Oscillus Manual

For Oscillus 6.x

Controls

  • Power - turns on the power to the audio processor.  (You can't hear anything without it, even passively.)
  • Recharge USB -- a micro-USB port to use for recharging the battery.   (The battery should last about 10 hours on a full charge.)
  • Display -- a 16 character display showing the current setting and its value.
  • Setting -- a controller knob to select the setting.  You can also press this knob to choose to save or clear a preset.
  • Value -- a controller knob to change the value for the selected setting.  You can also press-turn (turn while pressing) this knob to fine-tune a setting.
  • Jack -- a 1/4 mono jack for connecting to a guitar amp.
  • Phone -- a 1/8 inch phone jack.  This is mainly meant to drive an AUX input on a portable speaker but you can also use it to listen to the guitar with earphones.   (The volume is not adjustable and is fairly low so you won't destroy your ears.)

Settings

  • ​Preset -- use the value knob to select from one of 25 presets.  The presets are numbered 0 to 24.
  • Volume -- sets the overall volume.  This volume is after all effects.  (The value causes no change to overdrive or other effects.)
  • Pickup -- chooses the pickup blend.  The values:
        N -- neck humbucker
        B -- bridge humbucker
        N+B -- neck and bridge
        N-B -- neck minus the bridge.  This gives a sound with more higher harmonics.
        n -- single-coil neck
        b -- single-coil bridge
        n+b -- single-coil neck and bridge
        n-b -- single coil neck minus bridge
  • Tone -- the guitar tone control.  The neutral setting is 5.   Settings below 5 emphasize lows and settings above 5 emphasize highs.
  • Equalizer -- enables the six-band equalizer.  There are three values:
        OFF -- the equalizer is disabled
        PREDIST -- the equalizer is enabled and placed before the distortion effect
        POSTDIST -- the equalizer is enabled and placed after the distortion effect
    When the equalizer is enabled, the following settings are selectable:
    • EQ125 -- the level of frequencies around 125hz and lower.
    • EQ250 -- the level of frequencies around 250hz.
    • EQ500 -- the level of frequencies around 500hz.
    • EQ1000 -- the level of frequencies around 1000hz.
    • EQ2000 -- the level of frequencies around 2000hz.
    • EQ4000 -- the level of frequencies around 4000hz and higher.
  • Gate -- a noise suppression gate.  If volume is below the value, the volume will be reduced to make circuit noise less noticeable at lower volumes.  This is especially useful when using higher gain distortion effects.
  • Distortion -- chooses a distortion effect.  There are several values:
        OFF -- distortion is disabled.
        FUZZ -- a fuzz effect.   Turning up the Dist Gain will emphasize the effect.
        OVERDRIVE -- an effect simulating an overdriven amplifier.
        DISTORTN -- a high-gain heavy clipping effect.
        BITCRUSH -- reduces the bit resolution representing the sound.  Higher values of Dist Gain will reduce the number of bits.
        RING -- multiplies the guitar signal with a tone, causing a ringing sound.  The Dist Gain selects the frequency of the tone.
        FM -- frequency modulation effect, which modifies the sound causing higher harmonics at higher volumes.
    When distortion is enabled, the following settings are selectable: 
    • Dist Gain -- increases the effect of the distortion.
    • Dist Tone -- a tone control for the distorted sound.  A value of 5 is neutral.  Values less than 5 emphasize lows and values above 5 emphasize highs.
    • Dist Level -- the amount of the distorted sound vs the original sound.  10 is all distortion, 0 is all original.  Values in between mix distortion with the pre-distortion signal.
  • Compression -- performs a soft-knee compression on the signal, raising quieter sounds and reducing louder sounds.  This is performed after any distortion but before modulation and delay.
  • Suboctave -- adds a sound one octave below the detected frequency of the note being played.  This is more pronounced on lower notes.  Important: When playing chords the note frequency can't be detected well and the suboctave sound will likely be too low to hear or "muddy" sounding.
  • Modulation -- chooses a modulation effect.  There are several values:
        OFF -- modulation is disabled.
        TREMELO -- volume modulation
        PHASER -- a modulating set of bandpass filters simulating a rotating speaker
        CHORUS -- a slightly delayed signal that is varied in frequency to give a chorusing effect
        WAWA -- a single modulating filter giving a repeating wah sound
        VIBRATO -- frequency modulation
        ENSEMBLE -- similar to chorus, but with four signals delayed and varied in frequency at different amounts
    When modulation is enabled, the following settings are selectable: 
    • Mod Rate -- the speed of the modulation (up to 10 cycles per second).
    • Mod Depth -- the amount of volume or frequency variation of the modulation effect
  • Fade In -- reduces the rate of attack of played notes.  This causes a "swell-in" effect.
  • Autowah -- automatically sweeps a bandpass filter to cause a wah effect when notes are played.
  • Delay -- chooses a delay effect.  There are several values:
        OFF -- delay is disabled.
        SLAPBACK -- a single delay with no echo
        ECHO -- a delay with echo (at 50% of the delay volume)
        REVERB -- a multi-delay effect simulating reflected sound off of walls in a room.  (Note: This effect sounds best will shorter delay times.)
        REVECHO -- an echoey reverb, giving an even larger reverb sound mixed with echo.
    ​When delay is enabled, the following settings are selectable:
    • Delay Time -- the length of time of the delay, up to 1 second.  For reverb, this is the time at which there is no longer any reverb sound.
    • Delay Tone -- the tone of the delayed sound.  5 is neutral.  Values below 5 emphasize lows and values above 5 emphasize highs.
    • Delay Flutter -- simulates the tape flutter on old tape-drive delays.  Can add pleasing noise to the delayed sound.
    • Delay Amount -- the volume of the delayed sound added to the original sound. At zero there is no delayed sound.  At 10 the delayed sound is the same volume as the original sound.

