Tag Archives: guitar

Nifty Guitar Accessory Straps To Your Fretboard And Gives You Single-Button Chord Access

Posted on by

Playing your favorite song couldn’t be easier… but don’t mistake the Rockdreamer Guitar Bar for a learning apparatus.

As a guitar player myself, I’ve realized that playing the guitar may come easy with practice… but multitasking doesn’t. You could be a guitarist who’s struggling to also focus on singing, or a singer who’s desperately trying to play the guitar as an accompanying instrument… handling two tasks efficiently together isn’t easy, but the Guitar Bar makes it so. Designed as a module that simply straps to your standard guitar fretboard, the Guitar Bar simplifies playing chords by letting you press buttons instead of strings. No more struggling with learning chord shapes, struggling to change chords on time, or dealing with bruised fingertips. The Guitar Bar lets you pick up and start playing with ease… Maybe a little too much ease if you ask me!

Designer: Rockdreamer

With a clever bit of mechanical engineering under its hood (quite similar to an analog typewriter), the Guitar Bar plays chords for you when you press down on one or two of its many buttons. The buttons are clearly labeled, and hitting the right buttons together activates tiny plastic studded arms that go and press down on the right frets.

The Guitar Bar’s design is pretty impressive when you realize how carefully detailed it is on the inside and the outside. On the outside, the module comes with a handful of keys, all within range of your fingers and designed to be easy to press. In some instances, pressing two keys activates a major chord, while a single key activates a related minor chord. Flip the Guitar Bar over and you see exactly how brilliant its under-the-hood mechanics are. The buttons are merely a great, user-friendly alternative system for playing chords, and instead of remembering the shapes, now you just need to memorize the Guitar Bar’s key layout.

Where the guitarist in me gets a little riled up is in the need to point out that the Guitar Bar isn’t a guitar-learning tool – it’s a quick song-playing tool. If you really want to learn the guitar, an accessory like this one doesn’t really teach you how to play the instrument the same way mastering Guitar Hero teaches you how to play great electric leads. The Guitar Bar has its own massive limitations, like the fact that it comes pre-programmed with a set number of chords. While you can virtually play 80-90% of all popular music with these chords, the minute a song experiments with an unconventional chord structure, the Guitar Bar doesn’t help much. Moreover, Guitar Bar’s design doesn’t allow you to move it up and down the fretboard like a ‘spider capo’. It can only be strapped to the extreme end of the guitar, providing a limitation that only allows you to play on 20% of a fretboard, and only play chords because you can’t finger-pick or play leads/basslines.

That being said, the Guitar Bar does have its advantages. It’s perfect for someone who needs an accompanying instrument to sing, but doesn’t have the time or energy to learn the guitar. The Guitar Bar is perfect for amateur jam sessions, a campfire, or upgrading your karaoke night. If you really do want to master the instrument, you’ll need to get your hands dirty…

The post Nifty Guitar Accessory Straps To Your Fretboard And Gives You Single-Button Chord Access first appeared on Yanko Design.

‘Electric guitar of the future’ explores a minimal form that isn’t bound by acoustic or ergonomic concerns

Posted on by

The Zeta Electric Guitar isn’t rooted in tradition. Instead, it looks at design movements and tries to adapt to them, merging music and design into one beautiful package. Through its weirdly abstract and minimal design, the Zeta both challenges and conforms to the notions of what an electric guitar should look like in the future. “The challenge was to take the most iconic electric guitars of the past and make them current with a more minimal and clean aesthetic research,”, said designer Nicola Morelli. “Among all the drafts, two emerged that summarize the two spirits of music with guitar: Light and round, Heavy and angular.”

Designer: Nicola Morelli

The guitar’s design approach borrows from a few notable art movements, including Suprematism, Memphis 2.0, Abstractionism, and Minimalism. Its entire body (the distinct, most iconic part of the guitar itself) sees a redesign, opting for simple geometric shapes instead of ergonomic ones designed to fit the contours of the player’s body, or even acoustic requirements. The guitar (which comes in two shapes) abstracts two of the most famous electric models ever played, the Stratocaster and the Les Paul, simplifying their iconic shapes into something much simpler, yet just as eye-catching.

