Sunil Malekar
About the article

Simple Pitch Follower

Music made easy

Based on a Labs project | May 2018 | Find it here
Simple Pitch Follower
The idea for this project came when browsing the Elektor Archives. In 301 Circuits, the second book in the popular Elektor ‘300’ series of books we came across project no. 14 entitled Easy Music. The article claims that the little circuit is capable of tracking a melody whistled at its input and then adds a second voice to it. Its output stage consists of a basic power amplifier and a loudspeaker. When asked to develop something similar today the first thing we would do is throw an Arduino at it, and that’s exactly what we did.
Downloading of this magazine article is reserved for registered users only.
Login | Register now!
Relevant websites
Extra info / Update
* Tracks pitch over five octaves
* Octave shifter
* Not highly accurate
* Fully customizable

- bare PCB for Pitch Follower shield
Component list
Component List
Default: 0.25W, 5%
R1,R9,R12,R13 = 10kOhm
R2 = 100kOhm
R3,R4,R6 = 5.6MOhm
R5 = 4.7kOhm
R7 = 3.3MOhm
R8 = 27kOhm
R10 = 2kOhm (alternatively 2.2kOhm)
R11 = 1kOhm
P1 = 47kOhm trimpot

C1,C6,C7 = 100nF, 5mm pitch
C2 = 10pF, 2.5mm pitch
C3 = 100pF, 2.5mm pitch
C4 = 15pF, 2.5mm pitch
C5 = 100µF, 50V, 2mm pitch

IC1 = LM3900
IC2 = LM393

K1,K4 = 8-pin pinheader, 0.1” pitch
K2 = 10-pin pinheader, 0.1” pitch
K3 = 6-pin pinheader, 0.1” pitch
K5 = 2-way PCB screw terminal block, 3.5mm pitch
K6 = 3.5mm stereo jack socket, PCB mount
DIP-14 IC socket for IC1 (optional)
DIP-8 IC socket for IC2 (optional)
Elektor PCB # 130330-1
Loading comments...