As mentioned before, it was decided that another design addition is to add an expression pedal output to the central hardware unit that can be used to control effect pedals featuring an expression pedal input. As things currently stand, the movements of the right, strumming hand will be the primary input for the expression pedal but, of course, also the left hand setup could be used as an control input. After the second semester, it was initially planned to control a virtual effect in Pure Data with the movements of the right hand. This would have necessitated the use of a laptop during live performances which is not really common among traditional guitarists. Consequently, the idea of using an expression pedal accords with the project’s goal to be easily implemented into a guitarists current live rig.
Developing the expression pedal was made possible with solving the problem of how to use the digital potentiometer MCP4251. As mentioned in the previous blog post, interfacing and using this digipot was made possible so, now, work on the expression pedal could commence. With the author not having too much experience with expression pedals and their functionality, some reading had to be done beforehand. Then, it was decided to firstly build a kind of conventional expression pedal using an analog potentiometer. By following the instructions of a blog post explaining how to build a DIY expression pedal from a Wah-Wah pedal, a circuit was made on a breadboard. This circuit involved a potentiometer which simulated the expression pedal (which is basically a potentiometer) that sent its values via a TRS line cable to an Arduino UNO that simulated the effect pedal controlled by the expression pedal. The Arduino UNO read the values coming in over the TRS cable using the analogRead() function. As the potentiometer was turned, the changing values sent over the TRS cable could be detected by the Arduino.
In the next step, the analog potentiometer was replaced by the digipot connected to an ESP32 and a code was written that toggled the resistance of the digipot between two values, changing every second. Thus, the ESP32 sent commands to change the resistance to the digipot. These voltage changes were then sent over the TRS cable to the Arduino UNO acting as the effect pedal and printed in the serial monitor of the Arduino. While this setup only simulated the workings of an expression pedal, it nevertheless proved that the components of the circuit worked together as desired. The next step here is to test the setup with actual IMU sensor input from the right hand while guitar playing AND to connect the setup not to the Arduino UNO but to an actual effect pedal with an expression pedal input.
