Biohazard Posted March 5, 2004 Report Share Posted March 5, 2004 Hi, I have seen on Matt Bellamy's custom black and his new "bomber" (chrome) guitar that he has a blacky grey strip near the upper curved horn. This is a built in whammy pedal control. I was wondering how would you integrate the whammy pedal into a guitar? It's obviously possible with a lot of electronics knowledge, just wondering if anyone here could give any insight into how it might be done? Thanks for any information guys! Dave. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyG Posted March 5, 2004 Report Share Posted March 5, 2004 the grey strips are midi controler pads and go through the midi controler socket that matt has on his guitar (least i think he does) the digitech can be controlled by midi and i think its actually something thats built into it tho im not totally sure how you would go about doing it from there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biohazard Posted March 5, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2004 Ah Ok, thanks for that info. If amyone else can give some insight then that would be appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darren wilson Posted March 5, 2004 Report Share Posted March 5, 2004 I've often wondered why someone would want effects (especially dynamic, real-time effects) built into the guitar body. I don't know about you guys, but when i'm playing, both of my hands are usually occupied with, um... playing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
syxxstring Posted March 5, 2004 Report Share Posted March 5, 2004 The coolest integrated effect ive heard of is the Z-Vex gutiar with a probe built in so the wah can follow you strumming. They're rare and expensive but i dig the idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biblical Posted March 5, 2004 Report Share Posted March 5, 2004 bellamy has that in his guitar aswell, for the lovly umber crunching midi pad it will cost you £500 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biohazard Posted March 5, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2004 Does anyone know how you would go about putting it into a guitar. I'm interested in the electronics behind it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ansil Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 theres another way to do this.. as most of the harmony pedal are using led ldrs to control the pitch up and down.. u can add a knob to yoru guitar controlling voltage. and run it out the guitar and into the whammy pedal. you might have to add a jack to it. asi wouldnt' recomend hard wiring it into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biohazard Posted March 6, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 Thanks ansil for that input however i didnt quite understand it. Any other way you could make it understandable? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drezdin Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 it's a ribbon controller. i've been looking for one too. so far i can only find big ones, made by kurzweil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ansil Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 mine was controlled by the lightness or darkness of the leds in the foot pedal.. so basicaly it is a led light emitting diode. which makes light when voltage is applied to it.. and a ldr.. whcih is a light dependant resistor. ie it changes its resistance via the amount of light on it.. think solar cells but not quite. it don't generate its own electricity but it changes its resistance off of how much light hits it. there for th eknob on the guitar runs down into the whammy and controls the amount of voltage to the led whcih changes the amount of resistance on the ldr. whcih changes the pitch accordingly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biohazard Posted March 7, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2004 Cool, how would this be done, in electronic terms. although how would you get the ribbon controller to do it all without plugging into the whammy, or does matt still plug into the whammy via his wireless system? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biblical Posted March 7, 2004 Report Share Posted March 7, 2004 roland make the midi pads, but they cost alot.matt uses his midi cable i think. i dont think you can get wireless midi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ansil Posted March 7, 2004 Report Share Posted March 7, 2004 there was a company back in early 92 that was offering a wireless midi guitar.. wireless midi that is.. it was in the guitar mag originally in 1990 and reisued in 92 as a main article in GFTPM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biohazard Posted March 7, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2004 So this would be too difficult and tricky to do in my own guitar? