Electric guitar sound improviser

[normad]

hey guys i'm a guitarist and have been thinking about creating a circuit that i can put inside my guitar to alter its sound or if possible add an effect.
the electric guitar consists of coil-wound pickups which gather the signal from the strings and convert it into an analogue signal. There are many effects pedals and circuits which alter the sound but they are placed outside the guitar. I was thinking of placing a circuit inside the guitar. Big guitar companies do that but those things are way too expensive. I'm quite fluent with the concept of using filters to to filter out certain frequencies but i was thinking maybe we could do more than that. but unfortunately my electronics knowledge doesnt go that far. so would you guys pleeeease help me with it

 

[Mikebits]

Unfortunatly, unless you are able to design with digital signal processors, you will be very limited as to what you can do in a limited space. Here is the problem: Any fx circuits you add will likely have to be of the analog type. These parts will requires some amount of space which means you would have to cut more wood out of the guitar, and analog parts are somewhat large. This becomes a problem because after you cut out too much wood, your guitar starts to sound like poop. Not only this, but with a circuit in your guitar, you would need someway to power it. I suppose you could somehow feed dc onto your cable, but this would also be an external device. I think your best bet, is to go with an external box.
BTW, I made this electric a few years back.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Buy a pedal you like the sound of, take the insides out of it, chop a big hole in your guitars body, and fit the pedal insides there.

Be aware that it works no differently to an externally mounted pedal, except you don't have a footswitch any more to control it.

You might check out Muse's guitarist Matt Bellamy, who uses custom built guitars, with commercial effects pedals built-in.

 

[transistance]

I'm currently working on a guitar embedded automatic tuner. It's gonna control 6 servos on the headstock, drive a 2x20 LCD screen, as the project's nature requires it's going to constantly filter out frequencies. Uptil now I haven't been successful at getting a proper square wave of the fundamental frequencies into my PIC but I'm getting close.

Mikebits makes a good point though the project is going to eat up a lot of the wood and destroy sustain and dark tones. For the power source, I'm going to drill a snugly housing for a 9V battery (much like the way it's placed for active pickups on bass guitars) and a 7805 to get a second rail with 5V reqired by other parts of my digital circuit.

As Nigel says Matthew Bellamy uses built-in effects, the guy even has a X-Y touchpad controller on the body!!

If you have a solid understanding of digital filtering and assembly, you are going to save a lot of space. Nigel had previously led me to **broken link removed**. The project dates April 2002 in case you want to look it up from their Project Index.

By the way, if you are really comfortable with filtering out the fundamental frequencies you can help me out, I can easily write "digital effects" codes for PICs or Motorola assembly. Filtering is what's going to take a lot of space and time for a project like this. You can also find a lot of analog guitar fx circuits on the web, I can send you a .zip of 100's if you pm me your email.

 

[normad]

well thanks for your reviews guys but i seriously have no intention on putting my effects pedal on the guitar. i have to say that it sounds really stupid. anyways the guitar tuner is an awesome idea and its unfortunate that i dont have enough knowledge give you any support. hope i soon will.
and about my question. guys i already have a digitech rp100 effects pedal to produce the effects i want. but i was thinking of doing something different. and i dont plan dig alot out of my guitar too.
i was thinking like maybe an electronic tremolo which works with a knob cause i dont have the tremolo arm in my guitar. and i think slash plays such a guitar on the gnr japan concert. is it possibe? thanks in advance guys

 

[transistance]

actually what Nigel said is near nowhere stupid, since most manufacturer's have very small circuit boards with neat PCB's that u can place under your guitar's pickguard with minimal modification. And you could implement one of those double pots instead of one of your tone pots, so u can adjust tone or pull up the pot for secondary control and set wetness.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

well thanks for your reviews guys but i seriously have no intention on putting my effects pedal on the guitar. i have to say that it sounds really stupid.

Yet your original post said "hey guys i'm a guitarist and have been thinking about creating a circuit that i can put inside my guitar to alter its sound or if possible add an effect".

So why have you changed your mind?.

anyways the guitar tuner is an awesome idea and its unfortunate that i dont have enough knowledge give you any support. hope i soon will.
and about my question. guys i already have a digitech rp100 effects pedal to produce the effects i want. but i was thinking of doing something different. and i dont plan dig alot out of my guitar too.
i was thinking like maybe an electronic tremolo which works with a knob cause i dont have the tremolo arm in my guitar. and i think slash plays such a guitar on the gnr japan concert. is it possibe? thanks in advance guys

It would be an effect pedal mounted inside your guitar, which you've just said is a "really stupid" idea?.

 

[normad]

someones got hard feelings eyy..! look nigel no offense and thanks for your idea. its just not what i had in mind. what i meant by an effect is something like what i said in the second post. an electronic tremolo. or something like that.
and thanks for the double-pot idea transistance. i guess i'll do that too..

 

[normad]

ok people just forget about the guitars and pedals and everything else i said. ill try my best to handle that part myself.
so can you atleast pleease tell me what are possible ways of modulating the frequency of an analogue signal. and by modulating i mean increasing and decreasing frequency and not cropping like with distortion.

 

[audioguru]

You could use millions of parts like they did 40 years ago or use a simple modern circuit that digitizes the sound then processes it to do whatever you want.
But it will not be live, it will be delayed.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

ok people just forget about the guitars and pedals and everything else i said. ill try my best to handle that part myself.
so can you atleast pleease tell me what are possible ways of modulating the frequency of an analogue signal. and by modulating i mean increasing and decreasing frequency and not cropping like with distortion.

Like I said way back, buy a pedal that does what you want, and strip the insides out - effective frequency modulation isn't easy or simple, and you can buy effect pedals for hardly any money. You can't build one as cheap, or as effective.

 

[transistance]

You could use millions of parts like they did 40 years ago or use a simple modern circuit that digitizes the sound then processes it to do whatever you want.
But it will not be live, it will be delayed.

Even if you use an external fx stomp box or a multifx floor/rack system there is going to be delay, am i wrong?

I mean even preamps will cause delays but it's negligible imo.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Even if you use an external fx stomp box or a multifx floor/rack system there is going to be delay, am i wrong?

I mean even preamps will cause delays but it's negligible imo.

It's less that negligible

Electronics are FAST - very, very fast - fingers playing a guitar are exceedingly slow, delays aren't a problem. Also bear in mind that many effects actually require delay, that's how the effect works.

I suspect Audioguru was talking about digital processing, but not in real time.

 

[normad]

nigel do you work in an effects pedal company or something?! hahah.. nyways.. thanks folks.. i think thats all for me to take from this..

 

[audioguru]

Here is a Guitar Vibrato Circuit that can frequency modulate the sound.
**broken link removed**

 

[transistance]

Here is a Guitar Vibrato Circuit that can frequency modulate the sound.
**broken link removed**

that modulator circuit is pretty sweet! considering that it wont take too much space either... There's always gonna be a problem with battery placement though.. i might use an old cell phone battery since they are rechargeable, compact, light weight and last long... plus if it is a considerably new battery from an old used phone, you can pretty much call that free.

 

[audioguru]

Charge the lithium battery properly so it doesn't catch on fire. Add a low voltage disconnect circuit because if it is discharged too low then it is destroyed.

 

[normad]

thank youuu.. finally