Guitar Boy

fibbef

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The Guitar Boy is a project I finished a little over a year ago. I hosted a Game Boy-themed build comp on another forum and created this as an exhibition piece.






Tried going for the Fender logo-style font. Painted on by hand using a toothpick.












Features:
System: Raspberry Pi B+ running RetroPie v2.3
Screen: 5" LCD
Controls: (Start/Select/d-pad) custom wooden buttons over tact switches, (A/tone and B/volume combos) custom wooden buttons over push button potentiometers
Case: Custom made pine guitar body, plexiglass coverings
Batteries: 2200mAh, 7.4v fed to a 7805 voltage regulator for 5v
Audio: Standard 1/4" audio jack for outputting to guitar amplifier or other sound system.

Others: Power switch (on top near the neck), charging jack, audio selector switch (left side - switches between guitar or Pi audio), escape button, guitar strap buttons, humbucker pickup, D'Addario EXL120 Nickel Wound stings (currently)

The comment I got most on this was that it would be nice to have an option to output sound from the Pi and the guitar at the same time. Would have been easy to implement, but for whatever reason I decided to do it how I did.

Oh yeah, I also submitted this mod to Guitar World magazine. They featured it in their monthly column "It Might Get Weird" in their Holiday 2015 issue.






All guitar parts (except body and knobs) salvaged from a cheap Peavey Rockmaster.


Multiple dry runs.




A look at the guts before painting the plexiglass cover to hide them. I originally planned to include a built-in mini amp and mp3 speaker, but scrapped it in the interest of time.
 
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That is f'ing sweet!! Being a musician I could see playing that on stage. :). I just finished wiring in new EMG's in my Ibanez S Series guitar yesterday, which was a PITA due to the thin body, but this makes me feel like I got off REALLY easy, LOL!! :D.

Killer job bro, you just keep pulling out more and more cool stuff you've built... keep it coming!!! :)
 

Gman

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Nice job! It would be really sweet if you input the guitar into the Raspi and used that as an effects processor too.
 

fibbef

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That is f'ing sweet!! Being a musician I could see playing that on stage. :). I just finished wiring in new EMG's in my Ibanez S Series guitar yesterday, which was a PITA due to the thin body, but this makes me feel like I got off REALLY easy, LOL!! :D.
Thanks man! The Rockmaster's pickup sounds like dirt and is made worse by the amateur hour Game Boy body. But it does play. I built this knowing full well that it wouldn't be practical as either a performance piece or a gaming device.
Killer job bro, you just keep pulling out more and more cool stuff you've built... keep it coming!!! :)
I've got one more old project I'll post here. But then the rest of my notable projects are a bulky SNESp and a DS-to-GBA conversion, neither of which I think I'll post here because there's nothing too exciting in either of them.
Nice job! It would be really sweet if you input the guitar into the Raspi and used that as an effects processor too.
I would love to do that, if only to make a Rpi multi-effects pedal for my "good" guitars. Unfortunately I'm still very "monkey see/monkey do" when it comes to software on the Pi. Do you know of any good resources for Rpi guitar effects?
That's bananas
See monkey comment above. :P
 

Gman

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I would love to do that, if only to make a Rpi multi-effects pedal for my "good" guitars. Unfortunately I'm still very "monkey see/monkey do" when it comes to software on the Pi. Do you know of any good resources for Rpi guitar effects?
Unfortunately no, I have not used a pi, I was just sayin' :P
 

Miceeno

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But does it djent???

Sorry had to ask.

Also, I love the idea of guitar effects pedals on Retro games. That distortion pedal made for a great incarnation of Metal Mario. Brilliant! I've got a new purpose for my 3.5mm to 1/4" adapters now.
 
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