The Watering Hole

Hey, I just had this idea pop into my head and I'm wondering just where it lands on the brilliant to WTF you thinking scale.

As I mentioned in the Evertune thread, trems are always a bear to deal with (tone-sucking, loss of tuning, etc.).  So, what about if you added the trem as an effect after the tone knob and before the output jack?  Sure, the strings wouldn't get slack, but you'd get the full benefit of the guitar's tone and the tuning wouldn't suffer.  I suppose you could get crazy with the Cheez Whiz and add a knob that changes the amount of the effect, but even just having it lower or raise the overall tone relative to how you're using the trem would be cool.  Plus, you could add a switch that simply turns off the effect and not have to worry about removing the arm or blocking the trem.

I wonder if this could be done staying in the analog realm somehow, or if an AD/DA conversion would be required (which would lessen the wow factor)...

I don't know if it could be done in analog but it seems possible with digital stuff, however they used to have pitch shifters back in the analog pedal days, there is no reason you could not have a variable pitch shift hooked to a trem arm that was not hooked to the bridge at all, but was hooked to some kind of center detent potentiometer that would raise and lower the pitch a half to a full step in either direction.

My vote is; it seems possible.....

In fact Digitech has one it is a pedal called the Whammy, David Gilmour uses them, http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/digitech-whammy-pitch-shifting-guitar-effects-pedal

Yep, Whammy pedal. It's analog, at least it was back in the day, might be digital now.

Maybe, but what I'm wondering is if that circuitry could be put into a guitar wired to a real trem bar.  If it could feel like a real trem, and sound like a real trem, but not have to slacken or tighten the strings I think that would be awesome.

pretty cool idea... mount a whammy controller on the guitar. I could see that being useful. or an expression controller... would allow pitch efx or something else while wah'ing... like an extra foot... could be interesting!

I would say entirely possible. The whammy probably has a potentiometer inside the pedal case, and I don't think the electronics are that awful large, I think it could be done.