Ghost Pedal lets guitarists wander the stage and wah
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The Ghost Pedal gives a guitarist the freedom to roam the stage area and wirelessly control a virtual wah distortion effect whenever and wherever the mood grabs
A team of Purdue University students has developed a device that uses sensors at a guitarist's ankle to wirelessly control a virtual wah distortion effect
The Ghost Pedal is strapped to a player's ankle and operated in much the same fashion as a physical wah, expect there's no physical pedal
When the unit is first switched on, there's a ten second calibration period where a wearer's ability to flex the ankle is determined and stored
If a player wants to deactivate the wah effect, a tap to the sustain sensor on the side of the device will bypass or sustain the signal
The ankle unit is made up of a variable resistor sensor that tracks the movement of the ankle and a sustain sensor which either accepts the virtual wah feed or ignores/sustains it
Team member Will Black demonstrating the Ghost Pedal, which is hidden from view by the player's trousers
No matter the size of the stage, most gigging guitar players are likely to have to return to the same spot from time to time to change the tone, increase the volume, check tuning or to operate the wah effect. Thanks to a team of students from Purdue University's School of Mechanical Engineering, the last of those has now been liberated from the pedal board and strapped to the player's ankle. But this doesn't involve attaching a large brick-shaped wah pedal to one leg, as one's imagination might suggest, but wearing a small wireless transmitter and a couple of sensors instead. Players operate the Ghost Pedal in much the same fashion as a physical pedal, the sensors registering the rocking motion of the foot and feeding data to a base station connected to the amplifier.
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