Envelope trigger circuit for guitar

[Barry Bernard]

>     A good reliable trigger extractor would certainly need a lot of
>     "smarts" for a signal like a guitar - you got the right approach IMHO
>     in thinking that the comparator threshold needs to ride the input.
>
>     A long time ago in my crazy mad-scientist blow-up-the-house teenage
>     years I made a guitar trigger circuit that worked every time,
>     guaranteed, no mistakes, no errors, no delays, always a trigger every
>     time you wanted one, no question about it.
>
>     You're gonna laugh. Okay, it's kinda goofey, it may offend some, but
>     imagine that it will be the listener at the other end of the recording
>     process who will be impressed by your fluent guitar triggering style,
>     okay?
>
>     Here it is: make a metal guitar pick, solder a long flexible wire to
>     it, make sure your strings are grounded to the guitar cord shield, and
>     build a trigger-when-grounded detector. Hit the strings (or bridge)
>     with the pick whenever you want a trigger. The material used to
>     fabricate the pick itself should be chosen by the user for the
>     appropriate flexibility, depending on your preference as a player.
>     Since I'm not a guitar player I can't be of much help here. I don't
>     even know if this will damage the strings....anyway there's my silly
>     idea.
>
>     - Gene
>     gstopp at fibermux.com

  I've got some kind of wierd little box made by morley that utilizes this
concept, I can't remember what it's called offhand. The purpose of the box
is to vary the attack of the guitar envelope, sort of like a Boss Slow Gear.
As above, it has a metal pick witha wire that goes to the box. The box is
meant to clip on to your belt or something because the wire from the pick
won't go much further than that. I guess it wasn't a very popular product.
But it's true, it works great as long as you don't mind the hassle of
playing guitar witha pick that has a wire attached to it.

-Barry