Make Your Own Tremolo Effects Pedal

In this instructable I will show you how to make your own tremolo effects pedal. Really what the pedal is doing is switching the guitar's signal on and off sequentially, ( a DC-square wave generated from a 555 CMOS osclilator pulsates the power to a lm386 audio amplifier anplifying the signal from your guitar.) making that cool effect that we have heard in so many songs to date. For this project you should have a basic idea of soldering and circuits.

Step 1 Materials

As far as tools go you will need:

1.) Soldering Iron

2.) Solder- Make sure that you have rosin core solder, acid core does not work on electronics.

3.) Multimeter (Optional, but very handy)
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Twenty dollars spent at your local Radioshack will get you all of the parts you need for the pedal:

1.) Resistors:     470ohms x 3 (Yellow-Violet-Brown)
                              4.7K x 1 (Yellow-Violet-Red)

2.) Potentiometers:   100K x 1 (the small type that solders onto the board)
                                       1M x1     (the big type that you attach the knob to)

3.) Integrated Circuits:  LM386 Audio Amplifier
                                          555 Timer

4.) Transistors:     PNP Transistor x 1

5.) Capacitors:      10uf Polarized x 2
                                 .1uf Ceramic x 1
                                 220uf Polarized x 1

6.) LEDs:      Green LED x1
                        Red LED x2
                                
7.) Connectors:       Female Guitar Jack x 2
                                   9v Battery Clip x 1

8.) PCB:                Any standard perfboard should do, I used one about the size of a credit card that I                                   bought at Radioshack.

Comments

[sardone777]

Hey yall. Just made this pedal, but something must be weird, because I'm not getting any signal in from a guitar, but I am picking up Radio Frequencies... Any ideas?

[mclean.joe]

Hey there! It's likely that you have the ground and signal from your guitar input reversed.

[asfi235]

No current limited resistors on the LEDs? I'm surprised they didn't turn into smoke-emitting diodes.....

[DJsoundestroyer]

Hey, I want to make a LFO/ tremolo unit for a modular synthesizer, I was wondering if i could trouble you for a video or MP3 of this thing in action. also, do you know how i could have a different wave form for the lfo, such as a sine or sawtooth instead of a square wave? thanks!

[spel3o]

Since this project uses a 555 VCO to control it's output, it will always be using a square wave. To make a sine-wave generator it would require a lot more parts. And I have long since disassembled this project for parts for other projects, I don't think I can get a video up.

[Harrymatic]

Hi, I'd just like to say thanks for this circuit. A guitar playing friend of mine asked me to build this for him and it turned out really well. I changed a few things so it worked as a distortion pedal as well. There is a switch to turn the tremolo on and off and the LED strobes in sync with the 555's output. Here's a photo of the pedal :

[Baronrc]

Hi, I love the flashing LED in sync with the 555, PLEASE PLEASE please.... tell me how? I am competent at soldering but my electronics theory knowledge is negligible.

Thanks person

[spel3o]

I'm glad it turned out good :) That's a really nice pedal case, great job.

[mdog93]

so because this has the lm386 in it, presumably you don't need to plug it into an amplifier, just an external speaker?

[jakebaldwin]

It depends on how much you'd like to amplify the signal.

[mdog93]

how loud would it be without an amp

[spel3o]

That depends on what speaker you use, and what gain you have the LM386 sent to.

[mdog93]

Ok :P getting beyond my technical knowledge now, without some kind of formula. Thanks for your help. Just another one thing showing my inadequacy of these matters:

Does the LM386 N-1 not have a fixed internal gain, or are we talking about the input voltage that matters? Or referring to putting a variable resistor between pins 1 and 8?

[jakebaldwin]

The LM386 has a fixed internal gain of 20, but putting a capacitor and variable resistor between pins 1 and 8 you can set the gain up to 200. The higher the gain, the louder the output. From there, you can use an external speaker, but if you want to reduce distortion, you should keep the gain low and use another amplifier.

spel30 brought up the type of speaker used, and he has a good point. I don't know very much about wattage or speakers, but I know that it at least takes more wattage to drive larger speakers.

