Download Physical Modeling of the MXR Phase 90 Guitar Effect Pedal
In this study, a famous boxed effect pedal, also called stompbox, for electrical guitars is analyzed and simulated. The nodal DK method is used to create a non-linear state-space system with Matlab as a physical model for the MXR Phase 90 guitar effect pedal. A crucial component of the effect are Junction Field Effect Transistors (JFETs) which are used as variable resistors to dynamically vary the phase-shift characteristic of an allpass-filter cascade. So far, virtual analog modeling in the context of audio has mainly been applied to diode-clippers and vacuum tube circuits. This work shows an efficient way of describing the nonlinear behavior of JFETs, which are wide-spread in audio devices. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed physical model, a real-time VST audio plug-in was implemented.
Download Black-box Modeling of Distortion Circuits with Block-Oriented Models
This paper describes black-box modeling of distortion circuits. The analyzed distortion circuits all originate from guitar effect pedals, which are widely used to enrich the sound of an electric guitar with harmonics. The proposed method employs a blockoriented model which consists of a linear block (filter) and a nonlinear block. In this study the nonlinear block is represented by an extended parametric input/output mapping function. Three distortion circuits with different nonlinear elements are analyzed and modeled. The linear and nonlinear parts of the circuit are analyzed and modeled separately. The Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm is used for iterative optimization of the nonlinear parts of the circuits. Some circuits could not be modeled with high accuracy, but the proposed model has shown to be a versatile and flexible tool when modeling distortion circuits.
Download Block-oriented Gray Box Modeling of Guitar Amplifiers
In this work, analog guitar amplifiers are modeled with an automated procedure using iterative optimization techniques. The digital model is divided into functional blocks, consisting of lineartime-invariant (LTI) filters and nonlinear blocks with nonlinear mapping functions and memory. The model is adapted in several steps. First the filters are measured and afterwards the parameters of the digital model are adapted for different input signals to minimize the error between itself and the analog reference system. This is done for a small number of analog reference devices. Afterwards the adapted model is evaluated with objective scores and a listening test is performed to rate the quality of the adapted models.