Paul Vo EMpick

• Fabricant : Paul Vo
• Modèle : EMpick
• Catégorie : Autres accessoires pour guitare
• Fiche créée le : 24/03/2017

L'EMpick, anciennement Wond II, est un sustainer puissant permettant de créer une forme de synthèse acoustique.

The EMpick is a digital acoustic synthesizer.

The EMpick is entirely firmware controlled, it does nothing without some code in it and everything it does is defined by code. On this page is a portion of the ongoing ultimate list of features. All these things are possible, but some require firmware development beyond what we will have in the first release.

The first EMpicks will ship with basic firmware which will do what the Wond does – actually more like what one channel of the Vo-96 does, plus one or two cool other new things.  This is a starting point. Continuing sales will be in everyone’s interest because continuing sales will fund continuing firmware development. (So it must be at least somewhat mindblowing when it first comes out, or sales won’t continue.)  The product will just get better and better over time with updates. This is the nature of most successful connected digital products these days, when you really think about it.

Firmware Update Process:
In the music products industry there are some very weird and complicated ways to update firmware. I really wanted to make our update process simple and easy. Therefore: The EMpick looks like a little thumb drive to your computer and connects via USB for both charging and firmware updates. You will download the update file from our site and drag it into the EMpick folder that springs into existence when you attach the EMpick to your computer – just like moving or copying a file to a thumb drive. (As far as your computer knows, the EMpick IS a thumb drive.) No other apps are needed on desktop systems or laptops.  Windows, Apple Mac, Linux – anything with a file system that will recognize an external flash drive will just work automatically. I don’t think it can be much simpler than this. Right at this moment we are proving out the rather complex code needed to make this happen on the EMpick – so far so good! 

A partial list of EMpick Capabilities:

• excite and sustain vibration.  [In Version 1]
• control the timbre of vibration.  [Basic In Version 1 ]
• control the octave of vibration.  [We’ll try to get it in Version 1]
• excite any of the natural harmonics individually, with or without the fundamental.  [Simple version to start.]
• inject a sound at the same pitch as the string into the guitar pickups. This sound may be very different than the string sound, i.e., it may be synthesized or re-synthesized in all the creative ways of electronic synthesis.  [Simple version to start.]
• Put an octave subsonic below the guitar string pitch – really, acoustically and electrically. [Simple version to start – but yes!]
• Echo a recorded series of notes played within the harmonics of the next note played.
• Accept data (wav) files to define a timbre of string vibration. 
• Use the microphone to record a timbre to define string vibration.
• Drive any kind of string from the fattest bass guitar string to the guitar’s high E. As long as the string responds magnetically we are good. (The Wond gets close to this but fat bass strings don’t always work with it depending on brand).  [In Version 1]
• All the guitar pedal technologies – modeling, echo, reverb, flanging, ring mod – whatever, can be made available to the Empick user via the right firmware. It’s an ocean of possibilities, so I want to open up the process and allow other people and other companies to make use of it.

On an acoustic instrument The EMpick emits its own sound, (if you want it to), truly adding a new voice to the instrument. On an electric guitar, it emits a magnetic field that couples sound into your guitar signal.

We’ll try to get all this basic structure into the first release and make the [indicated] features surfaced and functional. 

It’s going to be a very interesting device. 

On the original Wond, I was dissappointed by the tactile system. It didn’t cut it.

The tactile system in the EMpick is a whole new deal, stronger, much more sophisticated, and it acts directly against your thumb. If what I’ve tested in the lab works the same when we load it into the actual EMpick, the experience will be quite amazing. You’ll “feel” when the magnetic field touches the string, so the EMpick will feel something like it feels when you pluck a string with a real guitar pick, except you won’t actually touch the string physically but only magnetically. It’s be magic, if I get this right. It’s tricky. We’re working on it!