I would like someone to tell me why I shouldn't attempt a dream project of mine. Maybe there's some challenges I can't forsee with my level of experience.

I would like to install a guitar multieffects pedal inside a guitar. Specifically this pedal
With this mainboard
I replaced a footswitch on a friends' years ago and was amazed at how small the main board is, and also how if it was that simple to desolder/resolder a small switch, why couldn't I run wires from the board and place the switches, led's, lcd, pot, jacks wherever I want them in the guitar? Would the increased wire resistance cause issues? Is this a bad idea? Are there examples of this type of thing being done? (And where can I see them?)

 

Of course this can b done, bt in not sure this can b attempted by u as it is obviously a reasonably complex task even for intermidiate level folks because u shd hv reasonable exp to locate and correct any faults that could easily happen"on the way" besides there are other unconnected issues like tampering with the natural resonance of your guitar which again will req some intense "surgery" in order to accommodate the pedals and associated switches in such a way that it's really accessible without altering it's aesthetics and fitness for the said cause. Thank u n hv a nice day.

 

Welcome to AAC.

In principle there is nothing to prevent you from doing this, but from a practical perspective you should be prepared.

FIrst, you will almost certainly need more than one board. This is because you will almost certainly do something to the first one that makes it no longer viable. What would this thing be? I can’t predict that but the opportunity for electrical and/or mechanical damage is so rich you will do something.

Second, this is what prototypes are for. If you are going to do this, don’t try to make a finished version first. Instead, start with a plan and them move to simple prototypes. The plan needs to be like a thought experiment concerning doing this. You need to account for every signal you are going to handle, and every device you will have to fit. Things like: how will you get power to the pedal board inside the guitar need to be thought about and made into subprojects that can be worked on separately.

When it comes to prototypes, you need to build incomplete and even ugly things, creating the resources for the final version layer by laer. For example, you want to remote certain components—so start there. Without worrying about a guitar at all, try moving switches, controls, the display (and whatever else) off the board, one by one.

You will need to know what the signals that will run over your wires are like to choose the right sort of wire/cable for the job. Try to estimate how far away you expect to move the part, then double that distance for your test. When you have all the ”moving parts” moved, you are 80% done with the project from the electronics perspective without the stress of trying to do that while jamming it all into a guitar.

Put connectors on everything! Choose some low profile connectors and standardize on them. Put them on everything that is leaving the board and where appropriate on the things that will live remotely. For things currently mounted on the PCB directly, expect to have custom PCBs fabricated (this is easier and cheaper than it sounds). For prototyping use prototype boards to mount the components, don‘t leave the dangling on wires. Connectors can go on the boards.

When the guitar-jamming time comes (not playing a guitar, but stuffing your electronics into one), don’t do it to your favorite guitar. Buy something cheap that approximates the guitar you want to be the final home and consider it sacrificial It is likely to get hacked up along the way, but that’s its purpose. If somehow it doesn’t, and it looks beautiful at the end—sell it as a custom to help fund the project, or keep it, but don’t count on its survival.

If you take your time, and treat each bit as a small project learning from each one and folding that experience back into the overall goal, you can do it. Just be realistic about cost and time. A good rule of thumb, I have found, is to make a good faith effort to estimate how long you expect things to take, then double that. You will then likely overrun that deadline by only 25% or so. (joking not-joking)

Keep this plan and timeline documented, and update it as you learn more—including deadlines. Be realistic, don‘t rush, plan to learn many things you don’t know—invest the time to know what you are doing before rushing in. Ask questions, try things. If I had to guess how long this project will take, done right, I would—in the absence of more information—say 1 to 3 years until the guitar you like to play has its pedals on board.

Good luck

 

Thanks for the reply. I've given this a whole lot of thought, and I'm pretty attached to the idea at this point (Been thinking it through for at least a couple years) Do you know of any projects that have had components "remoted" that I could look at to see how someone more experienced would do it? Surely theres a hackaday or something where someone moved the pushbuttons on their alarm clock, or installed their ipod in their dash with custom controls.... SOMEthing? Or even just another word that I could use to describe what I'm doing. I'm not opposed to learning (That's half the fun!)

