The Gristleizer is an effects unit designed and built for Throbbing Gristle by Chris Carter. This article describes how to use various analogue and software synthesizers to emulate this device.

The workings of the unit are illustrated in the block diagram (see right). This diagram does not necessarily show the layout of the actual circuit, it's more a "theoretical" diagram. And it's currently incomplete, the Gristleizer had one more control - "Bias" which, according to Tiny God (see More Info) sets the "center point" around which the LFO oscillates, so in filter mode it's the average cutoff frequency, and for the VCA mode it's the average gain.

An LFO with various waveshapes is used to trigger either a VCF or a VCA through an amplifier that provides a "depth of effect", the output from the VCF or VCA is then mixed with the original input. It's fairly easy to emulate this as the individual elements of the device are available in most (if not all) analogue synthesizers.

In this article I'll show you how to emulate the Gristleizer on an old analogue synth or using software synthesis. The examples here are, of course, quite specific to my own choice of instrument or software. The basic theory, however, is applicable to many (soft) synths, and you should be able to achieve similar results using them instead.