Hey Dave,

That helmet looks great! Very impressive work.

Good ideas about the MP3s and audio effects.

If you have time:
peterdeco1 had a good idea about a recorder playback chip.
Even one like in a greeting card.
It does not have to have loud audio, just tap it into the same amplifier for your voice.

Alfred had some good ideas too, may need a little more power than a LM386. But there are other audio amplifier ICs that might be as simple to use.

Ross is right about all the sound effects available in MP3 format. It would be handy to just tap into a cheap one and feed the low level (headphone) audio into you voice amp.
He is right about “Just at the right moment... POW! BAM! BLING! Cut them right in half!” too!

Can someone try the white noise output of a PIC and let us know if it sounds like radio static “rush” (before squelch mutes it). Maybe post a sound clip?

Have you looked for any voice operate circuits (VOX)? Here is one example schematic. I like the voltage doubler part.
http://www.electronickits.com/kit/co.../elec/k126.pdf
You would not need all the amplifiers / comparators and relay.
Your amplifier produces the level and the PIC senses voice voltage and switches your effects....

Great ideas guys, who else?
-Adam-