I thought I would chime in and answer some questions that have popped up on the various forums since the Ravish Sitar’s debut over the weekend…

Sympathetic Strings
As Flick said above, the sympathetic strings are synthesized and emphasized based on the pitch and amplitude of the note played. When you are playing in a particular key and mode, for instance E major, all of the notes of the major scale will resonate to some degree. Emphasis has been put on the root and the fifth of the scale to keep it sounding pleasant and 17 total pitches (or strings to keep with the analogy of a sitar’s sympathetic strings) resonate by default. The sympathetic pitches that resonate also depend on the pitches that are being played on the guitar. If you play low notes, lower sympathetics will resonate, and if you play high notes, higher sympathetics will resonate. Playing chords across all strings will let all sympathetic strings resonate. So the sympathetic strings are dependent on the input signal and the key that is set. However, with the custom tuning feature, the user can set the Ravish to resonate any pitches they like with a limit of 17 pitches, including microtones.

Controls
It’s hard to tell from the pictures from NAMM, but above the knobs are descriptions of what they do. The knobs from left to right are: Dry Level, Lead Level, Sympathetic Level, Lead Timbre, Sympathetic Timbre.

How does it sound on bass?
Sounds great!

How does it sound with a drum machine?
It sounds interesting for sure. You can use the timbre knobs get some cool filter sweep sounds.

How does it sound with drones or other loops?
There are so many great features packed into this pedal that a creative person can find tons of uses for it beyond sitar sounds. I think it’ll be a shoegazer’s dream.

How does it sound when it’s fed back into itself?
It essentially becomes a sympathetic string generator that can be tuned to any key. Using the timbre knobs, you can get some interesting tones and it can distort at certain settings.

Does it recognize microtones?
Yup!