You know what’s been missing from my life?

Yup.  Microcontrollers.

I got this idea several months back to create a few two-in-one effects pedals.  I had an EA Tremolo board and a one-knob reverb ready to go, and I thought they might pair nicely.  While I was doing the layout for the 1590BB enclosure I thought it would be cool if the pedal ran in two modes: Separate Mode, where each switch activated it’s own affect; and Together Mode, where the right switch activated both effects simultaneously.  I spent days thinking about this and mocking up switch diagrams, but all to no avail.  It was too complicated for me to figure out — at least with some room left in the enclosure for the actual effects boards.  For a while I had a brilliant plan to use optoisolators, and while they do simplify things, the switching was still a catastrophe.  That’s when I broke down and started thinking about microcontrollers.

Two weeks later, I have an Arduino Uno and a working prototype on breadboard.

arduino-dual-switch

Arduino Dual-Effect Superswitch

With the added flexibility of the microcontroller, I’ve added a third mode: XOR Mode.  Very exciting!  More details to come….

Three-Mode Dual-Effect Superswitch Prototype_bb


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