guitar

PInhead’s Insanity Generator, a bizarro Mexican penguin guitar synthesizer, is a tasty abomination:

Here’s a birthday present for my long-time-bro Jonathan Barkin (his birthday was in November).

It’s a touch-sensitive synth built into a little guitar I bought for 100 pesos in Tijuana. It’s triggered by tapping on the piezo element sealed underneath the penguin, runs for however long the decay is set, and can be modulated in different ways merely by touching the the strings… with HUMAN TISSUE !!!!!

Controls are volume, decay time, and amplitude modulation vs. frequency modulation. The last switch patches the body contacts between the main “pitch” oscillator, and the modulating “freak out” oscillator. Check out the waveform.

It took a lot of trial and error and screaming and error and error and trial to get the piezo sensor to work consistently. The other big thing was actually electrically isolating the strings from each other so that they would respond to TOUCHING and nothing else. This was done by wrapping the base of each string in plastic tube, and sealing the metal frets with an acrylic glue so they don’t short out when you push the strings all the way down.

So now Jon, his seven pet monkeys, and his dog taco have a guitar they can make beautiful music with simply by cuddling with it.

More strange stuff like this is available at the Prankster Dice site.

This is a demo video for the Pigtronix Mothership Analog Synthesizer pedal – a pedal that lets guitarist get in on some of the synth action. 

Description:

Pigtronix Mothership is an analog synthesizer featuring VCO, Sub-Octave and an “Intelligent Ring Modulator”. Fast note recognition an analog sound make this unique synthesizer ideal for use with guitar, bass, horns, vocals or any other musical instrument. No special pickup or interface is required.

At the heart of the Mothership is a newly designed note detection circuit that achieves high-speed and accurate pitch to voltage translation. The Mothership is a true analog mono-synth with a limitless array of tuning options between its voices. This pedal is capable of tones that have never before been available in such a compact and easy to use format as well as some new sounds that reach into bizarre and uncharted musical territory. 

VCO – The main voice of the Pigtronix Mothership is a VCO (voltage controlled oscillator) that outputs either triangle or square waves. The VCO can be tuned anywhere from two octaves above the input signal to two octaves below the input signal and functions over the entire range of both 5 string bass and 6 string electric guitar. An adjustable portamento (glide) effect can be added to produce subtle slides from note to note or outrageous multi-octave glissando maneuvers.

An expression pedal jack for Whammy control provides tunable pitch bending up to one octave using a standard TRS 20K Expression pedal. 

Sub-Octave –The Sub Octave is always locked to the input signal, providing a warm and solid fundamental for whatever harmony you create with the other voices. A dedicated SUB Out jacks allows low frequencies from the Sub Octave and Ring Modulator to be sent to a separate bass amp for maximum booty.

Intelligent Ring Modulator – In designing the Mothership, Pigtronix created a pitch tracking ring modulator. Tune this ring modulator to the sound you desire and it will follow every note you play, retaining the exact harmonic intervals between its output and the signal it is tracking. A “ring mod source,” switch lets the ring modulator follow either the input signal or the VCO signal, providing an immense array of analog textures and interactive harmony. The glide and whammy functions also apply to the intelligent ring modulator, letting the musician morph one harmony into another and then back again.

If you’ve used the Pigtronix Mothership Analog Synthesizer pedal, leave a comment and let us know what you think!

via gearwire

In this short video, from the guys at BigCityMusic, monster guitarist Blues Saraceno plays his Les Paul into the Analogue Systems rs35 External Source Processor module, which is a pitch to voltage (1 volt per octave) module. The rs35 is triggering a pair of rs95 voltage controlled oscillators, which are then processed through several other A.S. modules.

The final sound is coming from the tiny 5″ Yamaha speaker which was mic’d with a handheld SM-57.

Ryo Kawasaki with Guitar Synthesizer

Description:

Ryo Kawasaki plays his guitar synthesizer, accompanied by Lincoln, Buddy & Ilana. A huge rack of guitar synth modules can be seen behind him. 1980 in Tokyo. 

The group is called Ryo Kawasaki & the Golden Dragon.

via Satellite Records

Roland Guitar Synth GR-20 #1

Description:

Johnny guides you thru the Roland GR-20 Guitar Synth.