Ghosts - taming the resonance

Pedals
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I’ve only had my Ghosts a few days and I think it’s really amazing but the peaky resonance is driving me crazy. Unless I take a lot of steps to prevent it, I feel like about 3/4 of the notes I play have sort of subtle resonance and the other 1/4 become disturbingly loud, like feedback almost. Maybe this is the nature of an accurate simulation of a resonator, but maybe an accurate simulation of a resonator isn’t the most musical way to approach this.

I have tried using the input filter but that just makes it sound thin and weak, and the peaks are still there. The limiter seems to help some - currently I have it at max - but it feels like it could limit harder.

Is it not possible to have something that resonates but doesn’t resonate MORE when hitting a note that is in its scale/key? Maybe an option that could be engaged to even it all out a bit?

I notice when using Terrazzo that this problem is much less. Perhaps that’s due to the multiple percolating notes somehow breaking up the feedback before it happens.

My sessions seem to vary between getting a “safe” sound that doesn’t peak out, and one that does. Resetting to preset 1 usually puts me back into default peaky mode, then I have to remember or figure out how to dial out the peaks.

I’ve checked out quite a few demos and none of them seem to have this issue.

Any advice on taming this? I’m feeling frustrated.

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I deal with peak resonance from my synths by throwing them in front of a compressor. Not ideal, but gets the job done. :+1:

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Use the Voicing knob to get the chord notes away from the octave (above or below) where you are playing.

It’s easier to think of it as you are in a room with amp cranked so certain notes you play would feedback louder than the other ones. The beauty of it is that you can customize the notes and play/write around it, instead of letting it get in your way.

The down side is that you cannot walk around like you are in a room to physically play the feedback’s intensity, so hooking up an expression pedal to control Decay can get that covered.

The other trick is to dial down the Decay knob, while using the Verb in the pre-effect position and set the Verb’s decay long. You won’t get the loud peak, but have a very nice slightly tuned verb.

Give it more time. It’s the best I’ve tried in the Resonance simulation camp. It can be used as a feedbacker or cab sim, depending how you set it up.

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You could also dial in the built in limiter

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Alright just did a deeper dive into each parameter and its effect on the peakiness.

Pillof, good suggestions. Yes voicing helps you move the resonance out of where you are playing, with the drawback of thinning out the resonance as you dial it higher. Your idea of reducing decay and dialing in pre-resonator reverb really helps - that may be the most helpful thing so far.

Limiter - yes, it doesn’t kill the peaks completely but definitely makes them less intense. Right now I have it at max and that definitely helps but not completely.

I compared it with the resonator in my Lost & Found. L&F isn’t peaky at all, but it doesn’t seem to have a predefined key or chord it’s working with. It seems to track input pitches, which makes sense given the synth in L&F also tracks input pitches. Basically it manages to resonate in a way that supports what you’re playing without sending it through the roof. Of course it’s a lot less flexible than Ghosts.

In case it’s helpful to anyone else, I took a few notes on the effect of most of the parameters on peakiness, including contributions above - thanks.

And once more I’ll put in an appeal for an option or mode where we don’t have ANY peakiness, just relatively even volume regardless of what you’re playing. Maybe that isn’t true to the model but it would make it quicker and easier to get something that works flexibly and musically with less babying.

Notes:

Decay
Shorter definitely helps but takes away some of the resonant character.
Add pre-resonator reverb to make up for that. This helps quite a bit.

Chord
More complex chords are more widely panned. Nice if this panning could be reduced somewhat, or maybe just need to go mono-out, or run some more post-processing to diffuse the hard panning somewhat.
More complex chords are less resonant. Octaves seem most resonant.
The user chord on preset 1 is nice. What is it?

Position
Nice tonal variation, no effect on resonance.

Voicing
Moves the resonant peak around to higher or lower octaves.
Helpful if you are playing in one range - can move the peak to a different range. But also changes the overall tonality, getting thinner as you dial it up.

Input filter
CCW a bit helps some but thins out everything, doesn’t just tame the peaks.

Limiter
Reduces the max volume of the peaks but they’re still peaky. Still, seems best at maximum.

Model
Tubes & Bars require more decay to resonate
With decay up, peaks are similar to Strings model

Source
Percussive, short notes work better. Sustained pure tones tend to be very peaky.
Crunch/fuzz seems to help - more harmonics in the source, less pure tone, bigger spread of resonance.

