Using Different String Types with the ōPik

One of the things that we are most excited about with the ōPik is the fact that it will work with just about any guitar string. Clearly, that opens up a lot of options for electric guitar players. The best choice for a particular player will, of course, depend on their playing style, musical genre, and personal preferences. Here are some of the types we have been testing with the ōPik:

1. Nickel-plated steel strings: These are the most common type of guitar strings and are often used for electric and steel-string acoustic guitars. They have a bright, punchy sound and are relatively inexpensive.

2. Pure nickel strings: These strings are made from pure nickel wire and have a softer, warmer sound than nickel-plated steel strings. They are often used on vintage-style electric guitars and on some acoustic guitars.

3. Stainless steel strings: These strings are made from stainless steel wire and have a bright, clear sound. They are known for their durability and resistance to corrosion, but can be harder on the fingers than other types of strings.

4. Phosphor bronze strings: These strings are made from a blend of copper and tin and are known for their warm, rich tone. They are often used on acoustic guitars.

5. Bronze strings: These strings are made from pure copper and tin and have a bright, punchy sound. They are often used on classical guitars.

6. Nylon strings: These strings are made from nylon or other synthetic materials and are used on classical and flamenco guitars. They have a softer, warmer sound than bronze or steel strings.

7. Silk and steel strings: These strings are made from a blend of steel wire and silk or other synthetic fibers and are often used on classical and folk guitars. They have a softer, mellower sound than other types of strings and are easier on the fingers.

Where, oh, where are is the TPS7A3901DSCT?

It continues to be a challenging time to get components for our circuit boards. We have been in the chip market for a while now, and during the last few months, there have been a few parts that have been…. well, basically flatlined. Here’s one example, a 20kOhm digital potentiometer — the AD5262BRUZ20 from Analog Devices:

An integrated circuit flatline.

In some cases, the components are available—they are just selling for 10-20x their normal price. And while we would love to just buy the parts, whatever the price, we just can’t make it work when individual components that should cost $4-5 are going for $80-100.

Wanted: Volatile Digital Potentiometer, 20 kOhm, Dual, SPI, Linear, 4.5 V

The good news is that a number of these inventories are somewhat “spiky”—we may see 50 or 100 components pop up for sale, and we are incrementally accumulating what we need for the initial run—as of today, we have supplies of most of the integrated circuits needed for production.

We will keep you posted!

The Light4Sound Team

Firmware and Updates

Yahoo!

The firmware is finally up and running!  It was a more herculean effort than we had hoped for—we have been having a mysterious issue with the over-the-air firmware updates, which we were just able to get resolved this week. This is a critical feature, since it is the only way we (and you) will be able to update the ōPik without disassembly.

With that hurdle out of the way, the path towards shipping is getting clearer. There is still a fair amount to do, but we are hoping to get our first units in the mail soon.

The biggest issue now is obtaining all of the components we need for the circuit boards. There are some supply issues… we will keep you posted.

Meanwhile, we wanted to show you the latest revisions of the ōPik and the PowerPod:

All the best from the Light4Sound Team!

The Light is Getting Brighter!

After all of the supply issues in the past year, it is great to be able to say that we have been producing and assembling ōPiks! It’s a limited run, as we are still running tests and confirming all of the design details and features, but this is the production version!

Early run of the ōPik circuit boards—and incredible number of very small components in a small space!

We have also been comparing some components from different manufacturers, just to make sure we are delivering the best possible product. So far, things are looking really good, and we are confident about scaling things up from here.

The photodiodes and LEDS being assembled onto the boards. The wires are trimmed before the lower board is attached.

We have one issue that we are working on overcoming before we can moving into shipping mode, and it is in the software side of things. That is both good and bad—in principle, it is relatively easy to fix, and we hope to get to the bottom of it soon. Thank you for your support and immense patience. We are working very hard to make sure that they are rewarded!

The Light4Sound Team

Premier Guitar on ōPik

A nice piece by Heiko Hoepfinger in Premier Guitar! He has been working on a series exploring optical pickups, and we enjoyed chatting with him about the ōPik. With Heiko’s technical background, we got to spend a fair amount of time on the nuances of the physics and the engineering challenges. Somehow, he managed to translate all of that into a highly readable article—no small feat! Thank you, Heiko!

Packaging

It’s hard to stand out in the world of packaging. Therefore, or therefor, we are opting for a completely natural, organic, calcium-rich, multi-colored approach. The ōPik itself will come partially disassembled, but don’t worry—we will be including a tiny instruction booklet complete with stick figures inspired by our favorite Swedish furniture company. Happy April!

Brett Hool

Today we’re featuring a video we took a while back with Brett Hool of We are the West . Great having him in studio and looking forward to more studio visits very soon!

String Volumes

We wanted to give you some detail of the ōPik app and give you a sense of how it works. As you can see, the ‘main’ feature is to give you individual string volume control, with a series of vertical sliders. Overall gain can be adjust via a knob at the lower left. And high- and low-pass filters give you the option of eliminate unwanted frequencies right at the source.

Once you have things set to your liking, you can save your settings—with the floppy-disk icon, of course. Yes, that still seems to be the standard, although we haven’t seen a floppy disk in a while, either.

We’ll have some more pages posted soon!