Ultimately, for Morelli, Zeta also needed to be technologically futuristic. To that very end, the instrument is designed to use the MIDI protocol to help guitarists harness their true creative potential. Knobs and sliders located on the side of the body let the player modulate the guitar’s sound in unique ways, playing with MIDI metrics to create new tones altogether. Finally, a built-in speaker, along with a standard 1/4-inch jack lets the Zeta Electric Guitar be either played independently as an instrument, or be plugged into an amp like a more traditional piece of music equipment.

The post ‘Electric guitar of the future’ explores a minimal form that isn’t bound by acoustic or ergonomic concerns first appeared on Yanko Design.

These guitar scissors will make you feel like a cutting rockstar

Posted on by

We’ve always been warned never to play with sharp tools (unless that’s actually your job), but that never meant these objects themselves couldn’t be playful. No one pays scissors any mind, at least until they’ve gone dull and unusable, and they’re often banished to drawers or containers after use. It’s mostly for safety reasons but also because scissors aren’t much to look at anyway. Not these scissors, though! This pair you’ll want to always be up on display, like a trophy honoring your snipping talents. Or maybe you just want to have it both within easy reach as well as in your line of sight because these stratocaster scissors won’t only help you cut through paper, it might even help you cut through boredom and mental blocks for your next design project.

Designer: Nikken Cutlery

Click Here to Buy Now: $21 $25 (15% off at checkout). Hurry, storewide Black Friday sale ends in 24 hours!

Just like any tool, scissors give grief when they don’t work properly. The last thing you need when you’re in a rush or in a state of flow are dull scissors that can’t even cut through the thinnest sheet of paper. At the same time, like any other object, a pair of scissors’ appearance could affect your mental state as well. After all, no one will buy want to buy ugly things or beautiful but broken tools. Fortunately, the Seki Sound scissors are both sharp-looking and actually sharp at the same time.

There’s probably a metaphor to be had here about how music can cut through the soul, but at the end of the day, these guitar-shaped scissors speak for themselves, metaphor or not. Taking inspiration from one of the most iconic electric guitar designs in the world, these shears deserve to have a special place on your desk, preferably within easy reach. You might find yourself wanting to cut more often simply because of the joy of having such a unique piece of equipment in your hand.

These rocking scissors aren’t just about looking like a guitar. A great deal of effort was made to ensure authenticity, down to the curves of the body as well as the contour on its back that you will rarely see. There are also six strings and the exact same number of frets that you’d see on a real guitar. There’s even a matching cap that not only serves as the guitar’s head when not in use, it also offers protection by blocking the sharp point and preventing the scissors from being opened when it’s in place.

And sharp, these scissors definitely are! It calls on the history, tradition, and expertise of Seki in Japan, a city once famed for its swordsmiths and now for its cutlery. Each pair of scissors is sharpened by hand using a two-stage process called Kobabiki, where different whetstones are used to sharpen different edges. Thanks to its rust-resistant stainless steel material, these scissors will be able to cut through paper, vinyl, and even tape without breaking a sweat.

With pens and desk organizers getting some time on the stage that is your desk, it’s only fair that other tools get their time under the spotlight as well. Distinctively playful and astonishingly sharp, these scissors will add a little life to your desk and maybe even inspire you to go through your projects like a riffing rockstar.

Click Here to Buy Now: $21 $25 (15% off at checkout). Hurry, storewide Black Friday sale ends in 24 hours!

The post These guitar scissors will make you feel like a cutting rockstar first appeared on Yanko Design.

This electric guitar is a MIDI controller that turns you into a music wizard

Posted on by

You’ll still need musical knowledge and skill, of course, but you might make other things you have some superpowers with this cool electric guitar.

