Intro The Vox is a very early electric guitar with electronic organ components. It uses the basics of a fretboard scanner with each guitar fret separated into six segments, creating independent contact switches for each string. The organ notes are keyed when a string touches a specific segment. Guitar and Organ sounds can be played at the same time. Who Used it? John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the Beatles were presented with an early prototype of the Vox V251 during their Christmas shows in 1964. It's inventor, Dick Denney, hoped that with the Beatles use of his invention he would revolutionise music. While Lennon kept his V251 prototype, he ultimately did not take to this unusual instrument and eventually it ended up...
Intro The GR-500 is a true piece of guitar-synth history and a fantastic collectors instrument. It was introduced in 1977, 5 years before MIDI technology was even standardised! The synthesizer module produced bass, solo synth and string sounds which were based on Roland's previous Orchestral and analog mono-synths. Who Used it? Jeff Beck was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and has spanned genres ranging from blues-rock to jazz fusion and even blends of rock-electronica. Jeff appears with his GR-500 in the front cover of his unofficially released double album "A Battle Without Honor & Humanity" which was recorded live in Japan in November 1978. Jeff Baxter, known for his stints in the rock...
Intro The Manson MB-1 was one of the first 'real' guitars to incorporate touch pad technology. It sends MIDI control changes from the XY Pad dynamically effecting its sounds using a Korg Kaoss Pad. Who Used it? Matthew Bellamy from Muse designed the MB-1 in close collaboration with Manson Guitars and uses it extensively for live performance. How does it work? The MB-1 has a onboard XY touchpad which sends control changes via MIDI. Matthew often uses a MIDI Jet to wirelessly transmits MIDI control changes to his Korg Kaoss pad applying dynamic effects like delays, filters and phasers. The XY touchpad also controls Kaoss Pad synthesizers in a 'random' spacey sort of a way. The custom Manson MBK-2 humbucker bridge pick-up produces the high gain crunch heard on tracks like “Hysteria”...
Intro The G-707 is the flashy guitar controller which connects to the Roland GR-700 synthesizer via a 24 pin cable. The 707 guitar features cut-off, LFO modulation and edit knobs. It also operates like a standard guitar with standard guitar pickups. Who Used it? Jimmy Page of Led Zepplin used the G-707 while composing the soundtrack for the 1982 film Death Wish II. Jimmy said in the 1986 interview with Steven Rosen "I didn’t purposely just want to use the guitar synthesizer but in certain places it just worked. With that I must admit that I went with Tim [Marten, guitar tech] to a demonstration of the SynthAxe and it was just absolutely terrifying. It was great, it was fantastic. I knew that...
Intro Kitara is a non-fretted guitar like MIDI Controller that uses internal or external electronic synthesizers to produce sound. Kitara does not have any strings. It has a neck that resembles the layout of a stringed guitar, but has buttons in place of the strings and frets. Its most striking feature is the large touch pad and interactive light effects which allows the musician to trigger synthesizer notes while simultaneously changing and effecting note parameters such as cutoff, pitch bend, modulation or other assignable parameters. Who Played it? Chris Wolstenholme of Muse most notably played alongside Matt Bellamy in their 2012 single - Madness. Chris played Kitara live with his real bass in a striking custom built hybrid instrument. How does it work Kitara combines the use...
