Design and development of an electronic control system for an electric guitar

The analog signal processing electronics for a microprocessor based electric guitar control system were developed. The design provides a broad tonal and gain control range with the unique feature of being fully digitally programmable. The circuit uses active analog gain and tone control circuits and analog transmission gates for control of pickup selection. A battery driven DC to DC converter is used to power the system.

In addition, a quantitative analysis of the electric guitar was carried out. String motion, magnetic pickups, passive filtering, and active filtering were evaluated. The circuit frequency response, transient response, and noise performance were considered.