Using an Arduino to switch instrument cable (guitar to amp) on/off ?

[gointc]

Hi,

Using an Arduino, I'm trying to send a signal to a circuit to turn on/off (or mute) the signal between the guitar and amplifier. I see that they sell instrument cables with the on/off switch built in, but I am trying to imitate the same thing but having the Arduino send the signal.

What I have in mind is to create a pcb board with two 1/4" mono female input jack pcb mount (not sure which one - Guitar Amp Jacks ) and a digital potentiometer (Uduino.com - Using a MCP4131 Digital Pot with Arduino) to control (on/off) the signal flow thru the circuit.

Question - is this the best way of doing this? Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

 

[jcx]

electric guitar raw inductive pickup signal can be very hi Z, sensitive to cable, preamp loading - hard to add a tranparent switch since frequency response and peaking varies with few 10s of pF, 10s of MegaOhm added loading

just the added C of another few ft section of cable, will have measureable audio frequency effect with the higher Z pickups

for actual switching some electromechanical relays can have low parasitic C


switching post preamp, buffered line level signal is much easier to do without affecting "the sound"

 

[gerben00]

Wouldn't a simple relay work?