Proceedings »
One of the most enjoyable things for any engineer is to work in an area that relates to their other interests. Over the past year, I used my knowledge of electrical engineering and my love for electric guitar to design and build my own tremolo effects pedal. The tremolo effect is one which varies the amplitude of the guitar’s signal according to an input waveform. My goal was to create this effect using only analog techniques and also add a new element to the effect that I hadn’t seen in other effects units. I achieved this by using two oscillators and using one to control the frequency of the other. Another part of this project was to integrate the circuit onto a printed circuit board (PCB) so as to fit it in a standard pedal enclosure. After an initial circuit was designed, it went through 5 different iterations before I reached the final design. I had to solve many issues such as oscillator noise bleeding into the audio signal and achieving the proper power supply to different areas of the circuit. Overall, it was an extremely productive learning experience with a final product which I currently use on a regular basis.
Author(s):
Matthew Kauffman
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Grove City College
United States
Timothy Mohr
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Grove City College
United States