Reverb
Seems to help a bit.
Pre-resonator reverb turned up a bit can compensate nicely for reduced decay.

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Another thing that seems to help a lot is playing with a lot of vibrato. I might also try putting a chorus or vibrato pedal before Ghosts. Either way that keeps me from hanging out right on the resonant frequency.

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And once more I’ll put in an appeal for an option or mode where we don’t have ANY peakiness

I don’t want to sound gatekeepy or negative, but this is the DEFINITION of a resonator: it will pick up on certain frequencies and resonate along with those.

If you dint want any peakiness, are you sure you’re not simply looking for a more reverb-like sound (maybe with a Bandpass filter) instead of a resonator?

Another thing I thought while reading: you’re playing guitar. That’s (without fuzz / dirt) a very ‘pure’ and focused input, so if you hit a note in the set chord it will MASSIVELY emphasize THAT frequency and that’s AGAIN aggrevated by the long sustain.

This is the reason why resonators traditionally (e.g. The Mutable Instruments Rings module) are favored with short, plucky, noisy input sounds: it gets a lot of frequency to work with and the models will emphasize the frequencies they want. So effectively, you’re giving it not much else to work with OTHER than its pure, peaky frequency.

I know this is partly useless, since you’re asking for help with guitar, but maybe the theory or background helps a bit with finding better scenarios how to use (I dunno, maybe send your L+F into Ghosts using Gen Lite or other lo-fi stuff, see if you like that better!)

Good luck!

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Yeah. That’s just how ghosts is tuned / designed. I’ve resigned myself to it, after going through literally exactly what you are saying. I have to really take advantage of the ALL (seriously ALL) the settings given, in order to find a good sweet spot and harmonic compliment. And that sweet spot only works for the day / thing I am doing at that moment. Once I go to a new idea or thing instrument. I have to find that spot all over again. It’s not a very improv or jam friendly pedal at all. Unlike say prismatic wall (sounds really good with minimal effort) or L and F (by the way - you can get L and F to stay on the same resonant note by setting the dip to latch and holding down the bypass foot switch when playing the note you want it to stay resonating on). There is another post about all of this on the forum.

That said. I do like ghosts quite a bit. I sits on my board. I use it all the time for very specific purposes. As someone said short decays and arps and percussive stuff sounds great. Drones actually can sound really good too by finding a musical complimenting chord, and not something that emphasizes the tonic.

If you ever get a chance to play a Korg Phase 8. It sounds pretty amazing paired with the ghosts.

But, you are not crazy. He said he designed it with many applications in mind not just guitar and live instruments, and that was the trade off.

Someone in another post suggested an easy detune parameter where perhaps the detuning the resonators just enough would jostle them away from the peaks. That theoretically works in my head… but I’m no pedal engineer. There is always creating your own tunings, but that requires even deeper diving into things that aren’t on the pedal.

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First off, I just want to say that I totally get it. I think we’re used to most pedals being this thing you turn on and anything you play is instantly better.

I’ve seen people do “side by side” comparisons of Ghosts, L&F, and Prismatic Wall where they play a guitar loop into all three pedals and Ghosts sounds terrible because they didn’t adjust any of the settings to complement what they were playing.

For better or worse, Ghosts encourages you to think and play differently to complement what it does. I think the biggest consideration is what @WLMZNHRST is getting at -

Ghosts is a physical modeling effect - it’s a bunch of tuned, resonant filters; it’s not a pitch tracking synth effect.

A classic resonator naturally responds best to material that doesn’t continuously ring / sustain - things like the contact mic, drum machines, percussion, etc.

That’s not to say it can’t sound amazing with guitar - it absolutely can - but it requires a bit more thought about how you approach it.

The resonator mode in L&F seems to have more in common with something like the Meris Enzo than it does with Ghosts. As far as I can tell it’s re-synthesizing your signal and generating new waveforms. CBA is hugely influential so I think it’s a little unfortunate that they called it a resonator because it’s created some confusion about the terminology and what a resonator is historically. I think the L&F is really interesting in its own way but it doesn’t do any of the things my favorite resonators do (Metaphysical Function, Corpus, Rings, Elements, etc).

The gist of it is though, if your instrument is interacting with Ghosts in a way that creates strong resonant peaks, then you want to change, shape, or break up the input material more.

