Wireless Guitar Amplifier System with DSP Effects
Format
SOECS Senior Project Demonstration
Faculty Mentor Name
Rahim Khoie
Faculty Mentor Department
Electrical & Computer Engineering and Engineering Physics
Abstract/Artist Statement
Guitar amplifier technology has made very few technological advancements since the 1950s and 1960s. Professional guitar players and amplifier enthusiasts alike view vintage style vacuum tube amplifiers as sonically superior to solid-state amplifiers. It is difficult to understand why nearly every other consumer device has been improved and optimized with the help o f technological advancements, yet the amplifiers built fifty years ago are still supreme. It is time to bring guitar amplifiers into the 21st century. Vacuum tube amplifiers have a number of problems including power inefficiency, size, weight, fragility of vacuum tubes, and short life span of vacuum tubes, just to name a few. These problems can be solved by redesigning amplifiers using solid-state technology. Many purists would frown on this decision, saying that transistors and op-amps are sonically inferior to vacuum tubes. To challenge that statement, a battery powered, solid-state amplifier with wireless technology and digital signal processing was designed and constructed. The digital signal processing allowed for effects such as delay, vibrato, and reverb to be added to the system at the user’s discretion and it also allowed for the implementation of noise shaping in order to mimic the behavior of vacuum tubes through software algorithms. The designed system h as the efficiency of a solid-state amplifier and the tone of a vacuum tube amplifier.
Location
School of Engineering & Computer Science
Start Date
3-5-2014 2:00 PM
End Date
3-5-2014 3:30 PM
Wireless Guitar Amplifier System with DSP Effects
School of Engineering & Computer Science
Guitar amplifier technology has made very few technological advancements since the 1950s and 1960s. Professional guitar players and amplifier enthusiasts alike view vintage style vacuum tube amplifiers as sonically superior to solid-state amplifiers. It is difficult to understand why nearly every other consumer device has been improved and optimized with the help o f technological advancements, yet the amplifiers built fifty years ago are still supreme. It is time to bring guitar amplifiers into the 21st century. Vacuum tube amplifiers have a number of problems including power inefficiency, size, weight, fragility of vacuum tubes, and short life span of vacuum tubes, just to name a few. These problems can be solved by redesigning amplifiers using solid-state technology. Many purists would frown on this decision, saying that transistors and op-amps are sonically inferior to vacuum tubes. To challenge that statement, a battery powered, solid-state amplifier with wireless technology and digital signal processing was designed and constructed. The digital signal processing allowed for effects such as delay, vibrato, and reverb to be added to the system at the user’s discretion and it also allowed for the implementation of noise shaping in order to mimic the behavior of vacuum tubes through software algorithms. The designed system h as the efficiency of a solid-state amplifier and the tone of a vacuum tube amplifier.