There generally doesn't seem to be much interest in building guitar synths - not just signal processors, but true synths with one or more VCOs, envelope shapers etc., that just accept a regular guitar signal. I suppose an earlier reasonably successful DIY design (if modified slightly) is the Penfold guitar tracker, though this requires a separate mono 1v/oct synth to generate the audio. I haven't seen much else around - even on the synth sites there's almost a complete absence of DIY builds.
The idea of using the guitar as a controller has always appealed to me. I bought a Korg X-911 when they came out, but it was largely disappointing even for the time. In more recent years I've experimented with Roland stuff but this has limited appeal in that I'm never really happy playing through stuff I haven't built myself.
Is the lack of interest down to a gulf between keyboard players and guitarists? There's an assertion in some quarters that if you want synth sounds, play a synth. I see the world of synthesis opening up the range of sounds achievable with the guitar - in particular the ability to extend note duration way beyond the natural sustain of the string and using different waveforms and processing.
Isn't the lack of such things partly down to the technical problems? An actual guitar doesn't make a great controller because the individual string signals are all mixed together. Hex pickups help a lot, but hardly anyone makes them. And even if you get the string tracking sorted out, you've then got to build six voices to go with it! That's quite a lot of synth!
In a similar way, you don't see many DIY harmonisers or vocoders. They're difficult and/or need a large amount of circuitry.
I suspect interest in guitar synths was somewhat greater when we were back in the era of monophonic analog keyboard synths, and the goal of adapters for tracking guitar were focused on converting one note from pitch to CV/gate. Obviously there were polyphonic devices from Roland and others, but once we came to expect two-handed chords and such from keyboards, the hurdles imposed by tracking multiple strings likely became too much of a disincentive for DIY.
I've mentioned before this oddball polyphonic octave divider I have, produced by Guild in the very early '70s. The proprietary hex pickup it came with was about the same surface area as a P90, meaning that it could not be positioned against the bridge, unless the guitar had no bridge pickup. That really buggered up the tracking, by inviting bleedthrough from adjacent strings.
The moral of that story is that guitar synths require a very slender divided pickup that CAN be butted up against the bridge, where string-wiggle is minimal, and bleedthrough easily defeated.
Some 22 years ago, a bunch of us had a "synth summit" in my basement, and Harry Bissell came up from the Detroit area, with his DIY guitar synth/processor. He had an Ibanez solid-body with a hex pickup mounted on it that was (I think) used for the G Vox system. Each string was fuzzed to provide plenty of harmonic content to carve away with filters, and six independent EG/VCA pairs. It was a phenomenally responsive system.
My own particular interest is in some of the mono sounds from the 70s - thinking of the opening hook in Sweet's 'Fox on the run' and such like. I'm just finishing off my latest synth build that fits in a 1590B enclosure that gets this type of sound. Digital, but capable of adding further analogue processing. I've been working on note tracking for a couple of years now and at least for mono playing it tracks really well. Just a handful of parts and it incorporates intelligent harmony and arpeggio with a minimum of controls. Just two minor bugs that should be an easy fix, but I'm not seeing the source of the problem right now.
I'd be interest to see any builds that people have put together. I'd been in touch with a guy in Germany who'd developed the Penfold tracker into a complete working synth, but it sure was complicated.
Some years ago, I put together a switching guitar to iPhone box then used MidiGuitar2 on the iPhone with either internal sounds or those from Soundtank or other software synth.
That gave me a polyphonic system, albeit with some latency, with which to gauge whether I really wanted to go down this route. Effectively used as a stompbox in my pedal chain, it sounded really good through my guitar amps on most setting though I really struggled with note tracking on any kind of piano. It was useful for laying down simple bass or synthy swells for backing, the sax solo on Baker Street and annoying everyone with the bagpipes but ultimately, my inability to play anything other than guitar parts was such a limiting factor that the setup was consigned to the bottom drawer.
I've seen demos of the same setup where the guitarist really makes every instrument come alive but I think its to do with their ability to play the correct parts for the particular instrument that's been chosen. Me, I'm still too busy struggling with actual guitar parts to wander off down yet another rabbit hole
I found the same thing with the Roland setups I've experimented with - playing the relevant instrument-specific parts is the only way to make the patch sound convincing. A fast minor pentatonic run with bends and hammer-ons isn't something a cellist would do, but when I learnt some actual cello pieces it sounded pretty authentic.