I have all the basic framework thought out on the back of a napkin. Board uses a 9 volt supply, and 9v batteries arent hard to come by. Also want to have a wireless charger on the guitar stand so it just stays charged until I pick it up to use it.

I will absolutely take your advice and try to remote all the switches at least as far as they would be in-situ. Also I would do them one at a time to rule out any potential combination problems (I foresee combined resistance causing an issue as more and more components are remoted.)

Thanks again for the input. Maybe one day I'll post back with a completed project (Or one IN progress!)

 

A project like this should be done in stages. The first stage will be design and verification, meaning that after a section to provide a specific function is designed, it gets built and verified that the results are as desired. Then, after all the parts of the design are verifiedto be what you really want comes the hard part, which is developing an arrangement to have all of those parts fit in the places you want them to be in and still function.. Designing with small surface mount components helps a lot at this stage.. If the small parts can all fit on the back of a single PCB that replaces the original front cover of the guitar then you have it made.Use a double side board with all the extras hidden and a hard nickle plating on the outside for both shielding and wear resistance, and you would have the dream guitar. The only problem will be powering it. Batteries always need to be changed or charged. external power supplies are lugged around or lost.,or an arrangement to power the system from the designated amplifier means it will not work with any other amplifier.
And if the circuit ever fails you need to repair it or replace the guitar..
So the whole thing, after all of the designing, is a trade-off.

 

In a message forum like this, you're going to get overly technical answers. Just go for it. Maybe it will work the first time around, maybe it won't. But I guarantee you'll learn something, and if you keep at it you'll eventually get it done. Just jump in. My only warning is be careful with anything 120V AC (or 240V if you're in Europe), for safety reasons.

 

Thanks for the reply. I've given this a whole lot of thought, and I'm pretty attached to the idea at this point (Been thinking it through for at least a couple years) Do you know of any projects that have had components "remoted" that I could look at to see how someone more experienced would do it? Surely theres a hackaday or something where someone moved the pushbuttons on their alarm clock, or installed their ipod in their dash with custom controls.... SOMEthing? Or even just another word that I could use to describe what I'm doing. I'm not opposed to learning (That's half the fun!)

I have all the basic framework thought out on the back of a napkin. Board uses a 9 volt supply, and 9v batteries arent hard to come by. Also want to have a wireless charger on the guitar stand so it just stays charged until I pick it up to use it.

I will absolutely take your advice and try to remote all the switches at least as far as they would be in-situ. Also I would do them one at a time to rule out any potential combination problems (I foresee combined resistance causing an issue as more and more components are remoted.)

Thanks again for the input. Maybe one day I'll post back with a completed project (Or one IN progress!)

I don’t know of any such projects but nothing seems inherently difficult. Identifying the nature of the signals is important because if you know that you will be able to figure out the sort of connecting cable or wires that will be required.

You might not know the answer, but if you make a thread here, you can get help over a long period of time with each question. There have been threads very much like this which span a considerable interval as things progress.

The other thing I want to emphasize is skill building. It is very much integral with success that you develop some skills in the areas of circuits and PCB fabrication. You don’t have to be an expert—though there is nothing stopping you if you decide you like the idea—but you do have to develop competency.

There are two broad definitions of “success” that might apply here. My advice rejects one and embraces the other. The one I won’t accept as success is “getting it done”. That is, if you white-knuckle your way through each step piling workaround on workaround and kludge on kludge, and, finally, can “play” the guitar—if you know the tricks to make it work and accept the limitations of the build.

That form of success could be applied to a prototype, but not to your vision. To mean, the other success—something that you could give to someone else to play gigs on, something that could be a commercial product, something that looks, sounds, and works like your imagination’s version—is what you want and can have. It’s really just a matter of effort over time.

One more thing: there is a part of this that requires machining. You might have experience with a mill, and with CAD, or not. But if not, you need to start sooner than later at least learning CAD. There are open source options, like the parametric CAD program OpenCAD which is powerful but quirky and difficult to learn.

Then there are the community edition type options like Fusion360 and OnShape. These are two very good programs which are free with limitations to non-commercial users. If I had to pick one of those for you it would be Fusion360 for a variety of reasons. But here’s the deal: with CAD, you can design and verify everything about how to make the parts fit into and work with your guitar and you can have someone who does CNC milling do the work if you don‘t have a mill.

