Guitar synthesizer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This is about synthesizers which can be played like guitars; for the portable keyboard synthesizers that are held like guitars, see keytar.
A guitar/synthesizer (also guitar synthesizer, guitar/synth, g-synth, synth guitar, guitar-synth, or guitar synth) is any one of a number of musical instrument systems which allow a guitar player to play synthesizers. While the term "MIDI guitar" is often used as a synonym for the field of guitar/synthesis or for a guitar/synthesizer, MIDI is not always used. While most synthesizers use a keyboard interface to allow the performer to play the instrument, because synthesizers generate sounds electronically, a range of input devices can actuate them.[1] A guitar/synthesizer provides an interface which is familiar to a guitarist, allowing the guitarist to play synthesized sounds through the guitar. This diminishes the need for the guitarist to learn to play a keyboard, and allows for musical effects which are natural for a guitar but more difficult or impossible to produce using a keyboard.
There are two main types of guitar/synthesizers: those which are regular electric guitars outfitted with additional electronic sensors which actuate a synthesizer, and those which are guitar-like MIDI controllers. Both types have their advantages and disadvantages. Recently, software guitar synthesizers have appeared which require no special pickups (See the music game LittleBigStar). Also, not to be confused with true guitar/synths, some manufacturers of effects units market guitar/synth pedals which make a guitar sound more like a synthesizer.
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[edit] Guitar-based models
The earliest guitar/synthesizers were based on electric guitars. Roland Corporation developed the earliest truly functioning guitar synth system, the Roland GR-500, and remains a significant proponent for this form of guitar synthesis. Other notable manufacturers include(d) Arp, Terratec/Axon, Ibanez, Casio and Yamaha Corporation.
Guitar/synths in this category consist of an electric guitar or acoustic guitar with a hexaphonic pickup (also called a divided pickup), which provides an output for each string and a converter, which determines the pitch coming from each of the strings and transmits this information to a synthesizer, which generates the intended note.
These components may be integrated into the instrument body or modularized in different ways. The hexaphonic pickup may be a separate component which can be mounted on the guitar, or it may be built into the guitar. The earliest guitar/synths required the musician to use a proprietary guitar that was designed with an integrated hexaphonic pickup. Roland later developed its GK line of pickups which could be mounted onto any guitar to equip it for use in a guitar/synth system.
Several guitar manufacturers, such as Godin, offer their guitar models with integrated "RMC hexaphonic pickup and preamp system" which is compatible with Roland guitar-synth hardware. The RMC pickup system uses a piezo crystal device built into the saddles of the guitar bridge that conducts the string vibration. This vibration is transferred to be converted into either piezo acoustic or 13 pin hexaphonic synth signal. Fender Musical Instruments released their version of the guitar synth, coined "Roland-ready": a Fender Standard Series Stratocaster that directly integrates the Roland GK-2 hardware. Fender offered a short-lived American Series version in the mid-1990s.
Usually, a cable connects the hexaphonic pickup to the converter. This allows the guitarist some freedom of movement, as he or she is not encumbered by the converter. However, several Casio models in the PG and MG product lines integrated the guitar, the hex pickup, and the converter into one unit. Casio remains the only manufacturer to try this approach. The convenience of the Casio approach is that a MIDI cable could be plugged directly into the guitar.
The converter may be a standalone unit or it may be integrated with a synthesizer. The earliest models integrated the converter and the synthesizer. Some models still do. The earliest integrated models predated the MIDI standard, so the guitarist was stuck with whatever synthesizer was integrated with the converter. 2000s-era integrated models include MIDI output, so any synthesizer with MIDI input (which is the vast majority of them, since the 1990s) can be driven. Standalone converter units drive synthesizers via MIDI.
The advantages of this type of system are that the timbres of the guitar and synthesizer can be blended together at any ratio, enabling the musician to play electric guitar alone, guitar tone blended with synthesizer, or synthesizer alone. In many models, almost any guitar can be used, by adding a hexaphonic pickup. Some of the disadvantages with this system is that there is a detectable latency between playing a note on the guitar and the same note sounding on the synthesizer at lower pitches (this was remedied in 2000s-era instruments) and note-tracking glitches can occur. These glitches can be remedied by adjusting the pickup or converter sensitivity controls, and by playing more precisely. As well, not all the variable performance parameters available on a synthesizer can be actuated on a guitar. While a guitarist playing a standard electric guitar can control pitch and volume directly from the instrument, a guitar/synth lacks assignable controls to open a filter in real-time. Contemporary guitar/synth designs often include an expression pedal for this purpose.
