A pedal to rival the POG2's attack capabilities

F

ferdinandstrat

Member
I've noticed that there arent many existing pedals that can remove the attack as well as the POG2, and I dont want to buy one just for that. Is it possible to make such a thing?
 
Sounds like you want a good compressor pedal. Plenty of DIY choices here and on other sites. I have not built the Constrictor pedal here, but you may want to check it out.
 
The idea is to remove the sound of the pick attack completely, like a Slow Gear. Thing is the Slow Gear's response to attack is....slow. The POG on the other hand:

 
Cool vid. Interesting that the guitarist is using the POG and a compressor. It would be interesting to see what the POG2 is doing when the attack is dialed down. Most effects like the Slow Gear only work on the front part of a new sound, which is why it shuts down the picked part. But then you have to stop the sound to reset the gate that opens slowly. It requires a bit of practice to use them to give you a good bowed effect. Compressors just remove the dynamic range from the sound wave, and in combination with a boost give you a very long sustained sound.
 
zgrav said:
Cool vid. Interesting that the guitarist is using the POG and a compressor. It would be interesting to see what the POG2 is doing when the attack is dialed down. Most effects like the Slow Gear only work on the front part of a new sound, which is why it shuts down the picked part. But then you have to stop the sound to reset the gate that opens slowly. It requires a bit of practice to use them to give you a good bowed effect. Compressors just remove the dynamic range from the sound wave, and in combination with a boost give you a very long sustained sound.
Click to expand...

That's the deal, what I want is an effect that can do the POG attack thing.....without the size or the price.
 
Have you tried a Slow Gear? Does it have an adjustment for the attack? My guess is that most people keep the attack dialed way down on that effect to get the bowed sound, but you should be able to set it to open faster too.

Other than that I would experiment with a good compressor that used an opto-coupler. If you squish it enough to wipe out your dynamic range it masks most of the attack for all of the playing, not just the part that would be tamped down by a variable noise gate.
 
zgrav said:
Have you tried a Slow Gear? Does it have an adjustment for the attack? My guess is that most people keep the attack dialed way down on that effect to get the bowed sound, but you should be able to set it to open faster too.

Other than that I would experiment with a good compressor that used an opto-coupler. If you squish it enough to wipe out your dynamic range it masks most of the attack for all of the playing, not just the part that would be tamped down by a variable noise gate.
Click to expand...

Believe me I know it doesnt react as fast.

What optical comp would you suggest?
 
a maxed out compression pedal creates an impression that the volume from the guitar is nearly constant. very little perceived difference in volume hitting one string lightly or a full power chord. and in exchange for sacrificing dynamics you get a sound that seems to sustain for a very long time. a fuzz pedal does something very similar when it is mazed out except that the sound is also very distorted. I think the effect you want is probably a combination of a fast noise gate (do a google search for an old DIY pedal kit from PAIA named "The Gator") and an optical compression pedal, but most of the sound in that combination is probably due to the compression.
 
zgrav said:
a maxed out compression pedal creates an impression that the volume from the guitar is nearly constant. very little perceived difference in volume hitting one string lightly or a full power chord. and in exchange for sacrificing dynamics you get a sound that seems to sustain for a very long time. a fuzz pedal does something very similar when it is mazed out except that the sound is also very distorted. I think the effect you want is probably a combination of a fast noise gate (do a google search for an old DIY pedal kit from PAIA named "The Gator") and an optical compression pedal, but most of the sound in that combination is probably due to the compression.
Click to expand...

Already built the Gator doesnt even come close in terms of speed.
 
The gate on the gator is just a function of the size of the capacitor that is charged through the pot to open gate. So you could experiment with those factors. Again though, I think high compression is much more a factor in what you may be looking for. If you already have a Gator, build a compressor and give it a try, and try using both of them together.

The thing that I think is most limiting about the Gator and other gate effects is that they only work where there is an interruption in the sound that lets the capacitor discharge that is otherwise keeping the gate open. So you only get that effect when you mute the strings before playing something new. I don't think anything other than compression will affect the dynamics in something while it is being played, but perhaps the POG2 is doing something new, or something with a gate that is much quicker than the Gator. LMK if you find anything that provides details on how the POG2 works.
 
zgrav said:
The gate on the gator is just a function of the size of the capacitor that is charged through the pot to open gate. So you could experiment with those factors. Again though, I think high compression is much more a factor in what you may be looking for. If you already have a Gator, build a compressor and give it a try, and try using both of them together.

The thing that I think is most limiting about the Gator and other gate effects is that they only work where there is an interruption in the sound that lets the capacitor discharge that is otherwise keeping the gate open. So you only get that effect when you mute the strings before playing something new. I don't think anything other than compression will affect the dynamics in something while it is being played, but perhaps the POG2 is doing something new, or something with a gate that is much quicker than the Gator. LMK if you find anything that provides details on how the POG2 works.
Click to expand...

So basically build an optical compressor and put it before the Gator, use the gator as a gate and see what happens? Worth a shot.

I dont know what the POG2 does, but I think its close to the EHX Attack Decay pedal.
 
I would probably put the gate first and then the compressor, but try it both ways and see. And then see if how it sounds putting those two pedals in different parts of your setup.
 
looks like a difficult build. note the text in the linked document about how the effect works, as well as comments about setting it up correctly, playing techniques that work with it, etc.
 
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