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So i have been building and modifying pedals for the past few months.
I have built a some of the B.Y.O.C. pedal kits and downloaded some schematics and built 'em from that point.

Just recenctly a friend of mine bought this boutique noisemaker box.
A primitve squarewave synth by my ears. the thing that really got me into it was this little clear bulb/diode with what looked like a little microchip embedded in it. If you ran your finger over the this bit it would change the sound. I'm assuming it is some kind of infared voltage control.


This is a movie of the little guy in action...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkI-coFwH8U

Does somebody on here know what the hell i am talking about?

Links, pictures, schematics what i should refer this as so i can buy some?


Thank you EA.


theglynnisjohns

there's a few pedals/keyboards that have this with different names. I've seen them as "D-Beam controllers" in Roland keys and Boss effects, but there are other things the same photosensitive thingus is called.

Effector 13's synth mangler has one.

MG's "That's Echo, Folks!" has a pigtail option with a light sensor, too.

http://www.mouser.com/catalog/630/145.pdf

Is this it?

(i love to answer my own questions.)

kerble wrote:there's a few pedals/keyboards that have this with different names. I've seen them as "D-Beam controllers" in Roland keys and Boss effects, but there are other things the same photosensitive thingus is called.

Effector 13's synth mangler has one.

MG's "That's Echo, Folks!" has a pigtail option with a light sensor, too.

Thank you Kerble, but i'm looking for the component versus a pedal.

Its probably just a photo-resistor hooked up to a 555 timer chip. You can make something similar by building the Atari Punk Console and replacing the pots with photo-resistors. Or its a photo-diode. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photodiode


Zack

you will take what i give you, bastard.

kerble wrote:you will take what i give you, bastard.

Quoting what your mom whispers to me wont change anything.

zack wrote:Its probably just a photo-resistor hooked up to a 555 timer chip. You can make something similar by building the Atari Punk Console and replacing the pots with photo-resistors. Or its a photo-diode. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photodiode


Zack

Bingo! Thanks mang!

glynnisjohns wrote:

kerble wrote:you will take what i give you, bastard.

Quoting what your mom whispers to me wont change anything.

forget infrared, you should get a pedal that works on black light.

you can use the one from your mom's room. when she turned it on the whole place looked like a crime scene, so she doesn't need it.

Rather than start a new thread on funky pedal controls, I'll just derail this one. Our drummer fixes vending/gaming machines, and has lots of parts laying around. It's been suggested that somehow we take a Golden Tee track ball controller and somehow hook it up to some Moog/LFO mod thing and use it as a foot pedal. I.e., you kick it in different directions, and you'd get a really fast to slow woo-woo-woo-woosh sound, etc.

Would anyone know of an effect that could be modded to accept said controller as an input device?