Guitar Synth: What is it?

Ergonomic Alien Shred

Soooo Yeah, Guitar Synth.  What goes through your head when you hear that.  Do you think of an insane guitar like device played in an 80’s electropop band?  Or lounge singer who needs his guitar to sound like a flute for the intro to the Titanic theme?

 That’s what a lot of players think of synth guitar.  The fact is it can really be anything you want it to be. You can use real sound synthesis to give your playing a new vocabulary without ever sounding like a penny whistle if you don’t want to.  Synthesizer players have been creating tones from the ground up for years on their keyboards.  Why should you miss out?

Today I’ll talk about what I consider to be the three main categories of things that people mean when they say “Synth Guitar”:

Electro-Harmonix Hog Guitar Synth

Serious Sound Design

Pigtronix MothershipSynth Effects Pedals:   These are usually effects pedals that take your normal guitar signal and add synth-like characteristics such as multiple octaves, pitch gliding, square-like distortion and filtering effects.  Many players like these because they can blend these into their existing effects without the use of a special pick up.  Analog lovers will most likely prefer these for retaining purity and feel.

Wait, what?

  Data-Converting Guitar Synths:  Systems like these sense action in your strings, usually pitch, and convert that into digital information, usually midi, into synthesizers and samplers.  These usually require that you plug into a converter box or use a special pick-up to “talk” to the synth.  There are systems that have their own synthesizer and others that allow you to control external synths as well as software VSTs.



Guitarish Looking Controllers:  These things definitely get the hardest beating from players.  First of all, they are not really guitars at all.  The “fretboards” are typically made of sensors, often buttons, that for the most part follow the typical guitar layout.  The “plucking” area can be everything from mock string sensors to a touchscreen interface.  There are usually an array of controls on the “body” of these things.  Drum pads, fake trems and levers.  Maybe the hardest to love but I’d like to mess around with one.

This dude is sooo getting laid post show.