Being able to layout and visualize the parts is a great big deal and will save heartache and make success much more likely. IO use Shapr3D which is really a very good program but really wants an Apple ecosystem. While there is a Windows version, the real strength of Shapr3D is that it runs on an iPad Pro using the pencil and touch screen which is brilliant. If you happen to have one, do check it out. There is a free tier you can use.

The number and complexity of things you will have to learn to succeed with my definition of success could certainly be daunting, but honestly, considering that you don’t have to be an “expert” and can lean on the generosity of many experts online, and you can do it over time if you give yourself reasonable deadlines, means it is eminently possible.

To recap, if you are serious and taking my advice you need to develop competency in:

• Basic Circuits—what are AC and DC, what is Ohm’s Law, what do key components do (e.g.: resistors, capacitors, inductors, transistors, &c.)
  
  
• Basic Signal Routing and Conditioning—what are balanced and unbalanced lines, how to shields/screens and twisted pairs work to reject noise, what is a ”ground” and why does it matter, and what is a buffer and when would it come into play.
  
  
• Basic EDA (Electronic Design Automation)—What is EDA (Electronic Design Automation) software and why is it important to you.
  
  
• Basic CAD (Computer Aided Design)—How do you make a model, how do you use that model to produce results.
  
  
• Basic PCB layout— what are the tools of PCB design and layout, how do you get a PCB made for you.
  
  
• Basic 3D Printing—how does it work, where would you use it (hint: everywhere)

This is a daunting list, I know—but far from intending to discourage I hope it encourages you. This is all within your grasp, especially today with open source, free access, the Internet (web, forums, etc.) and a reasonable timeline.

The learning curve for all of it will flatten exponentially, I promise. The initial pain of drinking from the fire hose of the unknown will be replaced by the amazing feeling of synergy as each of these topics build on each other and the lines between them blur. I mentioned several times you don’t have to be an expert in any of them, and this is key.

Once you are competent you will find that the “expertise” bar is raised and you don’t need to chase it. If you want to pursue expertise in any of these areas you feel an affinity for, it’s your option but it’s not a requirement. You have a big andvantage—you learned to play a musical instrument, so your experience of going from painful rote practice to “playing” is a good model for this.

Invest on the front end and the benefits can be enormous. I promise that while there are a lot of things, no one of them is very difficult. It can all be broken down into some rote work, simple and logical parts, and assembling simple systems into complex and layered ones. This means if you set the scope properly, instead of beating your head against things you are having trouble internalizing you can treat most of these as black boxes with inputs and outputs, and rely on rules of thumb and expert advice.

This last part is important because done right it is an iterative process where what was once a black box to you is now an open book thanks to learning something that was the same but from a different perspective and allowed you to make analogies to what you already know.

One more piece of advice: I would alternate activities between direct, goal-oriented things and learning fundamentals in a more abstract way. That is, for example, you might start your goal oriented investigations by making the display on your development board remote. This has a lot of nice opportunities including learning to desolder, characterizing and accommodating signals, working with connectors, and using PCB protoboards (for the remote display board).

If you use it as the first example of a remote subassembly, you can generalize the aspects of it that all of the other cases will require and get a big leg up on doing things right.

At the same time you are pursuing this, you can also be learning about circuits using one of the many tutorials you can find online. You can start with free and simple circuit simulators and work your way to physical components. Learning how to use Ohm’s Law to decide on parts’ values, for example, is a really important, straightforward thing with conceptual tentacles snaking through everything electronic.

The alternation can keep you engaged, as well as keeping your eyes on the prize, so to speak. Your journey to competency and realization of a persistent dream is a very exciting thing for me because I know it is doable, and the satisfaction from the various successful stages and ultimate results which you will be able to hold in your hands is something I have found to be among the very best experiences.

I hope my confidence in your success is buoying and motivating. I look forward to seeing your various incremental triumphs—both autodidactic and electromechanical. I do hope you choose to do this in a way that makes it a really great asset to you in the future and something of beauty you can enjoy.

 

Somewhere, between the advice
in #6?and #7, is a reasonable approach.

Avoid doing “anything that works” and also avoid aiming for perfection.

