Official Luthiers Forum!

This is a question for those of you who are a lot more tech savey than I will ever be.

Tonight I had a young man approach me with a propsition,not that kind

He wants to install an onboard prossesor with key pad on a Les Paul body style guitar that will allow him to do what he now does with rack mount system and foot pedals.

Assuming he can provied the software, is there a platform that is compact enough,with enough processing power,that can handel the task?

You can enrave all I know about this subject on the head of a pin as it passes by at the speed of light. So I thought I would put it out there for the collective wisdom of this forum to kick around.

Any insight that may be offered will be much appreciated.

Cecil

wow.... definetely to hight tech for me!

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

check out here
Nano ITX
or here

PICO ITX

The above boards will do what he wants with the proper software

Check here for some inspirsation
Mini Itx site

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Zac

Anchorage Alaska

Finshed my 1st! See #1 here

It's possible. There are portable sized processors (in phones, PDAs) with more than enough juice for realtime audio processing.

Hardware based on the PC104 spec would be able to be crammed in there, I think, and then you'd have actual PC hardware. From that point you could install a stripped down version of Linux on there and it's cake if you can program the software.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Hesh, we're on the same page, well almost. If you put that kind of electronics in a guitar I don't think it would mater what type of wood it was made of. Basically wouldn’t it be a hand held synthesizer? If he wants a Les Paul look why not start with the electronics and then put what ever shape he wants around that?

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

Thanks for the input guys. As stated i know nothing at all about electric instrument. I just wanted a direction to point him.

If this project happens I will be doing the wood work. As we say in the Qzarks the electronics are "his calf to lick".

Cecil

Possible? Yes. Several guitars out there with wacky electronics of all kinds and flavours. Advisable? Not really, unless you can come up with a routing system that would allow for future (expensive) upgrades.

Electronics age much faster than wood does.

Even looking at modelling software from the likes of Line6, while the original sounds were very, very good, the new ones (4 years down the line) are head and shoulders above them in terms of quality, and still don't match up to a real tube amp, IMO. But it can be fun.

Cecil,
I can see the allure of “on board” effects and all installed within the instrument. I have toyed with the idea myself earlier in my playing days but I have to agree with Mattia and Hesh and all.
Speaking as an electronic player, I think the hands are busy enough playing the guitar and all the knobs, switches and digi-readouts will distract from playing. I say get the feet in on the effects mode. That is what they make foot switches and peddles for.
But,
Let us know what you come up with..

Wade

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Wade
Nashua, NH
http://www.wadefx.com

I could'nt agree more.

His is idea is to eliminate the clutter on the stage from the various foot pedals etc. that he now uses. I don't know why he wants to hang it around his neck but he thinks he does.

I'll keep you posted if this gets out of the pipe dream stage.

Cecil

This sounds like a fun project if you can pull it off. The idea of having a fully self-contained electric guitar with onboard electronics is very appealing to many of us.

I couldn’t find any specs for power requirements in the tech data for the Nano, but I suspect they may be high enough to give you a choice of very short untethered times or keeping your guitar plugged in full-time.

If I were going to approach this project I’d cannibalize a pocket PC. Prime candidate? Toshiba e series. The e330 can be picked up for 50 bucks or less on ebay.

It measures about 3 x 5 inches and is about ?-inch thick. It weighs less than 6 ounces, gets about 5 to 6 hours on a fully charged battery. It has enough processing horsepower that it could run your effects, provide a drum machine and display your set list all at the same time. It uses SD memory cards, so storage is no problem. The OS is Windows PC 2000, (same as Windows CE 3.0)

I have one of these and use it much more than I thought I would.

Now that I'm thinking about it, why limit this idea to a Les Paul? Why not a Chet Atkins-style guitar that's equipped with both analog and midi pickups and uses the e330 programmed as a soft synth

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D..