Applying Digital Electronics to Stomp Boxes

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Simplifying matters with the Arduino Due – Digital Stomp Boxes

Stomp boxes have been with us for ages, giving Hendrix, Slash, Gilmour and Page their famous signatures. Of course the older stomp boxes were tube and semiconductor devices, the diodes and transistors used being more often the Germanium type and even today the Ge semiconductor is a sought after commodity for it’s own unique blend of sound.

The Wah, Fuzzface, BigMuff Pi and Dunlop Crybaby are all famous in their own right, like many others. It is out of the scope of this article list all the famous names. Most manufacturers of professional audio gear also have made their name in the design of stomp boxes. Boss, a subsiduary of Roland is one of them, Zoom, Yamaha, Korg, Behringer and Electro-Harmonix are all known brands and many of them copy the effects of the tried and trusted.

A Pedal fired by Arduino

Along came Electrosmash, a British firm who cater for the DIYer, musician and both – their product is the pedalShield Arduino Due. This is all open source, the schematic is open source and the circuit used KiCad another open source project to make the PCB. Parts can be purchased through the company. At the time of writing the Due was a difficult product to source – in some quarters it is deemed obsolete.

See diagrams and page of the Due pedalShield here.

Oh yes, we are not affiliate to them, our interest is purely the direction we are seeing Arduino, Pi, Edison and Bone taking.

Then of course have the Uno fired unit.

The interest in this product is cost. See product page, schematic of the Uno pedalShield here.