Electronic Guitar Tuner

K. Wettstein A. Wunderlich Senior Design Project Team 45

May 3, 1999

Target Specifications
For use with acoustic guitar. Accurate to 10 cents (musical term) for entire range of guitar pitches Easy to read output LED display

Background - Musical terms

1 octave = 12 pitches octaves are numbered (lowest to highest) according to range of piano. 12 pitches: A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G# 100 cents defined between each pitch

Background - Guitar
Acoustic guitar ranges from E2 (pitch E in pianos second octave) to C#6. Plucked string: Fundamental frequency and harmonics Guitar Spectrum: fundamental frequency has lower power than some higher harmonics.
Lower frequencies have more power in harmonics than higher frequencies. Demonstrates acoustic non-linearity of string

Guitar Frequency Spectrum

Background: Frequency-Pitch Conversions

Frequency and musical pitch are related on a logarithmic scale:
f(octave, pitch) = 16.352 * 2octave + pitch/12 or octave + pitch/12=log2(16.352/frequency)
where pitch has values 0-11, starting with C.

cents are represented by the first two decimal places of the pitch value.

Design: Block Diagram

3 main components: input, DSP, output

Design: Input
Microphone to receive signal
Possibilities: dynamic, condenser, pressure gradient microphone styles Decision: dynamic
Why? Frequency response and range, availability

Amplifier: To increase microphone amplitude (output Vpp ~ 5-10mV)

op-amp with gain of 100

Design: Digital Signal Processor

Motorola 56302 DSP Evaluation Board DSP board provides:
analog-to-digital conversion Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) of signal lookup tables for frequency conversion to pitch and cents digital output to LED display

Design: Digital Signal Processor DSP Algorithm

1.) Ready State for continuous, real-time system
check input amplitude
below threshold, stay in ready state above threshold, proceed to FFT

2.) Take 1024 sample FFT. Store squared magnitudes in memory.

FOR MORE INFO...

See Handout for flowchart, DSP Algorithm.

Design: Digital Signal Processor DSP Algorithmcont.

3.) Start with ninth index, compare magnitudes to a new threshold, which is set above the level of the noise. 4.) Find first peak in FFT data. This corresponds to the fundamental frequency. 5.) Store this index value, use it for pitch and cents lookup tables.

Design: Digital Signal Processor DSP Algorithmcont.

6.) Write corresponding values to the Data register for Port B. 7.) Port B outputs values to display.

Design: Output
Digital high/low values from Port B of DSP board Output display:
hexidecimal display for note letters 1 LED indicating a sharp 10 LEDs: 5 corresponding to sharpness in units of 10 cents, 5 corresponding to flatness

Verification
Test signals (pure sine and square waves) from function generator. Tested final circuit with guitar and compared output to commercial guitar tuner. Verified correct identification of peak from memory contents.

Design Cost
Parts cost: Item: Motorola DSP + Eval. Amplifier 11 LED's Hexadecimal Display Microphone Misc. Comp. Total Parts: Labor: Complete Cost:
Cost: $165.00 $2.00 $5.00 $2.00 $120.00 $2.00 $296.00 $3600.00 $3,896.00

Summary
Designed and implemented tuner. Accurate within approximately 10 cents. Accuracy could be increased by taking longer FFT. Lower sampling rate Easily Marketable