Build a guitar tuner?

[ajbiddle@umich.edu]

I am in a experiment design class right now, with heavy influence on circuit building. We all had to come up with individual projects to do, and my choice was to build a guitar tuner of sorts, but apply it to the human voice for use in therapy in hospitals etc. (perhaps after some sort of surgery involving the throat).

can anyone help me get started in the right direction on how to approach doing this? I dont need to build an exact "guitar tuner." i just need to be able to display when a low, medium, and high note have been achieved.

Thank you so much for the help!

 

[JimB]

OK I will bite!

Just shooting from the hip, how about a microphone, amplifier to give a volt or so output, and then feed the amplifier outputs into a few 567 tone decoders, each set to a different frequency.
When the tone decoder detects the frequency, it lights an LED.

Second idea, microphone, amplifier, frequency to voltage converter, and use the output of the F to V converter to drive a bargraph display using something like an LM3914.

https://www.electro-tech-online.com/custompdfs/2008/09/NE567_SE567_2.pdf
**broken link removed**
**broken link removed**


Third idea. I cant help but think that you may find these solutions very limited in practical applications for "voice therapy".
Consider using some kind of audio spectrum analyser such as "Spectrogram"

http://www.visualizationsoftware.com/gram.html

This may be taking you in a direction which you dont want to go, but I think it has advantages.

JimB

 

[stevez]

Speech therapist comes to mind - might be worth the effort to contact one or a professor in this subject area. Near my home is a college where there is a strong and advanced vocal music program - if given this project I might contact them - possibly a grad student. My daughter took voice lessons there while in high school - the various vocal exercises might be exactly what you have in mind.

I would expect that amplitude (loudness) and fundamental frequency would be basic things to look at. Harmonic content might be a way to measure quality - possibly revealing some improvement in healing (or skill level).

Sounds interesting.

 

[ajbiddle@umich.edu]

OK I will bite!

Just shooting from the hip, how about a microphone, amplifier to give a volt or so output, and then feed the amplifier outputs into a few 567 tone decoders, each set to a different frequency.
When the tone decoder detects the frequency, it lights an LED.

Second idea, microphone, amplifier, frequency to voltage converter, and use the output of the F to V converter to drive a bargraph display using something like an LM3914.



Third idea. I cant help but think that you may find these solutions very limited in practical applications for "voice therapy".
Consider using some kind of audio spectrum analyser such as "Spectrogram"



This may be taking you in a direction which you dont want to go, but I think it has advantages.

JimB

seems to be exactly what i am looking for. thanks so much for the help. you just saved me hours upon hours of researching. Thanks!!!

 

[alexu_hd28]

can anyone tell me what type of amplifier may i use to built a tuner? for the microphone i think a condesner microphone is good. thanks