The same even with mono synth parts - they sound best when played in a keyboard style.
There's that parasitstudio guy who makes synthy type of guitar pedals with cmos chips.
I messed around with a cd4046(?). Probably used the circuit in the datasheet because it was barebones. I just wanted to see if I could get sound out of it before investing much time to it.
It tracked surprisingly well with worn out strings. Pitch tracking issues mostly occurred when picking a string so an ebow might be handy. I didn't bother continuing because I don't have the know-how to fix the shortcomings and the sound wasn't all that pleasant anyway.
The answer might be additional electronics along with the hex pickup. Suppose each fret was divided into six isolated electrical sections and you grounded the string so that as you pressed the string, you would get a digital low signal at the fret you selected on each string. You would also take the parallel outputs of each pickup section of the hex pickup. You would then get a signal of the type:
G string 7th fret down, amplitude 75 mV.
Let's say you have 22 frets and 6 strings for a total of 132 possible fret outputs. You multiplex that and take the 6 hex amplitudes out to a controller that can identify what fret has been used, what string has been picked and what output amplitude you have on that string.
You might be able to use synthesizer electronics using this as a gesture capture system by converting to a MIDI input.
In this day and age it makes more sense to do it in DSP.
If you want a specific synth-ish sound then a simplified pedal would make sense to use analog but once you start needing "all the functional blocks" of a synth an analog circuit grows out of hand. It starts to look like a 70's synth circuit, which goes back to the case for DSP.
Take a very simple and specific case of the Boss OC-2 octaver. They didn't bother making a better analog wheel because you can do a better wheel in DSP with a much simpler circuit, and far less development effort, hence the OC-3. Sure some of the spin-offs give you more synth sounding options but at the end of the day they are small differences circuit wise - and no significant improvements in tracking.
I moved away from analogue setups because of the complexity in packing the electronics into a foot pedal enclosure. I did develop the OC-2 circuit to generate a digital signal so that this could be further processed using an Arduino Nano, but it was still tricky to get the tracking accurate - the minor errors that you don't hear with the OC-2 are significant when processed. I coded all of this up to give better control under firmware and at the same time eliminate most of the components needed.
The component count is now down to a Seeed Studio RP2040, a dual opamp, five pots and three pushbuttons plus a small number of discreet components. This gives 5 oscillators with 7 waveform types and an envelope shaper and VCA with 4 modes. Plus transpose, arpeggiator (three modes each with selectable 3 to 8 steps), harmonizer, glide, sample and hold and clipping indicator, parallel FX loop, variable input gain and output mixer. No filter due to ADC restrictions, but could be adapted to use a rotary encoder and OLED screen.
To do this an other way rather than digital would require a lot of parts and a big enclosure, plus the cost would be significant
Which brings me to the EH guitar synth - the Unrelated Activities youtube channel has some interesting stuff on this https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=EH8000
Some of the circuitry is redrawn very clearly indeed.
As some will know, back in the 1980s I built much of this synth on veroboard, as Mark said "when we were back in the era of monophonic analog keyboard synths". The tracking was very good indeed, and I would recommend this as a build as a next step up from the ADA Flanger (!!!!!!!!!).
Quote from: Mick Bailey on May 10, 2025, 09:06:04 AMI'd be interest to see any builds that people have put together. I'd been in touch with a guy in Germany who'd developed the Penfold tracker into a complete working synth, but it sure was complicated.
Watching some of the videos from the recent Superbooth 25 in Berlin, "complicated" seems to be all the rage.
I see what you mean - lots of equipment with even more knobs than before.....
I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we've provided many new ways for the user to shape and direct the sound. The bad news is that we've provided many new ways for the user to shape and direct the sound. ??? ;) :icon_lol:
I like real synths!! just got a behringer ub-xa and love it .. the real ones are around 5k i think ..and I just got some korg volcas .. i love these little machines .. one is a full analog synth and the other is a yamaha d7 is basically a guitar pedal size package ..
To be honest Mick, I'm not that interested in guitar synths because I'm not really a guitar player at all (although I did have a bit of a try during covid) but I *am* a programmer, so I'd be interested to hear what you learned about frequency tracking and how you did that digitally.
