Design and construction of arduino-hacked variable gating distortion pedal

Abstract

This paper describes the distortion effects often used in an electric guitar. Distortion is an added effect in an electric guitar, which compresses the peaks of the sound waves produced by the musical instrument, to produce a large number of added overtones, which here is done by rigging up a circuit in collaboration with the Arduino UNO circuit board. The digital potentiometer controlled by the Arduino (microcontroller) was an improvement and was able to produce satisfactory results, as compared with the analog potentiometer without the Arduino control. The complex circuitry of a three-stage distortion circuit with the analog potentiometer was replaced by a digital potentiometer controlled by a microcontroller, with better results. This variable-gating distortion pedal has an added advantage of being compact, light, and inexpensive.