Not everyone can play more than two or more instruments, but many musically skilled people can control electronic instruments without actually knowing how to use the real things. There are going to be some differences, of course, but there is a serious and professional field of music that involves these electric and electronic soundscapes. Most of these are operated with MIDI controllers, devices that geeky boards filled with buttons and sliders or, at the very best, an unassuming keyboard. The Ni28, in contrast, looks more like a very stylish and cool electric guitar, and using it will probably make you look like some music god that can produce all kinds of music and sounds with something that looks like the skeleton of a guitar.

Designer: Joris Wegner

MIDI controllers often need two kinds of controls. One is for toggling certain settings or firing off some actions, while another set of controls maps to pitches like notes on a scale. That’s why most MIDI controllers take the form of keyboards with additional buttons, sliders, and switches because these more easily translate to the kind of things that the controller needs to communicate with. It doesn’t always have to be a keyboard, though, and sometimes rocking out with a guitar can sometimes have more impact, especially when performing on stage.

The Ni28 Electronic Guitar does exactly that and could give the player the look and the feeling of being a rockstar god. Instead of strings and frets, however, the entire neck of the guitar has a matrix of nickel-plated (hence the name) brass plates that can activate nodes when touched. Unlike with a typical stringed instrument like a guitar, you don’t need to exert much pressure to cause an activation. You can bridge two adjacent plates, or you can lightly press one plate on the neck and then touch the “string” on the waist of the guitar to have the same effect.

This design has quite a few advantages. For one, you don’t need muscle memory to play music like on a regular guitar, though you do need to remember which frets do which. You don’t need to strain your fingers either because a gentle tap is all that’s required to activate a plate. This makes it easier to use even compared with a keyboard where you do still have to exert some force to press down on a key. Your fingers and hands can just dance over the guitar, making it look like you’re producing music with magical gestures.

There’s also an advantage to how such a guitar can be physically designed since all the electronics are confined inside the neck of the guitar. The body itself can simply be a frame or skeleton, or it can be swapped out for any other design at any given moment. It has absolutely no effect on the output or performance since there are no acoustics to mind, so you can focus more on ergonomics and appearances that will be critical for an impressive stage performance.

The post This electric guitar is a MIDI controller that turns you into a music wizard first appeared on Yanko Design.

The Hydra: A Triple-Neck Steampunk Guitar By Steve Vai

Posted on by

The brainchild of famed guitarist Steve Vai, the Hydra is a triple-neck steampunk-styled guitar that combines four different instruments: a fretless 12-string guitar, a half-fretless bass, a 7-string guitar, and a harp (seen at the bottom). Following Vai’s concept, the instrument was designed by Moti Kashiuchi and built by Ibanez Japan’s Kazuya Kuroki. There’s no doubt in my mind if you play the right chords on that thing, you can summon a dragon.

The idea for the guitar was inspired by a song on Vai’s new album ‘Inviolate’ called ‘Teeth of the Hydra.’ Each part of the instrument can be played independently of the others, with its own switches, mixers, and effects. Can you imagine how powerful it must feel to wield this thing on stage? Now I can see why they call guitars axes, and it’s not because you can use them to chop wood. I learned that the hard, expensive way.

The video tour of the instrument highlights a lot of the guitar’s customization and effect options, including a “seducer” effect for the harp. Personally, I would just leave that on all the time until I found myself with more groupies than I know what to do with. Although, if I’m being completely honest, even one groupie would be more than I know what to do with.

[via Laughing Squid]

Animatronic Alien Xenomorph Rocks out on Guitar

Posted on by

Xenomorphs: they’re just misunderstood aliens that want to rock out, not kill. Case in point: this small animatronic xenomorph built by Danny Huynh that jams out on guitar. Free Bird! Admittedly, I would still have a hard time feeling comfortable being a groupie.

