The Boldport Cordwood And Cuttlefish, Together As A Guitar Tuner

As regular readers will know, here at Hackaday we are great enthusiasts for the PCB as an art form. On a special level of their own in that arena are the Boldport kits from [Saar Drimer], superlative objets d’art that are beautifully presented and a joy to build.

The trouble some people find with some of their Boldport kits though is that they are just too good. What can you do with them, when getting too busy with hacking them would despoil their beauty? [Paul Gallagher] has the answer in one case, he’s used not one kit but two of …read more

Continue reading The Boldport Cordwood And Cuttlefish, Together As A Guitar Tuner

Hackaday Prize Entry: You Can Tune A Guitar, But Can You Reference REO Speedwagon?

Just for a second, let’s perform a little engineering-based thought experiment. Let’s design a guitar tuner. First up, you’ll need a 1/4″ input, and some op-amps to get that signal into a microcontroller. In the microcontroller, you’re going to be doing some FFT. If you’re really fancy, you’ll have some lookup tables and an interface to switch between A440, maybe A430, and if you’re a huge nerd, C256. The interface is simple enough — just use a seven-segment display and a few LEDs to tell the user what note they’re on and how on-pitch they are. All in all, the …read more

Continue reading Hackaday Prize Entry: You Can Tune A Guitar, But Can You Reference REO Speedwagon?

Hackaday Prize Entry: You Can Tune A Guitar, But Can You Reference REO Speedwagon?

Just for a second, let’s perform a little engineering-based thought experiment. Let’s design a guitar tuner. First up, you’ll need a 1/4″ input, and some op-amps to get that signal into a microcontroller. In the microcontroller, you’re going to be doing some FFT. If you’re really fancy, you’ll have some lookup tables and an interface to switch between A440, maybe A430, and if you’re a huge nerd, C256. The interface is simple enough — just use a seven-segment display and a few LEDs to tell the user what note they’re on and how on-pitch they are. All in all, the …read more

Continue reading Hackaday Prize Entry: You Can Tune A Guitar, But Can You Reference REO Speedwagon?