I totally agree with ya’akov’s advice to get a cheap (pawn shop?) guitar and two of the boxes you want to exploit. The first attempt is not going to go smoothly. Do it and learn, with the knowledge that you may end up throwing it away. Then your second attempt will likely be good enough.

 

In a message forum like this, you're going to get overly technical answers. Just go for it. Maybe it will work the first time around, maybe it won't. But I guarantee you'll learn something, and if you keep at it you'll eventually get it done. Just jump in. My only warning is be careful with anything 120V AC (or 240V if you're in Europe), for safety reasons.

WOW!!! "Over Technical" is where all of "those little details" hide that either make it work as desired or not. In designing a system for a client, EVERYTHING is a "little detail" that must be handled correctly. Certainly some aspects are much more complex than others.

And just now it hit me that the request was to "put the switches on the guitar", not the entire function. That would totally change the task. A digital link to remotely control all of those functions might be quite simple, and only add a fiber-optic cable to a box near the amplifier. That would be quite different in every aspect.

 

And just now it hit me that the request was to "put the switches on the guitar", not the entire function.

No:

I would like to install a guitar multieffects pedal inside a guitar.

 

I would like someone to tell me why I shouldn't attempt a dream project of mine. Maybe there's some challenges I can't forsee with my level of experience.

I would like to install a guitar multieffects pedal inside a guitar. Specifically this pedal
View attachment 308975With this mainboardView attachment 308974
I replaced a footswitch on a friends' years ago and was amazed at how small the main board is, and also how if it was that simple to desolder/resolder a small switch, why couldn't I run wires from the board and place the switches, led's, lcd, pot, jacks wherever I want them in the guitar? Would the increased wire resistance cause issues? Is this a bad idea? Are there examples of this type of thing being done? (And where can I see them?)

Hi,

Are you talking about a solid body electric guitar, hollow body electric guitar, or an acoustic guitar, or some specially designed guitar?

If you are talking acoustic or hollow body electric, you could end up messing up the tonal quality so you'd have to experiment.
If you are talking solid body electric, then if you need to put in a bigger board you would most likely have to mill out some more space in the body and use some sort of cover over that to hide everything.
Because it is an audio circuit, you'll need to shield it also.
The thing about building inside the guitar is you may find you don't have the room you need unless you go all out digital effects, where you can use one or two chips to do everything.

Back when I was around 15 years old, I had many friends who were involved in the music business. We would get together and jam from time to time. My guitar at the time was not too loud because the pickups were not the hum bucking type or something like that, so I installed a small single amplifier inside the body. That was just a small thing built I think from an op amp (long time ago) so it fit inside where the potentiometers are. I also installed a 9v battery to power it, which could be replaced by taking out a few screws. I had a switch too in order to turn it on and off. It was then louder than anyone else's guitar.
Some years later I built up a special effects box with a lot of different effects and switches and knobs. I had adjustments for attack, sustain, stuff like that too.
The most amazing I've see so far though is the special pickups they use to pickup each individual string. That allows the individual tones (6 for a 6 string guitar) to be input into a digital effects box that can act on each individual string and alter, for one thing, the frequencies of the strings on demand. I do not remember what this was called though I only used it a few times, it was a friends device. It's probably described on the web though.

BTW, there is a guitar we called the "Gibson Recorder" although they may call it the "Gibson Recording" guitar. That had some extra stuff built into the body of the guitar. It was manufactured around 1970 to around 1980 I think.
The built in effects were mild compared to what you want to do though.

I'll add more if I remember more about the past guitar stuff.

 

No:

That is what I was originally thinking. What I do not recall right now is the name of that piece that the knobs and pickups mount onto. It protects the front surface wood body from scuffs and chipping. That would get replaced with double sided PCB, with the outside copper layer being the shield. OR use multi-layer board and put the shield below the surface. Then the effects circuits can be on the hidden side using the small SMT devices since the low level signal stuff is low powered already. And it really should all fit quite well. BUT how would you work the "WHAA WHAA" when both hands are playing?? Some effects still need a foot control. OR a three handed guitar player.

 

Wow, I can't believe the outpouring of encouragement, words from experience, and diverse points of view. The internet is so often a cesspool of negativity, it's genuinely appreciated and refreshing to see kindness.

