viva Analog “Octave Splitter” // jcm(c)2018

pushing sleep late one night, I randomly started drawing out a sine wave and reflected on a visual representation of the usual frequency doubling transform known as “full-wave rectification” … I bemusedly wondered if there could be another way of transforming a sine-wave into a double frequency waveform (cf., Fourier) … how silly

but then, I was pleasantly surprised to see another obvious answer jump out, something I’d never come across before – how amusing! …

from the waveform, the question then becomes how to come up with an elegant/simple electronic processing circuit that will produce this intended transform on AC signals

totally build-able and a fun challenge …

sure enough, at low-gain I get a somewhat FW-like Octaver sound with a lots of “ring” on double bends // in fact, the double-bend rings I get here seem stronger than on my precision FW (NWO) Octaver …

once the sensitivity is turned high enough the signal’s harmonic content starts over-triggering the inversion process and I get this amazing distortion that sounds like weird/unstable or edge of death electronics …

quite fascinating!

It’s a rare opportunity to wire something that’s truly original, even more rare to design a circuit as a solution to a problem that one generated as well …