Brain Controlled Guitar Effects

Inspiration

The inspiration for this hack was a desire to perform DSP based guitar effects on a cheap and easy platform that we were familiar with, while still having great sound quality. We decided it would be even cooler if we used Muse's technology to change or control effects with your brain.

How it works

The heart of the effects processing is the Teensy 3.1 microcontroller. It is cheaper than an Arduino Uno, but much more powerful and can still be programmed in the Arduino IDE using commands that we are familiar with. We used the Teensy Audio library, which can use the Teensy's ARM Cortex M-4 DSP instructions to perform some basic effects building blocks. We then combine and control those blocks to create cool sounding effects. The Muse communicates through bluetooth to an Android phone, which then sends serial data to the teensy to change the effect.

Challenges I ran into

We had trouble getting usable/reliable EEG data, so we could only use accelerometer data.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We are proud that we got DSP based effects working so well on a platform that is very cheap and simple.

What I learned

We learned how to process audio with a Teensy programmed through the Arduino IDE and how to send data from a bluetooth device to a phone, then send that data to a microcontroller through serial.

What's next for Brain Controlled Guitar Effects

We would like to add a lot more guitar effects. We have a lot of cool ideas for crazy sounds. We would also like to learn how use the Muse's EEG capabilities so that we may get more advanced control of the effects.