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How I Made: Electric synth guitar

FEATURE

Electric dreams do come true, with this unique creation. Cue Daft Punk!

he electric guitar has

remained largely unchanged

since its invention. However,

as modern recorded music

becomes increasingly

electronic, the guitar as a

live instrument is in danger of becoming

obsolete. Many musicians now base their

sets around laptops which generate

complex layers of synthetic sound,

but there is something unsatisfying

about a live ‘performance’ which

consists largely of someone

operating a computer. When

a musician’s physical actions

are not obviously correlated

with what you are hearing,

you’re never quite sure if they

are just hitting ‘play’ and then

spending the rest of the set

checking Facebook.

After going to a gig by the

Icelandic musician Björk, I was

inspired by seeing how she used

spectacular instruments that she had

commissioned for the show, including

a ‘singing’ Tesla coil and a giant pendulum

which plucked harp strings. Thus was born

the idea for my instrument Bjarkardóttir

(Icelandic for ‘Björk’s daughter’), a

synthesizer that can be played like a guitar.

While there have been various attempts

in the past to push the guitar into the realm

T

By Matt Bradshaw

ELECTRIC

SYNTH GUITAR

of electronic music, they have tended to

focus on controlling an external synthesizer.

What I wanted to do was to build a

standalone instrument that could be turned

on and played instantly, with every element

of the sound controllable from within the

guitarist’s reach.

HOW IT WORKS

My synth-guitar can be played

approximately like a regular guitar:

the left hand plays chords and

notes, while the right hand

plucks the strings to trigger

the sound. However, unlike

a regular guitar, there are no

physical vibrations creating the

sound. Instead, the notes a

user plays are converted into

digital information and fed into

an on-board synthesizer, which

generates the sound.

To detect chords played on the

neck, a small voltage is passed

across the six metal strings. Unlike a

normal guitar, each fret is split into six

metal contacts, with each contact acting

as a digital input. If a section of the fret is in

contact with a particular string, a circuit is

completed and the processor knows which

note to play.

To detect plucking with the right hand,

a similar (but simpler) circuit is used.

How I Made

Above

Bjarkardóttir