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ArduGuitar, an Arduino Controllable Guitar
Android, arduino hacks, bluetooth, guitar, musical hacks, resistive optio-isolator Comments Off on ArduGuitar, an Arduino Controllable Guitar
Electric guitars have several switches and potentiometers for controlling volume, tone, and which pickups are enabled. Rather than fiddling with these by hand, [Bob] built the ArduGuitar. It uses an Arduino to control the parameters over Bluetooth. This allows for musicians to configure presets, then recall them as needed, providing the exact same sound every time. It’s similar to the Guitarduino, but adds wireless control.
The internals of the ArduGuitar consist of the Arduino Micro, a BlueSMiRF from Sparkfun, and resistive opto-isolators. The resistive opto-isolators allow the Arduino to adjust resistance through an electrically isolated barrier. This prevents the Arduino from interfering with the guitar’s sound.
Some of the first Vactrols were used to create a tremolo effect in guitar amplifiers. These pulsed a incandescent lamp onto a photoresistor. Fortunately, there are now integrated solutions. PerkinElmer makes these, and they have a nice application note [PDF] on audio applications.
The final part of the design is an Android app, which provides remote control over Bluetooth. The source for everything is available on Github, and the detailed build log is available here.
Filed under: Arduino Hacks, musical hacks
