Grateful Dead Music Forum

I just got my kit from BYOC for a digital delay and it has an option for self oscillate or no self and i dont know what that means exactly. Could someone please clarify that for me?

My mother always warned me that if I keep self-oscillating, I'll go blind.

lol!

My mother always warned me that if I keep self-oscillating, I'll go blind.

As soon as I saw the title on the main page I thought the same thing. Sort of.

So its a bad thing?

hmm so no one call tell me what it does? I was hoping to start building today but I cant if I dont know what that is and if I want it or not so pleassse somebody out there help me out. Ive searched online already and couldnt find anything explaining what it does so please help.

Don't mean to make light of your plight there bw but could it be manual vs auto setting? I don't know, just going by your description.

tigerstrat wrote:My mother always warned me that if I keep self-oscillating, I'll go blind.

haha, did you check the BYOC forums? They answered me questions.

BlobWeird wrote:... an option for self oscillate or no self and i dont know what that means exactly. Could someone please clarify that for me?

Self-oscillate is like feedback. With a guitar and amp turned up loud, the energy from the speaker can excite the strings and pickup until it howls. You can lean the guitar against the speaker and walk away and it will keep howling until somebody pulls the plug.

In other electronic devices, the effect is similar. Some old analog synths had filters that would self-oscillate, so you could get a whistling sound out of them.

In the case of a delay pedal, maxing out the feedback knob could give you the same effect. Probably not real musical, but great for space jams.

Good luck building your kit. I started out in the 70s goofing around with kits and developed a career in medical electronic technology.

Oscillation is where a pedal will make sounds without the use of a guitar at all. My moogerfooger has a resonance knob. If I turn it all the way up it will create a high pitched squealing sound. That sound is created by the pedal alone, meaning I don't have to play the guitar at all for it to do that. Playing he guitar will cut those frequencies and bring it up and down, though you really can barely hear the actual notes the guitar is playing and you have little control over what frequency s going to come out. Imagine that sound you hear in old movies where someone is trying to tune into a radio station or tune into a CB radio.

Getting it to work nicely in a song is very difficult. When you actually do et it to work you know the gods are smiling and you're having a badass set.

jackaroe1276 wrote:Oscillation is where a pedal will make sounds without the use of a guitar at all. My moogerfooger has a resonance knob. If I turn it all the way up it will create a high pitched squealing sound. That sound is created by the pedal alone, meaning I don't have to play the guitar at all for it to do that. Playing he guitar will cut those frequencies and bring it up and down, though you really can barely hear the actual notes the guitar is playing and you have little control over what frequency s going to come out. Imagine that sound you hear in old movies where someone is trying to tune into a radio station or tune into a CB radio.

Getting it to work nicely in a song is very difficult. When you actually do et it to work you know the gods are smiling and you're having a badass set.

moogerfoogers rock dont they? i got mine on christmas and am still finding new tricks

tigerstrat wrote:My mother always warned me that if I keep self-oscillating, I'll go blind.

My dad warned me about it. After a 2 minute sermon he asked if I understood. I replied, "dad, I'm over here".