Thin gauge leaded solder and a fine tipped iron make this a a lot easier, along with using a soldering stand to hold the wire against the fret. In order to preserve play-ability of the guitar, we need to make these joints as smooth as possible, and also make the joint at the very end of the fret. Then hit it with your iron and some solder, and the string should readily accept the connection. Make sure you have a nice bit of wire stripped, and then wrap it on the string after the saddle so it doesn't interfere with the vibrations. Soldering to the strings is pretty straightforward. I only did 8 frets for this setup, but you can add more with more Ethernet cable. One cable will be connected to the the frets, and the other to the strings. Go ahead and strip all the wires at each end. You will need two separate sections (or more) of Ethernet cable, ideally 6 ft or greater. We will now solder on the wires that plug into our micro-controller. We're almost there with the modifications to the guitar. You will need to be creative for this step and figure out how to make you own instruments specific hardware non-conductive, though chances are it will involve drilling and glue. After re-installing my bridge and strings, my multi-meter showed no conductivity between the strings! After it dried I then re-drilled the epoxy so it just fit the strings and the hole was "all glue". I was able to fix this by getting out my drill and vastly over-boring these holes and filling them with epoxy. Unfortunately, the string anchors at bridge could not be handled this way as the string and its end loop fit tightly into the base. Any metal surface that touches the strings needs to be coated in a non-conductive glue like epoxy or superglue.įor my saddle pieces, I was able to just apply a thin layer of superglue where the string rests. On mine, this was both at the strings anchors at the bottom of the bridge, and the metal saddle pieces that support the strings. Examine your bridge and where the string makes contact with the metal. The place where this happens is usually at the bridge, a metal piece at the base of the guitar that anchors down the strings. This is the exact opposite of what we want! You can test the conductivity between strings with a multi-meter, the resistance needs to be infinite. On an acoustic guitar this is not a problem, however electric instruments generally have their strings grounded in order to try and reduce noise. This setup is just the simplest hardware and code-wise to implement.īecause the strings themselves are part of electrical circuits in this build, we need to make sure that there is no conductivity between them so the micro-controller knows which string is fretted. I'm working on a different version that shouldn't have this issue. Achieving true polyphony requires completely different frets and make this project a lot more difficult.Īdditionally, also understand that my current setup generates a lot of electrical noise when the instrument is plugged into an amp. The catch is that we can only achieve partial polyphony (when you play more than one note at once). It turns out that, thanks the DIY friendly Arduino Mega, just about any guitar with metal strings can be converted to this setup if you're willing to modify the bridge, with a catch. Unfettered, I set out to make my own version of this synth for more to the tune of under $50. These professionally crafted instruments retail for $1500 to $4000 respectively. It has also been perfected in a guitar called the Solange 6 from Industrial Radio. I was pretty certain at that moment that I was on to something new, however this idea has been around for awhile, likely originating with the Guitorgan, which used this fret-detection method to drive an old school electric organ. It's an alternative to hexaphonic pickup guitar synths that detects actual physical contact instead of processing signals. The logical conclusion of this insight is that if you wire up all of the frets and strings of a guitar (yes I used a bass) to a micro-controller, you should be able to detect what notes are being fretted by testing the electrical conductivity between the frets and the strings! Combined with code to send MIDI messages and routed to a synthesizer, this creates a cool new way interface your guitar to your electronic setups. Somehow I got around to thinking about electronics and guitars at the same time, and it occurred to me that whenever you press a string against a fret you are making an electrical path between the two. Here's a weird one for all you MIDI enthusiasts out there.
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