I know several techniques in theory, but I never tried any practically and my experience of DSP is that you can usually get away with a hell of a lot more than the theory says you should be able to: E.g. They say "don't do this unless X" and you do it anyway and ignore X and actually, mostly it's fine, or fine within certain limitations which often you don't care about. So I'd be interested to hear you experience of implementing an algorithm and how you tweaked it.
Quote from: Mark Hammer on May 12, 2025, 08:24:45 AMI have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we've provided many new ways for the user to shape and direct the sound. The bad news is that we've provided many new ways for the user to shape and direct the sound. ??? ;) :icon_lol:
Yep. Or as we used to put it back at work - the bad news is that the good news IS the bad news.
:)
Quote from: StephenGiles on May 11, 2025, 04:51:08 AMWhich brings me to the EH guitar synth - the Unrelated Activities youtube channel has some interesting stuff on this https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=EH8000
Some of the circuitry is redrawn very clearly indeed.
As some will know, back in the 1980s I built much of this synth on veroboard, as Mark said "when we were back in the era of monophonic analog keyboard synths". The tracking was very good indeed, and I would recommend this as a build as a next step up from the ADA Flanger (!!!!!!!!!).
The video on the adaptive filter is very good. That guy knows the real problems. I can see why it tracks well. The detector used on Boss OC-2 only partially addresses the issue and that's why it bobbles. The stabilizer switch on the Mutron Octave Divider doesn't help those problems much either. I think the Roland unit had some sort of adaptive filter, even though it uses separate coils (IIRC).
Quote from: ElectricDruid on May 12, 2025, 08:21:38 PMI'd be interested to hear what you learned about frequency tracking and how you did that digitally.
I should have the schematic and final code tweaks finished today and I'll post this as a project along with some video. I'm a guitarist but not a programmer and went down the digital route more out of necessity, initially combining digital and analogue but more recently trying to do everything through code. Rather than use my synths exclusively, I incorporate an FX loop to mix in the analogue guitar signal + distortion etc., and play interactively.
Project file posted under DSP section
Guitar synths really, really need a good, reliable hex pickup.
...or some serious DSP to identify the notes coming in.
If you use a compressor in the detector you don't need a hex pickup for it to track well on *single notes*.
If you want it to track on chords the hex pickup helps but then you have to decide what
to string to throw away for a monophonic system, or, have a polyphonic system which is
far more complicated and getting beyond any reasonable sized analog circuit.
I don't use a compressor or any form of signal conditioning other than an opamp to get the guitar level high enough to give a decent signal to noise ratio. Tracking is pretty good, but I use a couple of tricks - sample a new note within a couple of cycles to get the frequency, then lock this for the note duration and apply hysteresis to the decaying/new note to give a clear start and end. For hammer-ons and slides, get the frequency and continuously track throughout the note duration, but limit note changes to within a bracket of 4 semitones to exclude jumping to harmonics. The limitation is in quantizing notes, but this is mitigated by applying glide to allow semitone-interval bends. Other than that, bends can be applied using an expression pedal (whammy style).
To sidestep the chord issue with my mono synths I generate the appropriate chord for each note depending on the key and this works well enough when mixed in with a regular guitar signal to give a rich backing. The ability to play a note, generate the chord on the fly and then be able to hold it while playing over the top is quite inspiring.
A basic polyphonic synth with a hex pickup doesn't need to be complicated. I started going down this route a few months ago but got sidetracked away from pickup design into condensing my previous mono builds into as small a unit as possible. I thought that instead of parallel processing there may be the opportunity to multiplex a hex pickup, generate 6x oscillator signals and then apply a common envelope shape and filter to the overall combined output.
All a bit too much to do exclusively analog, but more straightforward if the upfront signal detection is done digitally and 6x 1v/octave outputs used to control analog VCOs, VCAs, and filters. Because small processors are so cheap and easy to use it's feasible to parallel process on the basis of one per string, though I'm thinking that this could be reduced to two or three (say) postage-stamp sized RP2040 Seeed boards or similar.
Quote from: Mick Bailey on May 14, 2025, 04:32:04 AMA basic polyphonic synth with a hex pickup doesn't need to be complicated. I started going down this route a few months ago but got sidetracked away from pickup design into condensing my previous mono builds into as small a unit as possible. I thought that instead of parallel processing there may be the opportunity to multiplex a hex pickup, generate 6x oscillator signals and then apply a common envelope shape and filter to the overall combined output.
All a bit too much to do exclusively analog, but more straightforward if the upfront signal detection is done digitally and 6x 1v/octave outputs used to control analog VCOs, VCAs, and filters. Because small processors are so cheap and easy to use it's feasible to parallel process on the basis of one per string, though I'm thinking that this could be reduced to two or three (say) postage-stamp sized RP2040 Seeed boards or similar.
A "hybrid synth" approach would be possible too - get the digital side to generate the note frequencies, and then feed that to analog VCF+VCA. The digital side can also produce the required envelopes or LFOs or whatever to keep the circuit component count down.The only parts that are really analog is that output path, with just a handful of CVs to drive it (Cutoff, Res, Amplitude). This is a pretty standardised design ever since things like the Matrix/Xpander did it with VCOs and the Prophet VS did it with digital oscs.
Thanks for sharing the details, BTW. I'll have to have a good dig through that, but that's a fun job!
My previous build was a digital front end to generate the fequencies, then an analog VCA, envelope generator and filter. I just used a gate pulse from the processor, but it would have been better to have done the EG in code as in my latest build, but output a PWM envelope signal. Outputting other control voltages as you suggest makes sense.
The single IC Monovoks filter is super simple, but really effective. I thought it would make a good standalone filter pedal as a guitar effect
I still say the best way to get the "gesture capture" information is to not lose it in the first place.
You know what fret you are playing on which string and with a hex pickup, you can get an amplitude for each string.
Making frets with six insulated conductive sections sound a bit easier and more reliable than mixing the signal together then trying to pull apart all the components of it. Just multiplex them and send the six string amplitude outputs to the synthesizer and you have no ambiguity and minimal circuitry.
if you stick with old-school monophonic, the other issue is that monosynth leads generally sound best when someone is tweaking the knobs with one hand while playing a keyboard with another. that's tough to do when you need both hands to play guitar. sure, an expression pedal would help, but it's a pain to map one to multiple parameters on an analog synth.
i have tried this, plugging my guitar into a pitch and amplitude tracker to control a simple modular synth. the results were always a bit boring, a bit 80s prog in a bad way.
so it basically always makes more sense to do it with DSP, which will give you better pitch tracking, and polyphonic pitch track, thanks to FFT processing.
Quote from: amptramp on May 15, 2025, 03:36:28 PMMaking frets with six insulated conductive sections sound a bit easier and more reliable than mixing the signal together then trying to pull apart all the components of it.
Thomas Organ manufactured and sold a guitar with separated fret sections back in the 60s. It had a simplified electric organ inside the guitar. Strange but true.
Quote from: R.G. on May 15, 2025, 07:01:09 PMQuote from: amptramp on May 15, 2025, 03:36:28 PMMaking frets with six insulated conductive sections sound a bit easier and more reliable than mixing the signal together then trying to pull apart all the components of it.
Thomas Organ manufactured and sold a guitar with separated fret sections back in the 60s. It had a simplified electric organ inside the guitar. Strange but true.
Exactly what you are looking for and the Thomas organ with its bandshaped square waves would be good for a clarinet but not so good with other voices. We have the technology to take an input and provide an output which is any instrument you want, including instruments that don't exist in nature. This may be the right guitar to start with.
Quote from: amptramp on May 15, 2025, 03:36:28 PMI still say the best way to get the "gesture capture" information is to not lose it in the first place.
You know what fret you are playing on which string and with a hex pickup, you can get an amplitude for each string.
Making frets with six insulated conductive sections sound a bit easier and more reliable than mixing the signal together.....
That doesn't sound easy to me. Fretting a guitar is one thing, placing six insulated sections, wiring them up and then making sure the whole thing doesn't separate with timber movement looks to me to be very involved.
QuoteThat doesn't sound easy to me. Fretting a guitar is one thing, placing six insulated sections, wiring them up and then making sure the whole thing doesn't separate with timber movement looks to me to be very involved.
But not impossible if Thomas Organ managed it in the 60's. Then again, I can't find any pictures of it so it clearly never caught on.
Is the idea of using isolated fret sections to pass a current along the strings in order to detect which section is shorted? 24 frets x 6 strings = 144 cables (or 72 if you limit it to 1 octave per string) Ribbon cables? Two covered channels in the back of the neck, one either side of the truss rod - should be room...
Access under each fret for cable connection should be possible either with careful CNC work or, in my case a ruler and chisel ;)
Then, there's the electronics - each fretted section is known but, what to do when a fretted string is bent, going from one section to another? Actually, as I type that, I think I know. And, it would be different for each instrument. What to output? MIDI?
Of course, I'd still have to learn how to play the other instruments parts.
I'd better stop thinking about this now. It's time I took my meds and return to the other rabbit hole I've been down for too long...
The Thomas guitar organ was a right nightmare to work on. The frets each had a wire running down inside the neck to the circuits. The grounded strings contacted a fret section in what amounted to an organ key switch. Thomas had a lot of experience with organs, so they didn't much blink at the amount of circuitry involved.
Thomas also put effects of various types inside other guitars. One of my many rabbit holes was digging out the on-board effects circuits. I have repro data on all the ones I managed to find.
Thomas typically had really-forward vision on guitar effects and amps. They were, after all, the origin of the wah pedal. They did a lot of clever stuff that fed into the music industry, but never became the main stream. This has to be tempered by Thomas not having a clear view of how musicians would actually use guitars and amps. Their onboard-effects guitars and amps just kind of missed.
Any of you folks ever worked on one of those Fretlight guitars? Strikes me that the terrain under the fretboard would be as challenging as those Thomas/Vox guitorgans.
Quote from: R.G. on May 16, 2025, 10:16:19 AMThe Thomas guitar organ was a right nightmare to work on. The frets each had a wire running down inside the neck to the circuits. The grounded strings contacted a fret section in what amounted to an organ key switch. Thomas had a lot of experience with organs, so they didn't much blink at the amount of circuitry involved.
That might be true, but these days we could do it with a scanned matrix and use a lot less wires. We might not even need divided frets if we don't have to power them all simultaneously.
24 frets might be three 3-to-8 decoders to power them up. That's six lines from the uP, three address lines, and three chip selects. The decoded lines are 24 wires up the neck, although most of them don't go even half way (the gaps between frets are bigger closer to the headstock, remember). On my LP clone, the highest 12 frets are barely more than 1/3rd of the neck, so only 12 wires run up the upper 2/3rds. Then you read 6 bits of a byte from the strings to see which ones are touching it. That's one input port on your uP, of which you're only using 6 bits. These days, that's not even a run around the block to stretch the legs, let alone a full marathon.
So, 12 I/Os and a few decoders. No divided frets needed. Thomas Organ didn't have cheap microcontrollers to work with!
It seems like an interesting idea.
Hagstrom Patch 2000 seems to have done it with no divides frets, perhaps first. Watched some Dick Denney vids and jennings AC30 story (where they kicked AC30 down the stairs). Teisco Del Reys Barney Kessel bodied guitorgan is coolest looking imho.
And what about bass guitar synth? My wifes sisters son is talented pro bass player but he can play keys too so he played syn bass parts with keyboard.
EDIT Looks like that Hagstrom is not poly
How I thought divided frets could be done is treating each string as a keyboard bus and the frets as contact points on a constant-current resistor string. Just 6 wires needed, though the frets would need connecting with maybe 1/8W precision resistors, all the same value.
I built Ray Wilson's keyboard controller that uses this method and it works perfectly, though being analog is more involved than using a processor.
A gate pulse also needs to be generated for each new note.
I thought a detachable phenolic fretboard as used in the Bond guitars would make the electronics accessible. I'm no stranger to electronics in necks and the though of a post-assembly failure has always been a real concern.
One reason for not wanting to go down this path anyhow is that it isn't a DIY project that most people would want to undertake, so developing the electronics would probably be a dead-end after I'd built a one-off for myself. I much prefer to develop electronics that anyone who can build a stompbox could replicate.
Even winding a hex pickup would be a challenge for many, but a hall effect or optical pickup could be assembled on prototype board and held in place without modifying the guitar.
People have mentioned DSP and FFT, but I can't find any DIY examples of a successful polyphonic synth build. My own experiments with FFT haven't produced anything remotely usable. If anyone has a practical working synth that can accept a regular guitar signal, I'd be really interested.