The animatronic’s basic tempo is controlled via knobbed servos, with its finer movements operated via radio controls so Danny can make the xenomorph’s motion correspond to the song it’s performing. Most impressive. Still, when reached for comment whether she’d ever attend a live concert, Ellen Ripley replied, “Only in an exoskeletal P-5000 Powered Work Loader.” Smart thinking.

Below is a video of an earlier iteration of the rocking alien performing Metallica’s ‘The Unforgiven,’ an appropriate song considering I doubt all those Colonial Marines have forgiven and forgotten what the aliens did to them. Now Danny just needs to build a Predator that can play drums and this duo can take their music on tour!

[via The Awesomer]

LEGO as a viable design material? YouTuber uses 2000 LEGO bricks to build a functioning bass guitar…

Posted on by




It would be an unfair characterization to call LEGO a child’s toy. Clearly, the product’s an incredibly engaging and interactive DIY system for adults too, and has been used for everything from scale-down models to art projects, to even the rare full-size LEGO supercar… but rarely has LEGO been used as an actual material to build a real, working product.

Trust wacky DIY YouTuber and musician Burls Art to take on a challenge though. The guy’s literally made guitars from the most absurd materials, including a skateboard, a shovel, and even 5000 coffee beans. His latest project? A bass guitar out of LEGO bricks… wait, let me be more specific, a fully functional electric bass guitar made from 2000 LEGO bricks.

Designer: Burls Art

In the video, Burls Art details how LEGO is a pretty great choice to make the guitar in the first place. The interlocking pieces are pretty robust and the fact that you’ve got LEGO bricks in different colors makes it pretty easy to design your own pattern on the guitar. To assemble the piece, Burls plugs the LEGO pieces together in sheets, before layering them one above another and pouring epoxy resin to really seal them in place (the last thing you want is to have a guitar falling apart when you play an exceptionally funky slapping bassline). The guitar also uses a maple-wood board on the inside to reinforce it like a spine, to counter the amount of pulling force the strings will have. The wood + epoxy fretboard’s made from scratch too, as well as the headstock, which again uses LEGO bricks.

Once the guitar’s main body is assembled and the epoxy’s set, Burls drew the profile of the guitar on it and went to down using a sanding machine to cut the shape out. Unfortunately, this meant that the guitar wouldn’t have the LEGO brick’s signature pixelated silhouette, but then again, that guitar wouldn’t really be comfortable to play either. You can, however, see the brick’s hollow underside along the edge of the guitar. Burls decided not to fill in those uneven gaps with epoxy because it would unnecessarily add to the weight of the instrument. The overall piece weighed around 7 pounds, which was ideal for an electric bass guitar.

Once assembled, Burls took his new instrument out for a spin. He started off by playing the iconic Seinfeld bassline (at the 10:18 mark), before finally creating a neat composition using a combination of his LEGO bass, and his color-pencil guitar.

The novelty of the project aside, it’s rather fun to see how the LEGO bricks are used as an actual design/prototyping tool. With a little epoxy resin and a sander machine, it’s pretty easy to create your own prototypes too. It’s arguably faster than a 3D printer if you do your homework beforehand, and you don’t need to worry about multiple-filament 3D prints to get a colored output… just use colored bricks!

This award-winning semi-acoustic guitar is made in a single piece from carbon fiber

Posted on by

Carbon Fiber lends a very different set of features to a guitar. Aside from making it practically unbreakable and possibly quadrupling its lifespan, it lends a unique timbre to the guitar. Carbon fiber’s all-graphite construction brings a crystalline and detailed tone to the guitar while also allowing the instrument to have greater acoustic volume. The result is a better build quality (without glue, braces, or any additional fixtures) as well as a better sound. The LAVA ME PRO guitar comes crafted in a single piece, entirely out of carbon fiber. With a curved single-piece construction that goes from body to fretboard without breaking continuity, the LAVA ME PRO is undoubtedly strong as well as lightweight.

Aside from being a semi-acoustic guitar, the LAVA ME PRO comes with pickups that allow it to function as an electric guitar too. A preamp and pickup control panel sits right at top of the guitar’s body, where the player can fine-tune the sound of the electric signal produced by the guitar. When used acoustically, the guitar produces a crisp and loud sound, courtesy of the carbon fiber build, and an oddly located sound-hole right above the strings… a detail that gives the LAVA ME PRO an instantly memorable aesthetic.

Its semi-acoustic nature gives it the sound of an acoustic guitar with the flexibility of an electric guitar. Knobs on the top allow you to tune your sound to perfection, while the ability to add processors and modules helps your guitar transform from a casual instrument to a powerful guitar made for stage performances. “The novel and high-tech carbon fiber body was inspired by the extremely light but stiff honeycomb structure used in aircrafts. Combining layers of carbon fiber with LAVA’s “Phantom Structure” honeycomb soundboard gives a new dimension to your tone, producing a loud but organic sound with every chord or pluck”, say the LAVA MUSIC team.

The Lava Me Pro Carbon Fiber Guitar is a winner of the iF Product Design Award for the year 2021.

Designer: LAVA MUSIC Design Team

This electric guitar is made out of 5,000 coffee beans (And it smells like coffee too)

Posted on by




Bold, strong, intense. You could use those words to describe coffee… you could also use it to describe this electric guitar built by YouTuber and guitar aficionado, Burls Art. Designed as a gift for his friend’s company Copper Coffee, Burls Art’s guitar body is made from a whopping 5,000 roasted coffee beans suspended in epoxy. Modeled in the shape of a Gibson Explorer, the guitar’s body proudly showcases the coffee beans and the unique texture created by grinding their surface smooth. It’s got a beautifully speckled, dark cork-like texture, and even smells like coffee! The fretboard and headstock are built from scratch too, and the entire guitar sports copper accents (for the aesthetics, but also because the company is literally called Copper Coffee), and the Copper Coffee logo is beautifully inlaid into the fretboard. If you check out the end of the video, Burls Art gives the guitar a spin too, and just like a good Macchiato, it gives me goosebumps!

A close-up look at the guitar’s body reveals the coffee-bean texture. If preserved correctly and maintained well, the beans should easily last decades, Burls Art mentioned after doing a bit of research. The guitar’s body doesn’t just encase the coffee beans in an epoxy outer container. You can see how the coffee-bean cross-sections are visible on the entire surface. The casting process resulted in a fair amount of air bubbles which Burls Art filled with copper epoxy before finishing smooth with a sanding machine and buffing with a coat of polish. The result really speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

The guitar’s body is fitted with two double-coil pickups and aged copper knobs and hardware. The fretboard sports the Copper Coffee logo inlaid into the wood, using a mixture of copper-colored epoxy and silica powder. The headstock, on the other hand, has an actual copper sheeting that’s been fused to the wood before being polished and adorned with the Burls Art logo.

The back of the fretboard reveals an incredible striped pattern almost comparable to snakewood. A closer look at the headstock and fretboard reveals the guitar’s finer details.

It’s unclear how much time it took for Burls Art to make the guitar from scratch, but the YouTube video really details the entire process out from scratch. It starts with pouring the 5,000 coffee beans into a cast and topping it off with epoxy. Ince cured, Burls Art cuts out the basic shape using a large jigsaw machine before using different tools to define the guitar’s shape and smoothen its surface. The fretboard and headstock were built entirely from scratch too, along with the electricals being routed through the guitar’s main body. Burls Art mentions that the body has a pretty distinct coffee smell (which would have been masked if he had coated the body entirely with epoxy), and that his studio smelled like coffee all through the construction process! The coffee guitar now proudly hangs at the Copper Coffee head office in Austin Texas.

Designer: Burls Art

Poly Effects Beebo review: A versatile and complex touchscreen guitar pedal

Posted on by
It’s not enough to have a pressure cooker, you need an Instant Pot that’s also a slow cooker, and a rice cooker, and a yogurt maker. Your video game console is also now a media center and live streaming platform. And if your printer doesn’t also m...