In the 60s a musical recording technique called the “wall of sound” came to prominence which allowed artists to create complex layers of music resulting in a novel, rich orchestral feeling. While this technique resulted in some landmark albums (Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys for example) it took entire recording studios and many musicians to produce. This guitar, on the other hand, needs only a single musician but can create impressive walls of sound on its own thanks to some clever engineering.
Called the Circle Guitar and created by [Anthony Dickens], the novel instrument features a constantly-rotating wheel around the guitar’s pickups in the body. Various picks can be attached in different ways to the wheel which pluck the strings from behind continuously. This exceeds what a normal guitar player would be able to do on their own, but the guitarist is able to control the sounds by using several switches and pushbuttons which control a hexaphonic humbucker and are able to mute individual strings at will. Of course, this being the 21st century, it also makes extensive use of MIDI and [Anthony] even mentions the use of a Teensy.
While details on this project are admittedly a little fleeting, the videos linked below are well worth a watch for the interesting sounds this guitar is able to produce. Perhaps paired with a classic-sounding guitar amplifier it could produce other impressive walls of sound as well. Either way, we could expect someone like [Brian Wilson] to be interested in one once it is in production.
Thanks to [Mel] for the tip!
That is the coolest guitar innovation in the I’ve seen in years!
agreed. Friggin’ awesome.
I dig it !. When available?.
Genius. Fortune made. Post-metal bands will buy them like cookies…
Much more impressive: |https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn8phH0k5HI
Chorus pedals AND looping! Very nice.
Ah yeah well a bit of novel tech is never going to trump +20 year of experience and a whole lot of raw expressive tallent.
Irrelevant to the topic at hand.
I am referring to the “much more impressive” post, FWIW.
More or less a Gizmotron with a different shape, cool.
It has lots of picks instead of the wheels of the Gizmotron. I need to see some proper photos of the mechanism. The videos don’t show enough detail.
agreed.
Click on his YouTube home page for one such picture.
Well there was Phil Spector’s wall of sound……
then there was The Wall of Sound: https://www.dead.net/archives/1973/photos/wall-sound
now play something kvlt.
Going back in time quite a bit (like, the Stone Age), this is something reminiscent of Les Paul’s Paulverizer.
https://www.julienslive.com/m/lot-details/index/catalog/71/lot/27947/LES-PAUL-PAULVERIZER
That is a novel, rich definition for the “wall of sound” technique.
Nobody tell Fripp.
There was a guitar? The fidget spinner made it a full 1.5 minutes… awesome.
I wonder about adding a controllable E-Bow for each string.
playing all three demos @ the same time = !
I want to hear “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record, Baby)” played on this.
Wall of sound is very flat, just a multitrack source run thru a bunch of pan pots. With pickups and close miking there is no depth in nearly all studio recordings. Only when reverb or re-recording of the track of interest into a space and micing it in stereo do things get interesting.
What about quad? I like to jam in a surround environment, the space is a part of the instrument. I play live that way.
Read the instructions before assembling your electric Hurdy Gurdy kit.