My own method of capture is based on taking measurements of the first full cycle of a signal. This means that the overall acquisition time is based on the period of the lowest note. With a standard tuned 4 string bass the period is doubled, so latency becomes noticeable. I do have ideas to reduce this by detecting the frequency based on a half cycle, but it's much more prone to error.
Boss's synth pedals are polyphonic I believe and they accept a regular guitar/bass signal. Rip them off I guess.
A design using a microcontroller is probably the most feasible/affordable. I've seen projects for taking the Ray Wilson type of keyboard and converting the output to midi.
Is a 'frequency detection' circuit similar to a 'frequency to voltage converter' circuit? Just throwing that out there in case it sparks an idea, as all this is way over my head.
Wouldn't it be cool if Boss sold a guitar->CVs+gates chip that we could use like the ubiquitous PT2399 and FV-1. 8)
Quote from: MaxPower on May 18, 2025, 07:25:43 PMIs a 'frequency detection' circuit similar to a 'frequency to voltage converter' circuit? Just throwing that out there in case it sparks an idea, as all this is way over my head.
For me frequency detection is just identifying the frequency and then it can be used to generate a voltage, midi note, or used to look up any other value from a table.
A couple of years ago I developed a cheap and simple Arduino guitar frequency to voltage converter that uses a DAC to output a 1v/octave output as well as gate and trigger pulses and I have this built up as a modular synth module.
https://youtu.be/nA1bWnuWTjQ?feature=shared (https://youtu.be/nA1bWnuWTjQ?feature=shared)
If you have a sequential enabling of each string and multiplex the signal so it can come out on one line, you may need a diode at each contact to prevent sneak paths through the switching matrix. I never said it would be easy to get the "gesture capture" information to the synthesizer, just possible. You can capture the information on a multiplexed line like a shift register so you can have a single wire or some I2C type of transfer to the synthesizer. Then use the six hex pickup outputs to determine the amplitude of the signal.
SMT devices in the guitar neck would eliminate the need for bringing all the six fret contacts for each fret out to the synthesizer - they could be embedded in the neck. This was something the Thomas organ synthesizer did not have available.
I already capture amplitude, and velocity is easily calculated from amplitude. It's straightforward to modify my existing setup to apply the guitar envelope to the synth output, as I already apply a variable envelope that uses timings from tables. Thinking about it, it wouldn't take very long to add another menu option to select the guitar envelope.
My most recent modular interface has a continuous tracking mode that does bends, finger vibrato and slides, though it is a little bit glitchy - down to me not being a programmer. Someone with coding skills could possibly do a better job of signal analysis to get it spot-on.
One of the tricks used in "the old days" was to employ unwound strings on all 6, tuned high, in order to encode pitch quickly, from shorter wavelengths, and then add a pitch CV offset to what the VCO got, to restore desired pitch.
Quote from: amptramp on May 19, 2025, 07:35:30 AMIf you have a sequential enabling of each string and multiplex the signal so it can come out on one line, you may need a diode at each contact to prevent sneak paths through the switching matrix.
Absolutely! You can't do a diode matrix without diodes! I was taking that as a given.
QuoteI never said it would be easy to get the "gesture capture" information to the synthesizer, just possible. You can capture the information on a multiplexed line like a shift register so you can have a single wire or some I2C type of transfer to the synthesizer.
Yeah, that's a good idea too. It wouldn't be hard to use some tiny SMD shift register some way up the neck to reduce the number of lines required markedly.
QuoteThen use the six hex pickup outputs to determine the amplitude of the signal.
Hey, I think you've thought about this, haven't you?!? ;)
Quote from: Mark Hammer on May 19, 2025, 01:38:42 PMOne of the tricks used in "the old days" was to employ unwound strings on all 6, tuned high, in order to encode pitch quickly, from shorter wavelengths, and then add a pitch CV offset to what the VCO got, to restore desired pitch.
Oooh, yeah! That's cunning as a fox too!
If you're not actually deriving sound directly from the strings, there's no reason why they need to be pitched at the actual frequency and s..o...d..a..m..n...s..l..o..w..so, yeah, makes a lot of sense to pitch them up and then deal with that at the synthesis stage.
I thought it was pretty clever-ish, too. The one drawback is that if one had any intention of using the same instrument to produce guitar sounds, as well as synthesized ones, you're kind of out of luck...or out of pitch. But for an instrument dedicated to synthesized sounds with a string mentality, it IS a clever idea.