Oscillus
Oscillus is a clamshell guitar design with embedded processor providing quite a few effects. The pictures below are of a dark walnut mini five string version with piezo pickups, a flamed maple six string with traditional humbuckers, and a seven string made from eucalyptus grandis.
The body shape of Oscillus is a fairly classic, two-cutaway solid body with the addition of a cutout to rest the guitar on your right leg. The guitar is a clamshell, with the front composed of the headstock, neck and top of the body, and the back is of the body only. This means there are no access plates on the guitar. The entire back of the guitar unscrews to have access to the electronics and pickup mounts. Also, on the magnetic pickup versions, the entire width of the guitar can be shielded to reduce noise.
The effects are generated by an embedded Arduino microcontroller. On the top of the guitar is a 16 character LCD display and two encoder knobs. One of the encoder knobs selects the setting to change, the other knob changes the setting. The settings can also be stored as one of 25 presets. Here's a list of the settings/effects provided:
More details on the effects and controls can be found in the Oscillus manual.
The effects are generated by an embedded Arduino microcontroller. On the top of the guitar is a 16 character LCD display and two encoder knobs. One of the encoder knobs selects the setting to change, the other knob changes the setting. The settings can also be stored as one of 25 presets. Here's a list of the settings/effects provided:
- Volume. This is the overall volume after all effects and can be saved with each preset.
- Pickup. This chooses the blend of pickups. For the piezo pickup model this chooses how individual string pickups interact with each other. For the magnetic pickup model this chooses the blend of the two pickups and if the pickups are split for a single-coil sound.
- Tone. The acts to either emphasize bass or enhance treble, with the center point being neutral.
- Gate. This chooses the point at which volume is automatically muted. This reduces audible noise when not playing, especially when using high distortion.
- Compression. This raises the volume when playing softer, thus evening out the overall volume making it easier to hear individual string picking when mixed with strumming.
- Equalization. A six-band equalizer can be turned on and used either before or after distortion effects. The frequencies are: 125hz, 250hz, 500hz, 1000hz, 2000hz, 4000hz.
- Distortion. One of the four types of distortion can be selected: Fuzz, Overdrive, Distortion, Bit Crusher. The gain, tone and mix of the distortion can be adjusted.
- Sub-octave. This adds a tone one octave lower than the lowest string being played.
- Modulation. One of the six types of modulation can be selected: Tremelo, Flange, Chorus, Wawa, Vibrato, Ensemble. The rate and depth of the modulation can be adjusted.
- Fade-in. This controls how quickly the volume rises when a string or strings is plucked. This softens the sound.
- Auto-wah. Makes a wah sound each time a string is plucked. The speed of the effect can be adjusted.
- Delay/reverb. A delay can be added of up to one second. The type of delay can be selected: slapback, echo, reverb, echo+reverb.time. The time of the delay, the tone of the delayed sound, and the amount of delay. Also, a flutter effect can be adjusted to add distorted delay similar to a bad tape delay.
More details on the effects and controls can be found in the Oscillus manual.