To give a little more info, I have played guitar (Solid body electric) on and off for over 20 years. Wouldn't call myself good, but it's a hobby. I am a carpenter's son, and have always been into woodworking, so routing the guitar while being mindful of tonality and structure shouldn't be an issue.
I also have been a tinkerer all my life. Took apart a coffee maker to see why it wasn't working at like 6 years old, and almost put it back together! I can solder pretty well, grew up with one of those 200-in-1 electronics labs from Radio Shack, custom built an LPT cable to do serial data transfer from a laptop to a pc at about 14 (THAT was crazyness)... So I'm not a complete beginner, but there have been several pieces of advice here that I will absolutely bear in mind.

To be clear, I plan on routing space for the board, and remoting the lcd and touch buttons to the top horn on the guitar (A 91 Ibanez EX), the multifunction knob would be placed alongside the existing volume and tone knobs, and then the tricky bit: A custom PCB to relocate the SMD LED's to the top of the guitar south of the lcd. The tactile switches seem easy enough, (Desolder, attach say, 12" leads, reposition switches while remembering tactile switches are apparently particularly delicate to heat) but I'm not sure how far I can extend the wires from the board before problems arise (Enter the advice about shielding, twisted wires, etc)

I want to do this because I find myself not playing more often than I should because I have to get my guitar, find a patch cord, turn on my computer/pedal, and do a contortionist dance of stooping to adjust settings and sitting up to play. I dream of grabbing my axe, plugging in some headphones, and go. (And it would just be a great fun project too!) This pedal in particular is special because #1 - I have one. #2 - It has a drum machine/metronome, great for practice. #3 - Aux input. #4 - Every setting you could want. I have been looking at other options, but none of them check all the boxes I want. (And if they do they are too expensive to just hack open and start committing sins against jEEsus.)

Thank you all again. It may be quite some time before I actually pull the trigger and begin work on this idea, but when I do I know I will be coming back here to share and ask questions.

 

Oh-Wow, quite a target for the project. And I do see challenges ahead, with the biggest being putting anything at the head end past the tuning machines. The problems being mostly that the neck of a guitar is quite highly stressed, with (usually) one to three steel rods hidden inside to hopefully keep it straight so that the distance between frets and strings can be constant and fairly small. So where do the wires run?? or the fiber-optic cable plus two power wires? Possibly they could be embedded into the laminated neck of a custome built guitar, but that is a whole different world of skills. The parts hidden in the body will take a lot of planning and thinking, but are certainly within the realm of possibility. The power feed could add to the cord via a TRS 3 circuit jack and nobody would notice that the guitar ran on phantom power.
The really difficult part of THAT will be getting the circuits for all the wanted effects.
And it will still need an external amp and speaker. My grandnephew has a plastic guitar with an internal speaker. The sound was OK for a 5 year old but not an 8 year old.

 

Wow, I can't believe the outpouring of encouragement, words from experience, and diverse points of view. The internet is so often a cesspool of negativity, it's genuinely appreciated and refreshing to see kindness.

To give a little more info, I have played guitar (Solid body electric) on and off for over 20 years. Wouldn't call myself good, but it's a hobby. I am a carpenter's son, and have always been into woodworking, so routing the guitar while being mindful of tonality and structure shouldn't be an issue.
I also have been a tinkerer all my life. Took apart a coffee maker to see why it wasn't working at like 6 years old, and almost put it back together! I can solder pretty well, grew up with one of those 200-in-1 electronics labs from Radio Shack, custom built an LPT cable to do serial data transfer from a laptop to a pc at about 14 (THAT was crazyness)... So I'm not a complete beginner, but there have been several pieces of advice here that I will absolutely bear in mind.

