Pimoroni Servo 2040 picks a mean rhythm guitar

Check this one out: automated guitar picking action courtesy of a maker using a Pimoroni Servo 2040 – a board combining a RP2040 microcontroller and servo controllers, with CircuitPython for programming it.

It's covered in depth on Make Magazine, and you can read about it here (it's a very complicated system that's not for beginners). The inspiration for Olav was seeing a local guitar player and realising he could play like a ‘machine’, so why not build a machine – a prosthesis to help him get sounds from his guitar despite a poor sense of rhythm.

Why didn't he just use MIDI instruments? Because he wanted hear, he says, the sound of guitar strings vibrating in air under the influence of their fingers. Enter the Pimoroni Servo 2040…

This is also cool. Using a @pimoroni Servo 2040 board to play a guitar!https://t.co/jFqznLQ3Oi

— Michael (Mike) Horne (@recantha) May 26, 2023

The guitar in question, you ask? A Squier (Fender) Telecaster.

You can read the project's full details online and see it in action in the video below:

Hey, it seems guitars have been an underlying theme of Gadget Master…

Check out the number of times we’ve entered into this territory:

See also: RP2040-powered Pimoroni Badger badge flashes E Ink display