DIY Foot Pedal Controller For Guitar Rig 5

DIY Modeling Software Control Pedal

Back in the old days, it took external guitar effects pedals to modify a guitar’s sound. As computer processing power has been growing at an exponential rate, software-based effects modelers have been becoming more common. [Matthew]’s dad is running Guitar Rig 5 modeling software on his Lenovo tablet. Although it works well, it is a hassle to change effects and amp models while playing. That’s where [Matthew] comes in. He’s built a foot pedal controller so his old man can change up those sweet sounds on the fly.

Guitar Rig 5 has the ability to change presets with key presses. Even so, it would still be a hassle tapping a keyboard while playing, whether it be physical or on-screen. Since an Arduino-compatible board with an ATMEGA32U4 chip can be used to simulate an HID device, [Matthew] decided to use one as the basis for his project. Standard push buttons mounted in a project box indicate to the microcontroller which keyboard commands to send to the tablet. There are 4 buttons for 4 presets on this build but any number can be used. When a button is pushed, the associated keyboard command is sent to the tablet via a USB cable and Guitar Rig 5 responds to that command by changing the preset. And just so you know where you are, an indicator light adjacent to each button shows which preset is current.

DIY Modeling Software Control Pedal

If this is something you’d be interested in building for yourself, [Matthew] made the Arduino code available at the above link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Nb_sxrfVgQ

15 thoughts on “DIY Foot Pedal Controller For Guitar Rig 5

  1. Good, but put the stomp switches on a thinner wedge shaped stomp proof box. A hollowed out piece of wood would be safe. It’s too much to lift your foot that high while standing. You could even make the switches from thin leaf contacts and make a thin stomp surface!

  2. cool mod, but I agree, the switches will be gone in no time…

    I did a similar project a while ago (never cleaned it up, so it’s just a box with a few buttons, and a pcb, connected by a long cable ;) )

    I used some atmega32U4 based devboard (arduino based actually), and used the MocoLufa libs (Lufa is quite a nice USB framework, MocoLufa adds MIDI to it), messed around with the samples, modified them, and there it was… a USB midi stompbox, that even worked:D

  3. I may be missing something, but why go the arduino route at all? I have a similar app on my iPad for lyrics that allows you to send keystrokes to control events. I just used the circuit board from a bluetooth keyboard and wired 4 analog foot pedals to the board. Viola, I press a foot pedal and it sends a ‘p’ (or whatever I choose).

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