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VanKirk Posted March 7, 2004 Report Share Posted March 7, 2004 I'm an Electronic Technician at Kurweil and I deal alot with MIDI controllers. My thought is that it would be much easier to have a MIDI interface controlled by a ribbon or slider. To add a direct effect like you want to your guitar would take electronic engineering experience and alot of time. At this point MIDI is the way to go. The Brian Moore iGuitar has a built in jack that can connect directly to Roland MIDI devices. This way you could get your wah effects as well as many others. Roland also has a MIDI pickup that you can add to an existing guitar (whoa! did I just endorse Roland?!) Oh yeah! Kurzweil has the XM-1 expressionmate but it's a huge ribbon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biohazard Posted March 7, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2004 Thanks for that. So how would I install a MIDI ribbon pad type thing to control the whammy pedal. So I plug in a MIDI cable from my guitar, to the whammy unit, or even just use the standard cable ports if its possible, and whatever setting I put the Digitech Whammy pedal on (for example the one octave up setting), intead of using the pedal to do this, I can use the MIDI strip controller to do it? Thanks to anyone for any information on this, I always seem to have either the most impossible, or stupidest ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primal Posted March 8, 2004 Report Share Posted March 8, 2004 It would be really cool if you could control the effect with a fake tremolo bar. Not sure how this could be done but I imagine it would be very possible. Would make a great mod for a non-trem guitar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weezerboy Posted March 8, 2004 Report Share Posted March 8, 2004 like a tremolo bar that can bend the note two octaves!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biohazard Posted March 8, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2004 I'm currently researching how I would go about doing it. I think the very basics of it would be a MIDI strip controller, that will then go through a MIDI jack socket, into the Digitech Whammy pedals MIDI input and the whatever the Whammy setting is (for example 1 octave up), instead of using the Whammy's expression pedal, the MIDI strip controller does the work, so you can control it from the guitar rather than standing over the pedal to do pitchshifting. If anyone could assist me in my research into how this would be done then I would be very grateful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VanKirk Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 Hmmm....Most all major keyboard manufacturers have pitch/mod wheels that send MIDI messages. I bet I could make a small circuit that would xmit MIDI messages and use a small spring loaded 'return to zero' mod wheel and a small pitch strip with touch sensitivity. Keyboards have had them for years and there are many, many devices out there that receive MIDI messages. All that the modulation wheel and pitch strip would be responsible for would be to xmit MIDI values. Any device it's connected to would do the rest of the work. ie...the spring loaded mod wheel could xmit MIDI value 127 at the middle detent, 0 at the 'bottom' end and 255 at the 'top' end. The MIDI device that it's connected to could be used to decode this value into a pitch value, reverb value, flange, whatever the connected device can do. This must have been done in some other form before but I like the idea of a small diameter mod wheel and pitch/touch sensitive strip on-board the guitar. Hmmm....Bridge the gap between keyboards and guitars. Anyone seen one like this before? If so could I get the link, please. For an idea of what I mean, go to a local keyboard dealer and play a Korg or Kurzweil and move the mod wheel around a bit. Shooot! Sry Biohazard. I didn't mean to hijack your thread. Thanks for getting me think about it though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biohazard Posted March 9, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 So this device could do whatever you want in terms of midi. If you were able to connect it to your house heating system you could alter the heating with it. I dont get what you mean by the wheel bit but the touch sensetive pad is what I am after. Here is a link that will take you to an information page on one of the guitars of Matt Bellamy from Muse, this particular guitar has a MIDI controller strip on it, and this is what I want to be able to do, or at least understadnd how to do it and understand the circuitry behind it. Basically they say its a linear pot or strip or something, that goes into a micro controller it "number crunches" MIDI values, or something like that, and can be interpreted by a MIDI device, for example, the MIDI input on the Digitech Whammy pedal. Any help or information would be greatly appreciated VanKirk. Thanks to everyone else who has posted. Oh yeah the link is: http://www.mansons.co.uk/show_feature.cfm?...CFTOKEN=7686521 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drezdin Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 Manson sells alot of the stuff from the muse guitars as kits, however the midi strip is not listed as one of them. i sent Manson and email to see if he would sell it as a kit. i'll let you know if i hear back from him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biblical Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 he says he will sell them for like £600 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biohazard Posted March 9, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 Thats why i'm wanting to try and do it myself. I think it would be a really cool project, to be able to have control of a Whammy pedal, or anything with MIDI capabilities, all from a strip on your guitar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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