Moog Music Forum

PROJECT OVERVIEW

LEV-96 is a sensoriactuator that activates and controls naturally occurring harmonics and resonant frequencies
in any ferromagnetic medium. While we have chosen a noninvasive retrofit for the acoustic guitar, this technology could easily be affixed
to any surface or material in the future.

The first thing to understand about LEV-96 is that every sound you hear is produced by physical string vibrations. The electronics intervene behind the core sound, and work to bring out hidden modes of vibration that have always been there, but were never energized in a direct manner.

The strings of a guitar are wonderful mechanical resonators capable of responding to a rich, simultaneously superposed series of harmonics. All the natural harmonics, corresponding to integer divisions of the string’s length, are represented and can be individually “played”.

LEV-96 places 2 pickup channels under each string. A pickup channel is capable of controlling any combination of 8 harmonics within each string simultaneously. A total of 96 individual control systems handling up to 96 harmonics can be achieved at any time. This unique system is managed by a powerful processor that takes artist input via the touchpads, while continuously monitoring a strings harmonic content and vibrational behavior.

Our decision to apply this system to an acoustic guitar is admittedly just the beginning. LEV-96 is only one facet of what this powerful technology is capable of.

Although we have just begun Beta testing LEV-96, we are humbled to have such innovative and expressive artists partaking in the project. If you would like to learn more about the LEV-96 concept project or receive updates on it's progression please join the email list here.

I tried to tell everyone that this would change everything.

Come on mate, I believe you.

Make a demo of a 12-string guitar utilizing this LEV-96, and I might change my mind about it being another Moog Guitar.

Voltor07 wrote:Make a demo of a 12-string guitar utilizing this LEV-96, and I might change my mind about it being another Moog Guitar.

The moment I get my hands on one, I will make a demo of it on a 6 string guitar, and that will be enough. It's a Moog Guitar in the same way a synthesizer is a piano.

After watching this video, I'd like to learn more about the LEV-96:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_K1HK0dQwE

"LEV"- named after Theremin?

Looks great, but it seems the touch pads should be below the strings, as I know my arm would be touching them, in their current position.

The first eight harmonics of a guitar string (and lots of sub-harmonics)



Sorry for the bad graph quality, I just plugged in a guitar (SG 61 re-issue, neck pick up) straight into the computer, plucked an open E a couple of times and selected a 8192 lines discrete sample almost at random from the recorded waveform. This test was done in about 3 minutes, including set-up and plugging the guitar. So there it is.

Edit : this graph does not represent what it is supposed to due to wrong audio card settings (see explanation below). But it's nice and a good example of FFT analysis so i let it here. Other nice Images of sound here.

I love the breathy, melodica sound it adds to the six-string acoustic in that Kaki King video.

What's your starting frequency (which open E...)?

As best I understand it, sub harmonics should not show up unless there's lot's of distortion either in the guitar electronics or the computer interface.

Also, not sure the point you're making with this graph. Could you elucidate some?

Stephen




.

^ The point you ask ? Experimenting and learning are fun, need I say more? And for the reader, a picture is worth...

Anyway, due to your keen sense of observation, the above graph was wrong. The test was made so quickly, i just boosted the microphone entry by 30 db on the sound card and removed special effects. I had never measured a guitar string before. On the first try, I was surprised of the high content of sub-harmonics, but I thought the result matched the abstract of the project so well I posted without verification.

The wrong setting on the sound card resulted in an AC offset, which actually turned the waveform in a sort of square-like form wave, hence the high content of harmonics.

Here is a better and verified sample. Top graph is Low E string (tuned maybe a bit sharp) with 9 harmonics and the bottom graph shows 15 harmonics for the High E string. Very little sub-harmonics were found this time. Both graphs were produced using a custom integration filter to raise the level of high frequency harmonics and make them more easily identifiable. I would not have bothered to code such a filter if it had not been for the first mishap so I now have a new tool in my FFT analysis toolbox. Thanks.

Thanks, that makes a lot more sense.

Stephen




.

This looks really interesting. All we need now is musicians who can actually do something with it (like the Moog guitar, which always seems to sound like a bad copy of Robert Fripp, or else standard guitar lines with a different sound, when I'm sure it can do a lot more in the right hands).

Can this thing be fitted to anything - a hammered dulcimer, a harmonium, the kitchen sink...?

My question is when will it be available?