Revolutionary New Guitar Design Ditches Strings Completely
Michael's reinvented electric guitar, designed for the digital era, is shaking up the music industry by replacing traditional strings and frets with capacitive touch sensors. This innovative instrument, which looks and sounds cool, relies on MIDI for sound control.
Every user interaction with the guitar is with capacitive touch sensors, talking i2c to an Atmel Mega 32u4 microcontroller. Gold pads on the guitar serve as touch sensors, detecting finger position and pressure. Instead of strumming strings, a laptop-style touchpad emulates strumming and other playing gestures via capacitive sensing, sending X, Y coordinates and pressure data to the processor over the i2c bus.
This input is converted into MIDI commands that can control various synthesizers or music software, making the instrument highly flexible beyond traditional guitar sounds. While the instrument clearly uses fretting on the PCB’s touch pads to select notes and a touchpad to initiate notes or gestures, details about how X, Y, and pressure values modulate the MIDI signals—such as whether there is multitouch support or expressive control beyond basic note on/off commands—are not fully explained in the source material.
The manufacturing process closely integrates electronics into the guitar’s body, moving away from the classic wooden neck and strings. The neck itself is a single long custom printed circuit board (PCB), which implies a streamlined, electronics-driven fabrication approach rather than mechanical string setups. Touch sensors embedded on the PCB act as a fretboard replacement, and the touchpad for strumming replaces physical strings, shifting sound generation entirely into software and MIDI synthesis.
In summary, Michael’s digital-era guitar works by sensing finger positions and pressure on a PCB-based neck and a capacitive touchpad, converting these digital signals into MIDI data that can drive synthesizers or software, thereby offering a highly versatile and stringless approach to electric guitar playing. The manufacturing process centers on custom PCB construction for the fretboard and integrating a touchpad for strumming, with advanced microcontroller-based MIDI output handling the sound control functions.
It is unclear if the touchpad sends only a "note start" command or if X, Y, and pressure data are used in interesting ways to create a more expressive playing experience. Regardless, this reinvented electric guitar is set to revolutionise music making in the digital age.
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This unique digital-era guitar relies on a PCB-based neck and a touchpad, replacing traditional components such as strings and frets with capacitive touch sensors. The touch sensors integrated on the PCB act as a fretboard, while the touchpad emulates strumming and other playing gestures, sending X, Y coordinates and pressure data over the i2c bus to the onboard microcontroller. With MIDI commands derived from these inputs, users can control various gadgets like synthesizers or music software for a versatile and innovative musical experience.
The manufacturing process revolves around crafting a single long custom PCB as the neck, signifying an electronics-driven approach rather than traditional wooden neck and string assemblies. The instrument's flexibility extends to technology beyond entertainment, as sensors and touchpad interfaces also find their applications in various modern gadgets.
As for the potential expressive control beyond basic note-on/off commands, further details regarding how X, Y, and pressure values modulate the MIDI signals or whether there is multitouch support are not elaborated in the source material, leaving room for further improvements and technological advancements in this revolutionary entertainment device.
