Friend creates guitar tuner for the blind

One of Iain’s friends and co-workers asked for his help in a project: being blind, the friend needed an adapted guitar tuner, that would give out audible signals. Most commercially available guitar tuners had an LED display or an LCD, making them useless for blind musicians.

Iain accepted the challenge and decided to modify a Cherub Guitar Mate WST-550G guitar tuner, adapting it to provide an audible output. Iain used and AVR microcontroller to reprogram the tuner and provide the sound. To make the process easier through hearing alone, Iain added a button that lets the user select which string the user wants to tune.

To tune, the user plucks and string and listens to the audio feedback. “A high pulsing note means the string is too high. A low pulsing note means the string is too low. A middle note means it is tuned correctly.“

The entire process is described in Iain’s personal website/blog, including a list of materials, circuit schematics, build notes and software files.

More information: http://www.lushprojects.com/guitartuner/

https://youtu.be/iMBsbtwIAzs