Optical Tremolo

TREMOLO

My tremolos are easily my favourite circuits, and have occupied more of my design time than anything else. This was my first unique effect circuit design from scratch, which I started in high school. Development took over a decade before I was happy with the way that it sounded and functioned. By shining a fluctuating light against a photo-sensitive field, this tremolo uses all-analog photocoupling to restrict and modulate the output volume. Careful waveform construction, with non-linear shaping, creates an organic and lively volume fluttering, far divorced from sounding like a basic electronic waveform function. The square wave is similarly processed, so as not to sound like a computerised chop.