The “Guitare à crayon” is a custom instrument for painting and playing music.

The idea behind “la Guitare à crayon” is to be able to paint and play music with the same instrument. It’s a custom USB guitar with open source software: namely, pure data (sound) and gimp (visual).

La Guitare à crayon is free hardware (as in “free speech” not “free beer”).

http://www.vimeo.com/5596196
Hardware features:

• Accelerometer X-Axis (for example controlling the octave)
• Accelerometer Y-Axis (for example controlling an effect)
• 6 analog strings giving around 10 bits of resolution
• External input: 1 analog, 1 digital
• 4 positions switch
• 8 buttons
• 4 pots
• 1 piezo with velocity filter (for example trigging any sound)
• 1 ir distance sensor (+-6cm – +-20cm)
• 1 unuseful led (for tapping the bpm)
• Pressure-sensitive tablet
• Foot controller (using a led & a photoresistor)
• Foot switch (looper, change sound, …)

Software features:

• No driver (firmware & bootloader)
• Linux, Windows, Mac
• Pure Data poweful DSP (sample, soundfont, fx rack, multiple looper)
• Gimp for 2d (drawing, painting, photo, …)
• Gesture tracking on the tablet (linux only)

Work in progress:

• Converting an electric guitar to an electronic guitar
• Updating the firmware via http
• Bridge to Blender (3d)

via Hackaday