Guitar sound digitally

Projects General Guidance
1

Hello!
A friend and I embarked on a quite a challenging project this year. We're trying to create a guitar out of circuits. The problem right now is how to get a guitar sound?

Our inputs are 1) the left hand notes your fingers press down and 2) the strings your right hand strums

The thing is, I'm trying to create the guitar sound digitally. I know you can use an MP3 module to just load in different chords that are triggered by the user but there's a million different combinations for chords so it doesn't seem feasible. I've tried looking at things like Mozzi, but those seem to be more focused on synthesizers which isn't really what I'm looking for.

How should I go about this??

Edit: Guess I should be more specific. The idea I just had after going through some articles was using a WAV Trigger (WAV Trigger) to store the sound of the notes. The only problem is that to have the full functionality of a guitar, I would need more than 16 inputs. But, since there are only 7 notes, I could just pitch up the notes that I have stored. I am not completely sure how to pitch them up however, or how to send them back into the WAV trigger to be played simultaneously with the other notes.

2

Perhaps you could explain to us what a "guitar" sound is!

3

I guess I just want it to actually sound like a stringed instrument and not just a mechanical beep

4

The circuit you design should produce a waveform that closely resembles the one produced by the stringed instrument. In other words, you will be building a synthesizer.

5

Are you saying I should just build a bunch of envelopes and such to produce the guitar sound with analog parts? I was thinking there was an easier way to develop the sound with digital software which is why I asked here. I'm just not sure how to even go about it when using software like Mozzi.

6

Do you remember that a stringed instrument sound is AC, and analog, not digital?

7

That is called "digital audio synthesis". Your favorite search engine will find articles of interest.

8

Yes but most instrument sounds can be created digitally. Especially these days which is what I was going for.

9

For sound generation I recommend that you use a regular computer and MIDI software which uses virtual (software) instruments.

Realistic music synthesis is complicated!!! It won't work on a "regular little" Arduino (one of the more powerful ones might work) and it would take years to learn how to write the program(s)!

There are basically two "sides" to MIDI. There is the MIDI instrument which makes the sound and a MIDI controller that sends MIDI commands to the instrument, telling it what note to play, how long to sustain the note, how loud to play it, and sometimes other information including which virtual instrument to play, etc.

A MIDI keyboard is usually both, although there keyboards that are just controllers. They can be used with a computer or with another keyboard that generates sound.

Often there is a computer involved and/or the computer can do everything. Windows includes a simple synthesizer and you play MIDI files.

Most music that you hear in modern movies and TV is MIDI. (In the old days it was a real band/orchestra.)

10

Thanks! I guess my problem would be connecting MIDI to my circuitry. I currently have the "frets" built with the use of sensors. Is there a way to connect this to MIDI software?

11

Please post the details of your circuitry.

12

Arduino MIDI USB

Originally, MIDI used a special connector and "simple" serial communication and you can get a MIDI shield for the Arduino.

Now, most MIDI is USB and this is more convenient because every computer has USB and you don't need an extra MIDI interface.

13

Or, buy a C-64. I spent many hours playing with the envelope the SID chip created.

For your endeavor, here's an envelope plotter that does nothing but plot the envelope.

I plan to generate values from the graph to play on an Arduino, like this 1-bit synth (start at 1m55s)

Here's another 1-bit Arduino synth

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