MIDI is a great tool for virtually any musician. Unless you’re a keyboard player, though, it might be hard to use it live. [Evan] recently came up with a great solution for all of the wistful guitar players out there who have been dreaming of having a MIDI interface as useful as their pianist brethren, though. He created a touchless MIDI controller that interfaces directly with a guitar.

[Evan] set up an Arduino Nano to handle the MIDI interface to the computer. A detector coil from a previous project was installed onto the guitar can recognize how far away the guitarist’s hand is from the body of the guitar, giving the musician control over an effect of their choosing. The guitarist simply needs to be wearing a special mitten for use with the detector coil. [Evan] also added three tactile buttons, meaning that this MIDI usefulness can be extended to three different selectable effects.

Be sure to check out the video below for a demonstration of how the interface works. [Evan] has also made the schematics and Arduino code available if you decide to build your own. This isn’t [Evan]’s first MIDI rodeo, either. He’s also created a MIDI drum interface from a Rock Band drum set, too.

[fichl] plays electric guitar, and with that hobby comes an incredible amount of knob twisting and dial turning. This comes at a cost; he can’t change the settings on his small amp without taking his hands off the guitar. While larger, more expensive amps have multiple channels and footswitches, this tiny amp does not. Instead of upgrading, [fichl] came up with a device that turns his single channel amp into a completely programmable one, with just an Arduino and a handful of servos.

The amp in question – an Orange Dark Terror head – has just three knobs on the front of the chassis, volume, shape, and gain. [fichl] had the idea of controlling these knobs electronically, and the simplest solution he came up with is cheap hobby servos. These servos are mounted in an aluminum box, and mount to the knobs with a few shaft couplings.

The footswitch is the brains of the setup, with three buttons, four LEDs, and a DIN-5 output jack that delivers power, ground, and three PWM signals to the servo box. With the help of an Arduino Nano, [fichl] can change any of the knobs independently, or switch between twelve programmed settings. It’s an interesting setup, and something that could serve as a prototype for a much larger system on a much larger amp.

Nicole Grimwood is working towards a dual degree in engineering from Columbia University and liberal arts from Scripps College.

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Arduino user named Muiota shared with us an experimental DIY music project running on Arduino Uno and  solenoids.

Take a look at the video to hear how it sounds:

We’ve all had that problem. Up on stage, rocking out Jimi Hendrix-style on guitar with your band, but frustrated at having to mess around with foot pedals to control all of the effects. [Richard] solved this problem in a unique way: he put a preamp and a microcontroller in a guitar that can create some very interesting effects.

For the musically challenged, electric guitars often have several sets of electromagnetic pickups that detect vibrations in the strings at different points along the strings. Selecting different pickup combinations with a built-in switch changes the sound that the guitar makes. [Richard] wired the pickups in his Fender Stratocaster to the microcontroller and programmed it to switch the pickups according to various patterns. The effect is somewhat like a chorus pedal at times and it sounds very unique.

The volume and tone knobs on the guitar are used to select the programmed patterns to switch various pickups at varying speeds. This has the added bonus of keeping the stock look of the guitar in tact, unlike some other guitars we’ve seen before. The Anubis preamp, as it is called, is a very well polished project and the code and wiring schematic are available on the project site along with some audio samples.

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This a screenshot taken from [Pierre's] demonstration of an electric guitar effects pedal combined with DSP and Pure Data. He pulls this off by connecting the guitar directly to the computer, then feeds the computer’s audio output to the guitar amp.

The foot controls include a pedal and eight buttons, all monitored by an Arduino. Pure Data, a visual programming language, interprets the input coming from the Arduino over USB and alters the incoming audio using digital signal processing. [Pierre] manages the audio connection using the JACK Audio Connection Kit software package.

In the video after the break he’s using a laptop for most of the work, but he has also managed to pull this off with a Raspberry Pi. There’s no audio input on the RPi board, but he’s been using a USB sound card anyway. The other USB port connects the Arduino and he’s in business.

[Thanks Walter]

This unique electronic instrument combines a chopped up guitar and a hacked apart glockenspiel with an Arduino. [Aaron]‘s Glockentar consists of guitar hardware and glockenspiel keys mounted to a wood body. Solenoids placed above the keys actuate metal rods to play a note.

Under the hood, an Arduino connects the pieces. The conductive pick closes a circuit, which is a digital input into the Arduino. This actuates the corresponding solenoid to play the glockenspiel key, and sends a character to a computer over serial.

On the computer, an openFrameworks based program creates lighting that is projected onto each string. MadMapper is used for projection mapping, which maps the openFrameworks output to each string. Video is passed between applications using the Syphon framework.

[Aaron] has provided a write up that goes into details, including the Arduino and openFrameworks source for the project. There’s also a video overview and demo of the Glockentar after the break.

End-of-year engineering school projects often pique our interest for their creativity. It's not every day that they can carry a bassline, however. James McVay's robot project for his honors year at the Victoria University of Wellington, the supremely well-named MechBass, wouldn't have much trouble keeping up with a favorite band. It centers on a custom, Arduino-compatible board that controls the plucking, fretting and damping of four strings to faithfully recreate bass guitar sounds from MIDI input. The design even accounts for the unwanted noises of actuators and motors, while virtually everything was either 3D-printed or laser-cut just for the task at hand. Sounds good? There's more in the pipeline: an upcoming Swivel robot will experiment with different playing techniques, and McVay ultimately sees his work teaching us about robotic music's interaction with human performers. For now, we'll be happy with the video after the break and hope that MechBass takes requests.

Continue reading MechBass robot nails bass guitar sounds with Arduino and a stone cold groove (video)

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Source: Hack A Day

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