ADDAC shared this preview of ADDAC120s Four Strings Series, a Eurorack-compatible electroacoustic instrument that integrates physical strings, custom pickups, and electromechanical control.
The ADDAC120s Four Strings Series is a collection of modules, built around the idea of using physical strings as a creative medium.
ADDAC120s Four Strings Series modules include:
- ADDAC120 Headstock & Bridge — The physical foundation of the system. Provides the tuning hardware and bridge needed to mount and tension the strings.
- ADDAC121 Humbucker — A magnetic humbucker pickup module for capturing the sound of the strings and feeding it into a modular system or audio chain.
- ADDAC122 Quadraphonic Pickup — A multi-channel pickup system that captures strings separately, allowing independent processing and spatialization of individual strings.
- ADDAC124 Plectrums — Motorized picks that physically pluck the strings under CV and gate control, turning sequencers and triggers into automated picking mechanisms.
- ADDAC125 Strings Mute — A controllable muting mechanism that damps the strings, enabling rhythmic muting, articulation changes, and percussive effects.
- ADDAC126 Rotary Exciter — A rotating excitation system that continuously drives the strings.
- ADDAC127 Ebow Slider — A CV-controlled electromagnetic string driver inspired by an E-Bow, capable of producing sustained notes and harmonics without plucking the strings.
- ADDAC120F Strings Frame — The mechanical frame that holds the strings and serves as the mounting platform for the various excitation, pickup, and muting modules.
Topics covered:
0:00 Intro
0:26 Headstock and bridge
0:42 Plectrums
2:06 Humbucker pickup
2:35 Quadraphonic pickup
2:59 Ebow
4:22 Rotary exciter
5:06 Strings mute
5:33 Resonators
6:13 Bringing everything together in the frame
7:24 Subscribe
Details are to come at the ADDAC site.
Absurd
1570€ complete.
I think I’ll just plug my electric guitar in my modular if I want plucked strings, but hey, its modular- it has some interesting quirks and unique features and it may float someone’s boat and it looks cool!
A deconstructed eurorack guitar. A nice idea but none of the demo sounded particularly interesting.
I’d love to have a play with it…. Setting it horizontal to get more of a lap steel playability, it seems more set up for droning. Would definitely avoid the servo motor through pickup tone though, an ugly substitute for the texture of a plectrum.
Son, I heard you cry out for mutable instruments in your sleep, so I built some for you.
For what they showed, one of the countless VI guitar instruments would be more than enough.
With that setup you have to go to a weird and strange sound territory, like SOMA would have done. But… simple guitar sounds… why bother?
The sound of the plectrum motor is super annoying.
Very cool, but the squeak when plucking is off-putting.
Yeah, seems like they need to isolate the little servo motors from the pickups.
This was noted in the video’s captions – the servos were close to the pickups “for the purposes of the video” (not a direct quote) and the servo sounds (noise?) can be isolated/removed by repositioning a module.
If you all you can imagine doing with this are things you could do with an electric guitar, then this is not for you.
Then they better show that off-guitar-territory. Right now it’s kind of silly.
The record-scratchy sound from the pick would drive me nuts.
If you want to play around with something cheaper with a guitar, the Fishman TriplePlay is really fun.
Wow, those picks sound absolutely shite!
That would be annoy the bejesus out of me.
It’d be rad to see this take on some of the expression of a pedal steel guitar. Like the bending of the strings being programable. This feels like a really cool first entry into a new territory.
These Eurorack folks are getting weirder and weirder by the month. Just pick up a guitar – it has existed for close to 3500 years.
Good god, man! Get a better 3D printer!
I love Synthtopia, but it seems readers often want to crap on anything original, and just want cheap Behringer knockoffs of 50 year-old gear.
Can no one else imagine how much fun it would be to experiment with these modules?
I don’t know – it has some cool things but they should have either some sort of a fretboard and/or something similar to a taishogoto where you have keys that fret the string in order to have more than 4 notes