It sounds like you’ve experimented with a bunch of controls that help to limit the “peakiness”, and some helpful tips have been offered. If you are finding settings that work for you, remember that you can save them into the preset slots so you don’t have to start from scratch all the time. Make your own Init Preset!

Some other stuff we recommend:

  • Experiment with more palm muted / percussive playing: You kind of mentioned this but this is big. The less ringing / sustained material you feed into the resonators the more controlled the response will be.

  • Decay down / Tone up: Decay is literally the amount of resonance, so if it feels like too much, keep that control lower. Tone being higher will put more emphasis on the upper harmonics instead of the fundamental. I really like suggestion of adding pre-fx Reverb to compensate for lower Decay settings.

  • Experiment with Terrazzo more: The granular mode breaks up the input into smaller fragments which prevents harmonic content from continuously building up. Use the “plucky” side to make it ping the resonators rhythmically or abstractly. When I use Ghosts with saxophone I basically always have Terrazzo on and it sounds incredible, even though the saxophone is harmonically rich and sustained.

  • Send Ghosts MIDI notes while you’re playing: A fun thing to try is to set the MIDI Exciter to VOCODER HOLD and feed Ghosts a sequence or chord progression with MIDI notes. The MIDI notes retune the resonators and open a gate to your guitar. It’s a really cool way to control the input while also creating more interesting harmony and movement.

During the development of Ghosts we explored making the resonators do pitch tracking and some other techniques to try to cater to the “play whatever you want” mindset, but it felt a lot less interesting to me than what Ghosts does now.

That said, I don’t want people to feel like they have to fight with Ghosts to get it to behave, so maybe in future when I have more bandwidth I can explore another mode or something that’s more instantly usable for instrumentalists.

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Hey all - thanks for the thoughtful and extensive responses.

Jaak you’re right - there is a tendency to expect a new pedal to sound wonderful (on guitar) with relatively little effort. The Ghosts demos tend to support/reinforce this perception, because of course they don’t include the tweaking and accommodation necessary to hit Ghosts’ sweet spots.

Ghosts requires a paradigm shift for someone used to this, and I think I’m making progress on that shift. Sometimes a little learning and work is necessary to get the most out of something. I’m ok with that and happy to make the effort.

I’m going to continue to focus on shorter duration notes and more muted playing, more complex harmonic content (dirt), pitch variation (vibrato), maybe some EQ pre-Ghosts to cut troublesome frequencies, and in general getting a grasp on the nature of a resonator.

I really appreciate the work you do, Jaak. Kinotone does such unique things, does them very well, and takes them to such a deep level in terms of control options and additional features, that I see my failure to immediately “get” Ghosts as a problem to be solved on my end, not yours.

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Send Ghosts MIDI notes while you’re playing: A fun thing to try is to set the MIDI Exciter to VOCODER HOLD and feed Ghosts a sequence or chord progression with MIDI notes. The MIDI notes retune the resonators and open a gate to your guitar. It’s a really cool way to control the input while also creating more interesting harmony and movemen

I think I literally posted this yesterday in “favorite uses of Ghosts”. I forgot it’s called Vocoder Hold, but yeah it just keeps all the voices opened up but continously ‘refreshes’ the included notes. It’s great!

About the L+F: I was initially quiet disappointed with that resonator, it’s not behaving like an actual resonator at all! After the recent fw update I tried it some more and, yeah, it CAN be nice but it’s more like a pitch tracked organ doubler that’s always slow and inaccurate.. Not my favorite, though it does have its uses (=post apocalyptic off-tune doom organ). Ghosts is WAY more flexible and the sounds are much more expressive.

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Jaak - I play live, with pedals and with the intention to spontaneously manipulate them in real time - a lot. I have both Ghosts and Ribbons. I’ve played/owned just about everything in this realm and put them all through the ringer. With that, I wholeheartedly think your pedals are excellent. However, they are the furthest from plug-n-play I’ve ever encountered with Ghosts leading the charge. I’m all for a pedal influencing a player’s journey, but man, I sure would welcome this…

The option would be gamechanger.

Keep up the great work.

cB

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As a guitarist, the best use I’ve made is a piezo acoustic guitar with rubberbridge. That sounds superb, and you can hear all the details of the different models, and the verb is more defined too. I keep remembering one thing written in the manual: «use it with intention.»