[edit] Guitar-like MIDI controllers
Some manufacturers of guitar/synthesizers wanted to eliminate the tracking and latency problems associated with guitar-based systems, while retaining the expressiveness of the guitar. They achieved this, to some degree, by redesigning the instrument part of the human-machine interface so that it was better suited to driving a synthesizer. The 1980s-era SynthAxe was a futuristic controller consisting of a fretboard attached to the body at an obtuse angle. The fretboard strings were used to indicate pitch and sensed string bends. A separate, shorter set of strings were used for picking and strumming. These triggered the notes fretted on the fretboard's strings. It also featured trigger keys which could be used instead of the trigger strings. A whammy bar was assignable to any MIDI parameter. The SynthAxe was prohibitively expensive and therefore not widely used.
Yamaha originally entered the market with a guitar-like MIDI controller called the G-10. It was considerably less expensive than the SynthAxe. The G-10 had two assignable knobs and an assignable whammy bar and it used six strings, all the same gauge [thickness], which sensed both right- and left-hand input. The fact that the strings were all of the same thickness made the instrument feel substantially different for a player, in contrast to the typical guitar, and may have hindered the instrument's acceptance. Both the SynthAxe and Yamaha G-10 were later discontinued.
Starr Labs' Ztar is one of the few remaining guitar-like controller product lines still in production. A Ztar differs significantly from the SynthAxe and Yamaha G-10 in that the "fretboard" is covered with keys, not strings. Keys in the same row can trigger notes at the same time. This has no analog on a real guitar. It would be as if a single string were polyphonic. A number of variations are available, including an instrument that uses strings for strumming or picking, to trigger notes, whereas the pitch of the notes is determined by the keys that cover what would be a "fretboard" in an ordinary, stringed guitar.
Yamaha have re-entered the market with a simple midi guitar (EZ-AG) that has illuminated frets to teach finger technique and 20 voices.
The advantages of the guitar-like MIDI controller systems are that the tracking [the speed and accuracy of the notes the instrument produces] is much better than guitar-based systems, which means that there is no noticeable latency. As well, whammy bars and other controllers can be assigned to any MIDI function, which gives the performer more on-stage control of their sound. The disadvantages for guitar players are that the controller is not a guitar, and neither does it feel exactly like a guitar nor make guitar sounds. As well, they are expensive, and their rarity may make it difficult for performers to repair or service them.
[edit] Guitar/Synthesis
Some guitar/synthesizers are two instruments, one controlling the other (as in Roland instruments). Guitar-like MIDI controllers are an interface to the synthesizer. One of the challenges of using guitar/synthesizers is that not all guitar-playing techniques can be translated into MIDI. Harmonics, palm mutes, hammer-ons (in which the fretting hand strikes the string onto the fretboard), pull-offs, and pick slides are not easily picked up by guitar/synthesizers, usually due to sloppy fretting hand technique. With the exception of harmonics and palm mutes, these other techniques can be achieved with a concentrated effort to maintain good fretting technique. Similarly, synth/guitars often lack the variety of controls (sliders, faders, and knobs) for synthesis parameters which are available on a standard keyboard synthesizer.
Nevertheless, controlling a synthesizer with a guitar has some advantages over a keyboard. More expansive chords are possible, and some intervals are easier to reach. As well, guitar/synthesizers provide access to sounds normally available only to keyboard players and percussionists. A guitar player could play a flute part using a sampled flute patch, or play percussion by triggering synth drum voices. As well, by blending the regular electric guitar tone with synthesized sounds, a guitarist can create a hybrid timbre. The guitar/synth also enables a guitarist with limited or no keyboard-playing skills to program a sequencer and do MIDI input into digital notation programs such as Sibelius and Finale.
[edit] Guitar/synthesizer players
A number of guitarists have used guitar/synthesizers. Many are either jazz, progressive rock, metal or fusion guitarists. Some well-known users of guitar/synthesizers include Robert Fripp, Mike Oldfield, Bill Frisell, Matthew Bellamy, Allan Holdsworth, Alex Lifeson, John McLaughlin, Amir Derakh, Pat Metheny, Andy Summers, Les Fradkin, Mike Stern, Jeff Baxter, Eric Clapton, Yannis Spathas, Rob Swire and the first band to use it, Symphonic Slam. For a longer list of guitar/synthesizer performers, see the List of guitar/synthesizer players.
[edit] References
- ^ In addition, not every synthesizer requires an intergrated human interface (See sound module.)