Built-in Presets

Presets 1 through 10 have built-in sounds:
  1. N+B, clean with chorus
  2. B, overdrive with tremelo
  3. B, fuzz with suboctave
  4. N+B, distortion with chorus
  5. N+B, clean with phaser
  6. n, clean with echo
  7. N+B, overdrive with fluttered echo
  8. N, clean, equalizer emphasizing mid-tones, fade-in
  9. B, overdrive with autowah (and some wawa modulation)
  10. N+B, distortion with ensemble, noisy revecho
Presets 0 and 11 - 24 have a neck pickup clean tone with no effects.

Saving and Resetting Presets

To save a preset:
  • ​Press the setting knob.  The display should read "Save Preset" with the number of the preset.
  • Turn the value knob to choose the number of the preset you want to overwrite.
  • Press the setting knob again.  The display should briefly read "Saving.." and the current settings will be saved as the numbered preset.
  • If you don't want to save, press the value knob.  The display should briefly read "Cancelled." and the preset won't be changed.

To clear a preset (resetting it to its built-in sound):
  • Press the setting knob.  Then, turn the knob clockwise one click.   The display should read "Clear Preset".
  • Turn the value knob to choose the preset to clear.
  • Press the setting knob again.  The display should briefly read "Clearing.." and the preset should be changed back to its built-in settings.
  • If you don't want to clear, press the value knob.   The display should briefly read "Cancelled." and the preset won't be changed.

Sleep Mode

To save power, Oscillus monitors the sound production and will go to sleep if there is nothing played for 10 minutes.  While sleeping, the display will read "Sleeping..".  No sound will be generated while sleeping.  To wake up Oscillus, turn either of the two control knobs.

Inside

Some things to know if you open up the guitar:
  • Static electricity can damage the internal circuitry.  All metal on the outside of the guitar is fed to ground on the amp jack so static normally shouldn't be a problem.  However, if you open up the guitar, be careful not to touch the electronics.
  • The rechargeable battery is a single 18650 lithium-ion battery cell.  The cell should work fine for years.  If you wish to replace it at some point, be extremely careful.   Make sure the positive and negative of the battery are correct.  If the battery is inserted incorrectly, the recharging circuit will be damaged.  I know, I did it once.  It only took one second.  If it happens, you probably need to contact me at [email protected] and be ready to ship the guitar back to me to fix it.
  • The pickup height can be adjusted by screwing/unscrewing the two screws holding the pickup in place.  On some models these screws are only accessible by opening up the guitar.
  • The pickups vary.  I've mostly used humbuckers by GuitarFetish.  They can be fairly easily replaced with other GuitarFetish humbucker pickups by unscrewing the existing pickup and plugging in the replacement.  I've also used Golden Age pickups from Stewmac.  If you decide to replace pickups be aware that the "ground" wire on the pickup coil is not actually ground in the circuit (it is 1.7 volts).  This means that you cannot connect any of the wires going to the pickup coils to the body of the pickup.
  • There are several adjustable trim resistors on the circuit board.  The one nearest the display adjusts the contrast.  The other four adjust the gain of the pickups before being read by the processor.   You don't need to adjust any of these resistors as they were adjusted at the "factory" (my garage).