It can’t be done.

“Norweigian Wood” and “Paint It Black” use real sitars. You are looking for this pedal to be a real sitar. It is not. The Ravish Sitar will not sound like a real sitar. The sympathetic strings on the pedal actually sound very close, but the lead string is far too shrill and electronic. It is very hard to get it to sound like the sound you are looking for.

I got the pedal and I was hoping it would sound like The Box Tops “Cry Like A Baby” which uses a Coral electric sitar. Unfortunately the Ravish can’t get that sound either. There is a springy boing in that tune that the Ravish just does not duplicate.

So the Ravish does not duplicate a real sitar or a Coral sitar. Well, you look to see what else it can do. What you find is it produces its own sitar like sound. When you play it next to a real sitar like “Norwegian Wood,” it won’t sound like a sitar. But just play it on its own and you will instantly smile and say, “Man, that’s a cool sitar sound.” And the drone strings do sound very sitar-like so you can have fun with them. Use the Ravish for its own sound. It won’t duplicate the real sitars you hear on the records.

I have used these settings to get me close to what you may want. Believe me, it ain’t exactly close, but it is a step towards the sitar lead lines from The Beatles or Stones:

Use the W pre-set:
Dry – 12 o’clock
Lead – 1
Sympathetic – 9:30
Lead Timbre – 10
Sympathetic Timbre – 10
Decay – 3
Mod – 5

Keep the sympathetic strings down in your mix (listen to “Norwegian Wood” and you’ll hear way more lead string than sympathetic). One other thing, I use chorus on my amp and it adds to the sitar effect greatly. Add a chorus pedal to the above settings and you have what can pass as a nice sitar sound.

You honestly can get this pedal to sound like a real sitar?

I’ve been using some pretty good gear with this pedal (Strat, Tele, White Falcon, Rickenbacker six string, VOX AC30) and none of it is getting me to sound like a sitar. Yes, it sounds LIKE a sitar, but it would fool no one into thinking it is a real sitar.

Sounds like sound advice. Instead of concentrating so much on all the knobs on the pedal, next time I take her out I’ll concentrate more on my playing.
I know the scales to play to get the sitar sound, but I’ll work on a different picking technique.
Thanks.

I try and try but i am not happy yet. Could you give me a hint?
Where can i find the scales you use on the web?
Which guitar pick up is best? Humbucker or Single coil?
Anyone tried ravish sitar with amp sims like Guitar rig?

I found the humbucker pickups work better. The single coils were a bit too shrill and thin.

Scales? I just know them from playing stuff by The Cure or even The Doors. Those guys did a lot of middle-Eastern runs and I just figured out how to get the scales from that. Essentially you are playing on one string and the lower string next to it keeps getting hit to act as a drone. The notes in the scale usually are: you play two notes half step apart on a string, then skip a fret, then play the next two notes on that string, skip a fret, next two notes… I’m not saying those are the exact notes (sometimes you skip two frets between the two note groups), but the two notes played are usually separated by a full step. Play two succesive notes, skip a whole fret, play next two notes on string, skip a whole fret, play around on next two notes… Throw a lot of finger vibrato in, make sure you keep hitting the open lower string, and you get the middle-Eastern sound.

Straight up diminished doesn’t excite the sympathetics as well