Category: Pro Audio

Guitar to MIDI converter

6/11/2014

Here's something fun that I found at diystompboxes.com (original thread here).

It's a little circuit that converts your guitarsignal into MIDI language, so you can use your guitar with your favourite synths. :) It's monophonic, so it's not good for chords but works ok for single notes, leads, basses ect.

It requires a specific PIC chip and PIC programmer hardware (such as pickit2), software, and code (downloads at the bottom of the post) to be written onto the chip, so it's a bit harder to do then your regular stompbox. More info below.

This is what you will need:

The PIC16F88 chip. It's an older 8-bit chip, but still easy to find (try ebay). The code is written for the chip so other PICs with not work.
The hardware required is either pickit2 or pickit3. I borrowed a pickit2 from a friend, but you can buy them here. Pickit is basically a interface that connects to your computer with USB and lets you read/write/erase programs to the PIC chip. Keep in mind though that the chip-socket may not have the same pinout as the chip. I used a breadboard to jumper the connections, as shown here.
There are alot of choices for the software (all free). I used PICkit 2 v2.60, but MPlab and PICgm Programmer are also good,
Code! Download the required code below. Only one of them is needed. Try the second one if you are having trouble writing the code to the chip with pickit2.

g2mplus.hex
File Size:	2 kb
File Type:	hex

Download File

g2mpluspickit2.hex
File Size:	24 kb
File Type:	hex

Download File

All the info is taken from the diystompboxes forum. I just put together the important stuff here, so all credits to the original contributers at diystompboxes. :)

5 Comments

Guitar to MIDI converter

Active Direct Injection box (DI)

vero layouts

Archives

Categories