Input voltage does matter, but AFAIK, the LM386 amplifies the signal regardless of how high or low it is. I could be wrong on that one.

[mdog93]

Yes I knew about the gain matter. Just slightly confusing because I used the Lm386 chip to make an amplifier, here it's being used and still needs an external amplifier. Or does it not need an amplifier but to get least distortion would be best to use an external amp too.

[jakebaldwin]

You can use the LM386 as the only amplifier. Using another amp would only allow you to get louder without crazy distortion.

[mdog93]

yeah, understood.

[vadbhoi]

Maybe a power disconnect upon removing input 'jack' would be cool? !

[ski4jesus]

What did you use for power? did you use a 9v battery or a 9v wall wart?

[jakebaldwin]

To use a wall wart, you would need a voltage regulator in the circuit after the dc power jack. A wall wart, even when it says "9v," can supply even twice that in little spikes. You might want to google that, I don't know what the fluctuations are like exactly.

[ski4jesus]

Yep. I have bad experience with that now(That comment being a while ago) haha Such as a whole homemade amplifier being fried.

[mark8883]

Hey, I am new to electronics. I went to buy capacitors to make this tremolo, but they come in different voltages (16v, 20v). How do you determine which voltage to select?

[Harrymatic]

You need capacitors that are rated the same or higher in voltage than the power supply you will be using - in this case it is a 9V supply so you can use either of the caps you mentioned. It's a very good idea to leave a nice wide margin though, as caps do tend to explode if they get a supply voltage higher than their rating.

[Velbright]

Hi, You don't need the 386, you could just put the NPN from the signal to earth, and then it will silence it when the NPN input is high. I think...?

[spel3o]

That would make a verrrry annoying pop sound with each high and low, probably even higher than the one that already exists.

[ski4jesus]

This is Great!!! good job! ive been looking for something of this type for ages!!

[spel3o]

Glad I could help :)

[Teburon]

i don't see where to use the 4.7k resistor.
am i missing something?

[shmelfhelp]

(removed by author or community request)

[encon101]

how come R2 doesn't use the 1st pin

[oweng4000]

Could I replace r3 with a potentiometer? what would this do?

[spel3o]

Yes you could, r3 controls the length of each pulse, although the ohm rating on r3 in the schematic is most ideal for a tremelo.

[oweng4000]

Thanks. Also, when I built this yesterday there was a noticeable clicking sound and the guitar sounded all distorted. What did i do wrong?

[pyrohaz]

Hey :) The distortion was probably because the LM386 was set to having really high gain? an ideal tremolo would have a gain of 1 so the wave was literally on or off and! The clicking I think is just the LM386 being modulated by the 555 timer, if you add a RC filter on the output of the 555 timer, it should reduce the click :)

RC values:
Resistor: 1k
Capacitor: 10uF

:D that should also add a less harsh tremolo

[oweng4000]

When I built this yesterday there was a noticeable clicking sound and the guitar sounded all distorted. What did i do wrong?

[master ALEX]

dude,what kind of transistor is that on your Tremolo?what I mean is the value or number code....I hope for your reply urgently...tnx..I also have a DIY tremolo effect,almost with the same concept of yours,but I think this one is better,unlike with mine that is emitting a grounded sound when the 555 gives off signal...I just want to know the kind of the transistor...maybe the value of the capacitors too....tnx...

[spel3o]

If you go to the step: "the schematic" all of the values are there if you just mouse over the part.

[sailordude]

Can you use the regular 555 timer instead of the CMOS version?

[malenfant]

A youtube vid or some MP3s would help a lot to decide whether this is close to what I want.  I'm looking for a really choppy square wave like this guy gets but I'm also interested in experimenting with much higher switching rates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1gQo_ikZ6M

What kinds of frequency range will this operate at with your default resistor values?

[dimtim]

i agree make a video and put it on youtube and post the link!