Pedals on Strings And Tines

Optical Tremolo Pedal v.2

Tue, 03 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The first one of these I made used a photoresistor on the lid of the box, which was a bit clunky to use since it required a light source outside of the box to work. For version 2, I got myself a Digispark microcontroller and a knob to control an LED that would strobe in front of the photoresistor to pass the signal to the amp. I added a second LED to show the strobing speed to the user. This one is a bit easier to use

Toy Amp with Boo and Applause Buttons

Sat, 18 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This one is a bit of a joke. I found this toy guitar/amp combo at Goodwill and of course had to get it to use for various projects. The amp showed some potential as a pedal, so I quickly took it apart to see what I could do with it. It features a button that plays a crowd applauding and cheering, and a second button that boos. A third button cycles through a few different, yet very repetitive beats for you to play along. And it has two separate line in connectors for a microphone and MP3 or other music source. It even has a light that changes color continuously and is quite bright. This lets you recreate the full experience of being in concert right at home!

Walkman Distortion Pedal

Sun, 03 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Since you can make small amps out of cassette players, and they tend to give you a bit of overdrive, I figured you could make a pedal out of a walkman. Turns out that was a good assumption. Wiring a 3/4″ jack to the cassette head is all it takes, then take the headphone out and connect that to an amp and you are done. In this case the volume knob controls how much distortion you get out of the “pedal.” It’s a bit clunky because you also have to mess around with the volume on the amp to get a good sound, but I like the effect that this walkman makes.

Optical Tremolo Pedal v.1

Sun, 03 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This tremolo pedal relies on a photoresistor on the lid of the box to pass the signal to the amp. I used a strobing app on my phone flashing right on the photoresistor to control the tremolo effect. This was my first attempt at making one of these types of pedals. While cool, it’s not very convenient, since you have to have a light source to control the effect. It does, however, give you the ability to play around with the effect a bit more.