur well above audio.
Seems like the capacitor might be acting like a High pass filter (Just a guess). Much the same way a cap is used to restrict frequencies going to a tweeter inside a speaker system. Maybe trying different types/brands of caps could be fun to mess with. Also pairing the cap with an audio inductor (coil) to change the slope of the bass reduction. In a speaker crossover, a capacitor on its own will roll off 6db / octave past the cut off frequency. Adding an inductor will increase that to 12db / octave. All just a bit of a stab in the dark but could be useful if you want to make it more 'mid' forward. Love these type of projects and looking forward to where you take this!
Yes I think so, but I want to know why. Ideally I would like to be able to predict what I would need to change to make the kind of sound I want. This is all trial and error at the moment.
Cool. A++
You could use potentiometers to change the resistance without having to plug the parts around
Yes indeed I could! If I find which resistors I can vary I will do that. I have lots of 100k ones now. Thanks!
Pot are great, but if you want to know the value of the resistor without taking it out of circuit (useful for developing intuition), a decade resistance box would be your jam.
Has anyone tried plugging the Boss 800 ‘ Line-Out ‘ to the ‘Line-in ‘ on a Digital Interface ?
No idea, but I have plugged the Line Out from the 1st generation Micro BR into the Line In on the BR-800. It works perfectly.
It's brilliant! Special special.
Hi Kirsty. Will be seeing your Mum's banjo soon.
I love Tone Charm too! I'm immensely enjoying this pedal making journey!
Thank you. I have ordered some more bits, including an "Op Amp." Mean anything to you? Me neither. We will see what it does in a little while.
Shout outs to tiny starter kits. I did the same thing! I too was also shocked at how tiny the breadboard was.
Cheers from Canada bud! Subscribed. I randomly found this video -- I am instantly intrigued -- and I have so many questions that I can't wait to find out the answers to. Crank the Stank!!
Canada! Will be chatting to my mate in Vancouver tomorrow (UK) evening (Canada morning.)
Use a pedal
Looking forward to the results!!
We have the first result in the other video. It's not bad is it? Not really good or useful, but as a proof of concept it is great! There are loads of videos on making other types of pedals - boost, fuzz, EQ etc. I might need some more components but they are very small and cheap.
I'd have loved your pedal in the early 60's when I started playing, trying for the Kinks sound, just shows how things have moved on. I look forward to your experiments Andy!
So much fun when "it works"! My knowledge of good and bad tone is lacking, but I think that sounds cool.
Dig it. My other hobby is messing with vintage computers. I am a complete rookie and horrible (but improving) with soldering and desoldering. I have had successes and failures but always fun. Yes, order parts is overwhelming. One success is building an expansion card for my Amstrad PPC640 so it can boot MS-DOS 5.0 off an external Compact Flash Card. Currently, building 8K RAM chips for my NEC PC-8201A. Fingers crossed.
Wow! Are you serious? That's amazing. Andy
@@AndyInTheUK Too kind. Ordered the board from inventor and soldered on parts. I didn't design the board.
i am having trouble getting my usb to connect to my laptop and I have tried several things to get it to work, I am using windows 11
Hi! You need the USB driver supplied by Roland/Boss. Did you download and install that? I don't really know much about Windows 11, but it might need you to supply the USB device with some sort of permissions in some settings. Is there somewhere in Windows where you can see installed USB devices? Can anyone else with Windows help? Anyway, when the driver is running and the USB cable is attached you go to USB on the BR-800 menu. It may take a little while to connect. The driver seems quite slow to start up.
Absolutely stunning Andy, look forward to seeing you progress.
Thanks Steve.
A work of art that you can play a tune on. Perfect 🤩
Thanks Bert. Now I have an obligation to learn to play it properly.
Love it! Nice instrument!
Thank you. It brings me joy!
Thanks for the upload!! You need S M Z E U S.
Love your videos mate!
Thanks Mark. Hope all is well with you. Will be in touch soon.
Brill! Can't wait to see what you come up with.
I can't wait either. 🙂 I have enough components to make loads of pedals, but I doubt any with be actually useful.
Love the banjo and I will have fun following your pedal phase.
The banjo is a whole new challenge! You don't have to like it. My kids don't.
@@AndyInTheUK Still love it. Have fun and bring us along.
I think that’s possibly the coolest pedal I’ve ever seen or heard 😮
Ha ha! It wasn't actually that easy to connect the wires straight across in the box. I'm amazed there was no interference with the long cables and the bundle of wires in there. Thanks for the comment! 😀
Ha! Checked my calendar. Thought it was April 1st!
I did think about keeping it for April 1st, but it might actually turn into a real circuit one day. Just found a video by wampler pedals that makes it look quite easy! Thanks!
This looks fun as hell