PolarBear DSP Digital Effects Pedal

Wesley Cole Hanson; Cody Beagle; Aaron Altstaetter; Amari Shamar Patterson

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Conference: 2025 ASEE North Central Section (NCS) Annual Conference
Location: Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia
Publication Date: March 28, 2025
Start Date: March 28, 2025
End Date: March 29, 2025
Page Count: 8
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--54681
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/54681
Download Count: 14

Abstract

Our goal is to design an effects pedal that allows the musician/user to change and modify an input signal from an instrument, whether it is an electric guitar, bass, or other electronic instrument. Some pedals use an analog circuit, consisting of a variety of electronics to modify the signal, while other pedals use a digital approach to this utilizing a microprocessor that has been programmed to allow the signal to be modified digitally.

The objective of this project is to design a digital effects pedal that allows the user to alter the input signal from a guitar or bass. The device should be able to be switched on (causing an effect to the guitar signal) or switched off (passing the guitar signal unchanged) using a foot operated switch on the device, which is a commonplace among pedal designs, whether digital or analog. The device should be digital to reduce the impacts of noise and enable multiple effects to be more easily integrated into a single pedal, while being intuitive to the user, compared to those currently on the market.

While there are many guitar effects pedals on the market, most are specialized for either electric guitar or bass, often meaning that the unit has to have a large number of effect options to give options to both types of musicians. The goal of this project is to design an effects pedal that can accommodate both electric guitar and bass while being user friendly, intuitive, and focus only on the most popular effects. To understand what may be a good set of effects to select, an institutional review board (IRB) approved survey has been distributed to ONU students, faculty and staff and 48 results have been compiled to determine the most popular effects of overdrive, distortion, reverb, delay and modulation. As part of that survey we also inquired as to who would be willing to come back later in the year to help test those effects, to help ensure the quality and intuitiveness of the effects, as well as the enclosure design, meets a general musicians’ standard.

A few constraints that we found applicable to our project were things such as using a standard ¼ inch input and output jack, to match the standard sizing used by all pedals. Our dsp should be compatible with an evaluation board, to allow for easy testing, and flashing of code to the processor. Our design alternative, which was decided using a Pugh’s method table to evaluate alternatives chosen through functional decomposition, will utilize an enclosure designed to fit within standard pedal dimensions, and formed out of aluminum. This design also utilized a full circuit instead of the development board, but for testing purposes, and accessibility, the development board won out. The user interface is a display screen, with knobs to control the various parameters and cycle through the effect choices. The design of the printed circuit board (PCB) will ultimately be dependent upon what needs to be fit on it, with a prioritization of reducing noise.

Note: Authors: Wesley Hanson, Cody Beagle, Aaron Altstaetter, Amari Patterson

Citation
Format

Hanson, W. C., & Beagle, C., & Altstaetter, A., & Patterson, A. S. (2025, March), PolarBear DSP Digital Effects Pedal Paper presented at 2025 ASEE North Central Section (NCS) Annual Conference, Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia. 10.18260/1-2--54681

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Our goal is to design an effects pedal that allows the musician/user to change and modify an input signal from an instrument, whether it is an electric guitar, bass, or other electronic instrument. Some pedals use an analog circuit, consisting of a variety of electronics to modify the signal, while other pedals use a digital approach to this utilizing a microprocessor that has been programmed to allow the signal to be modified digitally.

The objective of this project is to design a digital effects pedal that allows the user to alter the input signal from a guitar or bass. The device should be able to be switched on (causing an effect to the guitar signal) or switched off (passing the guitar signal unchanged) using a foot operated switch on the device, which is a commonplace among pedal designs, whether digital or analog. The device should be digital to reduce the impacts of noise and enable multiple effects to be more easily integrated into a single pedal, while being intuitive to the user, compared to those currently on the market.

While there are many guitar effects pedals on the market, most are specialized for either electric guitar or bass, often meaning that the unit has to have a large number of effect options to give options to both types of musicians. The goal of this project is to design an effects pedal that can accommodate both electric guitar and bass while being user friendly, intuitive, and focus only on the most popular effects. To understand what may be a good set of effects to select, an institutional review board (IRB) approved survey has been distributed to ONU students, faculty and staff and 48 results have been compiled to determine the most popular effects of overdrive, distortion, reverb, delay and modulation. As part of that survey we also inquired as to who would be willing to come back later in the year to help test those effects, to help ensure the quality and intuitiveness of the effects, as well as the enclosure design, meets a general musicians’ standard.

A few constraints that we found applicable to our project were things such as using a standard ¼ inch input and output jack, to match the standard sizing used by all pedals. Our dsp should be compatible with an evaluation board, to allow for easy testing, and flashing of code to the processor.  Our design alternative, which was decided using a Pugh’s method table to evaluate alternatives chosen through functional decomposition, will utilize an enclosure designed to fit within standard pedal dimensions, and formed out of aluminum. This design also utilized a full circuit instead of the development board, but for testing purposes, and accessibility, the development board won out. The user interface is a display screen, with knobs to control the various parameters and cycle through the effect choices. The design of the printed circuit board (PCB) will ultimately be dependent upon what needs to be fit on it, with a prioritization of reducing noise.

Note: Authors: Wesley Hanson, Cody Beagle, Aaron Altstaetter, Amari Patterson
AU  - Wesley Cole Hanson
AU  - Cody Beagle
AU  - Aaron Altstaetter
AU  - Amari Shamar Patterson
CY  - Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia
DA  - 2025/03/28
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - PolarBear DSP Digital Effects Pedal
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/54681
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--54681
ER  -

PolarBear DSP Digital Effects Pedal

Paper Authors

Wesley Cole Hanson Ohio Northern University

Cody Beagle Ohio Northern University

Aaron Altstaetter Ohio Northern University

Amari Shamar Patterson Ohio Northern University

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