Technabob » pedal

Make Your Own DSLR Foot Pedal for Foot-Powered Photos

Chris B. — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 13:01:52 +0000

Have you ever taken a picture without using your hands? No, I’m not talking about setting the timer and having the shutter go off after a predetermined amount of time – you still use your hands for that. Nor does using your nose to press down the button count (why would you even think that?). Well, there are certain times when you need your hands to be doing something else, and to have the picture taken when you’re ready, not whenever the timer goes off. For these occasions, you need a foot pedal.

The great thing is that such a pedal can be constructed with a little bit of know-how and about $30 worth of parts. You just need a keyboard sustain pedal, a stereo cable and a mono plug. You’ll just solder the mono plug onto the end of the cable, then plug it into the pedal and your camera.

For the complete instructions and a parts list, you’ll want to check out the guide here.

[via Crunchgear]

Naruse Pedal Puts the Breaks on Accidental Acceleration

Lambert Varias — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 11:31:41 +0000

Japanese inventor Masuyuki Naruse believes that the current two-pedal system for braking and accelerating in vehicles is “dangerously flawed”. His point is that in situations when quick reactions are needed, sometimes people panic and press down on the gas pedal instead of the brakes, or sometimes press down both. He himself was almost involved in an accident because he hit the gas pedal instead of the brakes. So he invented a modified pedal, where the motion needed to brake is different from the one used to accelerate.

That’s the aptly named Naruse pedal in the picture. Using this pedal, drivers still press down to brake, but in order to accelerate they have to push the lever on the right of the pedal to the side.

It’s not complicated at all, but it will definitely take some getting used too, especially if you’ve been driving for years. Naruse says that it costs about ¥100,000 (about $1,156 USD) to retrofit a car with the pedal. He’s tried to contact Toyota to present his pedal, and possibly have it installed by default in new cars, but so far they have not responded to his request. What do you guys think? Is the Naruse pedal a good alternative to the current set up?

[via New York Times via Neatorama]

Bass Blogger Guitar Pedal Spawns Guitaroblogosphere

Technabob — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:40:56 +0000

What is it these days with everyone jumping onto the blogging bandwagon? This bass guitar effect pedal tries to co-opt the popularity of blogs by donning the unlikely and unusual name “Bass Blogger”.

Electro-harmonix Bass Blogger doesn’t just try to hitch its wagon to the online star with its name. The maker goes so far to describe the pedal in the following way:“Ultra subtle and perfect distortion creates the perfect dialog with your drummer.”

I wonder if the bassist-to-drummer dialog includes an inordinate amount of comment spam. While it certainly wouldn’t be the first time I heard of a blog that produced a bunch of distorted fuzz, that’s about the only real similarity I can come up with.

If you’re ready to see what sort of blogging your bass is really capable of, you can grab one over on the Old Town School of Folk Music eBay store for just $79 clams.

[via Music Thing]

Gameboy Octopus Music Controller Mod

Technabob — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 11:45:51 +0000

What’s got 8 tentacles and the brains of a Nintendo GameBoy? It’s an 8-bit music maker’s dream, that’s what. Electronic musician Joey Mariano (aka “Animal Style“) took an old GameBoy Color system and built a custom controller for it that uses 8 individual foot pedal controllers to jam out on the device.

Using a series of GameBoy audio sequencing hacks, the foot pedals allow for live improvisation with all sorts of electronic beeps and blips.

Animal Style has recorded a number of digital chiptune tracks using old video game systems as his primary sound source. Be sure to check out his discography and sample tracks here.

[via Nerd Arts via MAKE]