Tone Pedal

Project Overview

For this project, I designed and built a custom guitar effects pedal. The pedal includes a simple distortion effect, which can be controlled using a potentiometer on the pedal. The circuit is built around an op amp, which is used to amplify the guitar signal and create the distortion effect. The pedal also includes a bypass switch, which allows the user to switch between the distorted and clean signal.

Technical Details

These pedals were built around two distinctive op amps: the lm386, a low voltage audio amplifier, and the ne5532. I created two versions of my pedal. The first pedal was an overdrive, a device which boosts a signal to the point of distortion. I accomplished this by creating a simple non inverting amplifier, and setting the gain to about 200. This pedal was a bit too noisy for my liking, and the distortion was not as smooth as I wanted it to be. For my second pedal, I wanted to create a smoother distortion, something more suitable for lead guitar. I accomplished this by using an ne5532 to boost the signal, and a pair of germanium diodes in a non-polar parallel configuration. This created a much smoother distortion. I also added a simple tone control on the side of the pedal, allowing me to modify the tone.