All the best retro-1980s chiptune acts should possess a keytar. It’s the Law, or something. [Theremin Hero] has reminded us of this with a new video we’ve shown below featuring an instrument he had a part in creating alongside [Sam Wray] and [Siddharth Vadgama] a few years ago. The Blade is a 3D-printed keytar featuring two Guitar Hero necks and an integrated pair of Game Boys to provide the sound from the authentic silicon.
To describe it in those terms though is to miss a wealth of other components and featured. The keyboard itself is from a Rock Band keytar which feeds MIDI to a Raspberry Pi running PD Extended that handles all the button press mappings. An Arduino Mega performs the same task for the two Guitar Hero necks. Midi from the various sources is processed by an Arduino Boy which then feeds the Game Boys that make the sounds. Oh – and there’s a Leap Motion 3D motion controller in the mix as well, though that doesn’t seem to be used directly in the chiptune synth functionality.
We’ve had a few keytars here over the years, but this one makes us think of the Commodore 64 instrument created by [Jeri Ellsworth].
An impressive build but everyone knows that almost two keytars, like any number of keytars, is too many.
I have never seen anyone playing or even considering buying a kaytar. But there is a huge market for it aparently.
I hope to see one day Liam Howlett playing SMBU riff live o keytar.
I guess it’s up to me to take the “you can never have to many keytars” stance. There you have it.
I guess it’s up to me to take the “it is ‘too many keytars’ …and when is HaD going to join the twentieth century and allow editing comments” stance. There you have it.
:grin: