The controls are as follows (left to right, top to bottom):
Snuffle - Input signals are amplified, this acts like a compressor/limiter for the input
Grunt - This is the amount of distortion applied to the input signal
Snort - This is basically a gain/volume for the distorted signal part of the output
Snout - This is a mix/volume for the feedback, at minimum there wonât be much feedback, at maximum you will likely get a massive howl
Squeal - This is the target feedback frequency, the input is volt/octave, it really depends on the input signal as to what effect this has, sometimes it can enhance the frequency, sometimes it can act a bit like a filter
Pig Power! - This is just an active switch to turn the distortion & feedback on and off
yellow port - this is the signal input
Oink! magenta port - this is the distorted signal + feedback output
Neat Trotters switch & LED - This is basically a clip feature that will limit the output to 10volts peak to peak, the LED will be red when clipping is happening, note that when on this is still applied even when distortion and feedback are not active
The module is slightly CPU heavy, in my tests it hovers around the 1-2% range.
It is not polyphonic.
The pig logo is actually separate to the panel because I was planning to animate it based on the parameters and distortion amount, but while I was implementing that it seemed to take up alot of CPU just for some visual flair, so I removed it.
Iâll try to get a demo video up on my YouTube channel soon.
Probably a few bugs too, if you see anything, of course you can report it here, or over on the github, thank you
As far as I know you are doing the right thing, and I donât know of any reasons why modules would not show up. So I guess this is the old library allowlist issue, there are numerous threads about this from various users that update a plugin and canât see new modules, I believe the fix is to go to the library and remove all my modules, then resubscribe to the whole plugin, and then drop in the beta04 as before.
Damn⊠This seems broken. Not your module, but the library. Iâve spent hours, maybe not tearing my hair out but possibly pulling patchy-beard hairs, trying to figure out why my own inchoate modules donât show in the library for my own testingâŠ
If you have the BaconMusic collection you can load a module called âlintbuddyâ and then set the test to âwhitelistâ and it will show you the set of collections where your subscription falls afoul of this particular design choice
How would this work with actual guitar? I might have to try it, seeing as I have a penchant for guitar effects patches in VCV! I made a feedback patch recently using the Surge filter in comb filter mode with a loop back via a mixer, and tuned the cutoff freq with a quantiser. You canât exactly control which notes feed back, itâs basically picking a random note from a scale but it tends towards the right note because the guitar signal is feeding through as well. Having typed that Iâm not even sure it makes sense but anyway, ultimately I decided it was more fun to play than it would be for anyone else to listen to, and I didnât record it.
This pig thing looks interesting though!
Iâve not got it turned on in the above snapshot, but, I get my guitar DI from my Focusrite 18i20 from the Audio 16
I send this to the NSYTHI Gran Tunismo so I can make sure my guitar tuning matches pitches in the patch (my guitar is seriously detuned though, I like it chunky)
The guitar signal goes to Bog Audio NSGT to clean it up, otherwise the extreme gain gets very noisy
Then I have a few different env followers etc to modulate the Little Pig
Offscreen there is a tiny full wet delay for doubling, and obviously a reverb
Post me some video or audio if you make something cool with it
maybe 30 years ago I was talking to a friend, and somehow asked him if he ever had the Roland Feedbacker pedal. He said he had two, but he had only used it once, to record this song. Is this the kind of thing your plugin does?
I guess in a way it is similar to that, although I think it would be quite the challenge to get it sounding that organic.
I am not familiar with the Roland pedal, I assume it is analogue? The same as the updated BOSS feedbacker? (I just looked it up)
Anyway, the code of Little Pig (currently at least, I might tweak it before it goes into the library) basically copies a (frequency) slice of the input set by the Squeal param, multiplies that by the feedback mix set by the Snout param, and then recursively adds that to the output.
This is why the Snout param only goes to 0.999 and not 1.0 because full recursion is just instant blow out.
The tricky part is getting the feedback mix stable, you might have it at a nice level where the feedback is just right, but then a slight change in playing dynamic can tip it over the edge, or drop it down so that the feedback stalls. And of course, if the target frequency is not very present in the input signal, it is much harder to get feedback, and conversely if the input signal matches the target frequency the feedback can overwhelm the input.
I donât have the hardware to try this out, but, it might be nice to hook up two pedals (that can send midi into VCV) to control the feedback frequency and mix, then you could play something and alter the feedback real time as you goâŠ
ah, yes - I forgot that Boss is the name of the pedal line from Roland, so thatâs the same pedal. I donât know how it works. I assume it doesnât have a CPU in it. Always figured itâs some kind of phase locked loop? And of course its going to sound good when a great guitar player like Robert Quine is playing it. (And the others on that recording are no slouches either!)
He also told me a funny story about the recording. They recorded it on just some of the tracks on a 24 track tape. Then to save tape the rewound it and used some of the left over tracks to record on. Totally out of sync, since they werenât intending to use them together. But when it came time to mix they decided it sounded better to play both takes at once - so thatâs that they did on that recording.
A great story involving feedback is Tony Viscontiâs story about Robert Fripp recording the guitar part on Bowieâs âHerosâ. It sounds to most ppl like heâs using an ebow to get infinite sustain, but actually itâs feedback with a loud amplifier in a room. Fripp put masking tape marks down on the floor where he had to stand to make each note feedback. Then for the take he jumped from mark to mark as he played!
Cheers Squinky, didnât know that. I always assumed it was an ebow too.
Anyway, I tried this with guitar briefly. In a word, filth. Utter, utter FILTH. In a good way though! I mainly use clean sounds, but there is a ton of drive here. Itâs also very noisy with electric guitar, it reminds me of patching guitar through a clock divider or comparator if youâve ever tried that. Iâm guessing whatâs happening is the guitar signal is complex and irregular, so it canât be processed like a regular waveform from a VCO, resulting in lots of random frequencies, and you get roughly a square wave with a ton of inharmonic noise (I think).
Great fun, and it does sustain a lot more as well. Also patching an envelope follower to the squeal control makes an awesome filthy auto-filter. More like a lowpass or phaser than a wah (which is bandpasss) but really cool. Nice work!
haha - in the 70âs I played my guitar into comparator, followed by a clock divider, into a 100W power amp, and back into a speaker bolted on the back of my guitar. Used three strings on the guitar tuned to F-C-F. That thing would easily sustain forever, and make horrible noises. Decades later I tried to make a VST version of a stable MXR blue-box, but never got it stable enough.
New beta 05 because I 've added a button to fix the module when the audio gets blown out. If you push the feedback too high it can sometimes leave the module in a state where it no longer processes the input signal. The new button can be pressed to clean out the buffers and should in most cases fix this type of issue.
I also tweaked the Snout CV input as it wasnât working right.