To be clear, I plan on routing space for the board, and remoting the lcd and touch buttons to the top horn on the guitar (A 91 Ibanez EX), the multifunction knob would be placed alongside the existing volume and tone knobs, and then the tricky bit: A custom PCB to relocate the SMD LED's to the top of the guitar south of the lcd. The tactile switches seem easy enough, (Desolder, attach say, 12" leads, reposition switches while remembering tactile switches are apparently particularly delicate to heat) but I'm not sure how far I can extend the wires from the board before problems arise (Enter the advice about shielding, twisted wires, etc)

I want to do this because I find myself not playing more often than I should because I have to get my guitar, find a patch cord, turn on my computer/pedal, and do a contortionist dance of stooping to adjust settings and sitting up to play. I dream of grabbing my axe, plugging in some headphones, and go. (And it would just be a great fun project too!) This pedal in particular is special because #1 - I have one. #2 - It has a drum machine/metronome, great for practice. #3 - Aux input. #4 - Every setting you could want. I have been looking at other options, but none of them check all the boxes I want. (And if they do they are too expensive to just hack open and start committing sins against jEEsus.)

Thank you all again. It may be quite some time before I actually pull the trigger and begin work on this idea, but when I do I know I will be coming back here to share and ask questions.

Hi,

Your enthusiasm makes me want to buy one of those guitar kits and build a new guitar myself with some additional circuitry. The kits for a solid body electric can be pretty low cost, maybe $100 USD, and you can do anything you want with the body because it's not even assembled yet. You can get kits with the frets already cut and installed, or without being cut and you have to cut yourself and install the frets.
Back years ago I took apart an old guitar completely and sanded down all the surfaces to bare wood, then put it back together again. It was pretty cool looking. A nice finish coat would have made it even nicer.
I also had a vintage Gibson acoustic which would be worth some $4000 dollars or something now.
A friend of mine got a Les Paul from a neighbor with a cracked neck. He took it to a guitar shop got it fixed, it was then worth about $5000 USD, and that was years ago. It was the nicest guitar I ever played.

 

My greater talent has always been at the other end of the cord, making the tube amplifiers work after other put the tubes in the wrong sockets and breaking wires and such. Then understanding how to change things a bit, and how to add fizz when that first appeared.
The one technical challenge has remained without much solution is the feeling of some that electronic systems wear out after a fairly short time and are not repairable.
Certainly electrolytic capacitors age, and some other caps also tend to deteriorate.

 

Now, after some time has slid by, another concept, quite different but much simpler: Rather that build it all into the guitar package, which IS a massive undertaking, Have one external box with everything INSIDE IT, AND a larger display ON THAT BOX, with a single multiconductor cable with a different connector to the guitar???
My reasoning being that packaging all of that functionality into a small assembly, and getting it exactly right the first time, is an extreme challenge for even an accomplished designer engineer with a great access to a whole lot of resources.
(REALITY hits me at various times, not always immediately.)

 

Now, after some time has slid by, another concept, quite different but much simpler: Rather that build it all into the guitar package, which IS a massive undertaking, Have one external box with everything INSIDE IT, AND a larger display ON THAT BOX, with a single multiconductor cable with a different connector to the guitar???
My reasoning being that packaging all of that functionality into a small assembly, and getting it exactly right the first time, is an extreme challenge for even an accomplished designer engineer with a great access to a whole lot of resources.
(REALITY hits me at various times, not always immediately.)

Hi,

The 'ai' post #17 is kind of funny as usual. A complete generalization of just about any design.

As to your thoughts, that sounds good to me.
Another thing you made me think of is if this is an electric guitar or maybe even acoustic/electric you can add another pickup with 6 separate coils one under each string (instead of just 1 coil for all 6 strings) that are individually wired into 6 channels. That allows 'sensing' each string separately. This separate pickup could be either mounted permanently or clamped on somehow.
Sensing each string separately opens up a whole new bunch of effects possibilities that is harder to do with just one coil for all 6 strings.

 

One cheap suggestion I can offer is to check the "SWEETWATER" website. In addition to other products they offer a wide selection of pickup assemblies. I had not been aware of the cost of them and so I am rather amazed. The price spread is quite large,. You can get a fair education from their rather detailed descriptions, vastly better than amazom descriptions.

 

One cheap suggestion I can offer is to check the "SWEETWATER" website. In addition to other products they offer a wide selection of pickup assemblies. I had not been aware of the cost of them and so I am rather amazed. The price spread is quite large,. You can get a fair education from their rather detailed descriptions, vastly better than amazom descriptions.

That's an interesting site thanks for sharing.

I see the Midi pickup is like the one I was talking about earlier.