This Guitar Tuner and Preamp project built by Rob uses a PIC microcontroller and an old stereo to allow visual tuning of a guitar. LEDs indicate how well tuned each string is.
“I recently had to make a guitar amplifier and thought it would be cool to include a PIC based guitar tuner. I had an AIWA 3-disc stereo lying around with a non-functioning CD player. The tuner and tape deck still worked fine, and it was rated for I think 30 watts/channel.
I started by extricating the entire CD changer mechanism, including the spindle drive and laser unit, and the board with the DAC circuits. It was a simple matter to find where the audio inputs on the main board where that the CD audio signal was fed into. I would use these to feed the guitar signal into the stereo amplifiers (so I can still use the tuner and tape decks normally. When I want the guitar on, I just select “CD” for the input source)
The guitar’s input is buffered by an Analog Devices AD620 instrumentation amplifier. This chip is definitely overkill for this application ( I think each 8 pin DIP retails for $12) but I happened to have a few lying around my bench so what the hell. It has a great CMRR and an external output reference which can be used to virtually eliminate ground loops and hum. ”
Permalink
Now why haven’t more guitar amplifier makers put tuners into the amp?
This seems like a brilliant idea!
Permalink
I just wonder why they used so much perf board for so few components 🙂
Permalink
this is a really cool Idea, I dont even play the guitar But I think this is awesome.
Permalink
uhm, Your stereo probably has an ‘aux in’ (auxiliary in) jack which you could have plugged into without ripping out the cd thing.
Permalink
Permalink
My little brother is a huge guitar freak, I think I may have to make him once of these for a b-day present or something along those lines.
Permalink
please send me details about pic16f73 , pic 16877a microcontroller
Permalink
Hi Vinoth,
Please go here for chip details
http://microchip.com