The Guitar of the Future | Casio DG-20, 1987

video upload by David Hilowitz Music

"Last week, I got to borrow a Casio DG-20 from ‪@maxdoes_‬ . Really cool instrument!

Download the FREE DecentSampler library: https://www.decentsamples.com/product..."

Inside a Casio DG-20.

The Synths Behind Don't You Want Me

video upload by Alex Ball

Check out Peahix's cover here, and a few others here.

"A complete recreation of The Human League's biggest hit, Don't you want me, using as many of the original instruments and techniques as possible.

0:00 Intro
0:30 Detective Work
1:49 Bass Line
4:16 A Problem
6:45 Drums
9:09 System 700 Perfect 5ths
9:57 System 700 16th Pattern
11:00 Secret instrument
13:21 System 700 verse diads
14:39 System 700 chords
15:13 The chord of whoops
16:13 System 700 ostinato
17:05 String Synth
18:47 Poly Synth
19:22 Summary
20:32 Full Remake"

#NAMM 2025: String Armonica from Merkaba Electronics

video upload by CatSynth TV

A demo of the String Armonica, an electro-mechanical synthesizer by Merkaba Electronics. It has 12 tuned strings, which are resonated by a custom internal synthesizer, and can be played via a MIDI controller.

To find out more, please visit https://soundstone.co/products/the-st...
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Please consider supporting this channel to help us bring you more synthesizer tutorials and other content.
Merch: https://shop.catsynth.com
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/catsynth
Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/catsynth"

"The String Armonica: A New Class of Synthesizer

The String Armonica has been upgraded with several key improvements and new features to expand its capabilities. This version includes adjustable string height with redesigned bridges and custom-polished steel pickup plates for improved tone and performance.

Each unit comes with a custom hard shell case.

New built-in modes:
• Staccato Mode: Adjust note duration for sharper, more defined sounds.
• Harp Sweeping Function: Use the pitch wheel to sweep seamlessly across strings.
• Arpeggiator: Choose from five patterns for dynamic, rhythmic sequences.
• Envelope Mode: Notes automatically fade in with adjustable timing for smooth, expressive playing.


We’re producing 50 units in this initial run, with the first 10 available for purchase next week."

NAMM 2025: Circle Guitar's New Rhythmic Possibilities

video upload by sonicstate

"At NAMM 2025, we caught up with Anthony, who presented the *Circle Guitar*. This innovative instrument features a wheel with plectrums that dynamically strum the strings, offering possibilities beyond human capability. Anthony mentioned the latest firmware update, which now leverages MPE MIDI for controlling wheel speed more dynamically.

The guitar's design incorporates a multi-channel pickup, allowing you to isolate each string's volume. Two modes are available: a Player mode for real-time expression with tap tempo, and a Producer mode using MPE MIDI to enable complex rhythms and programmable gate patterns for creating arpeggios.

Anthony expressed hopes to start with a limited batch release by mid-year, with the vision of making the instrument more accessible through potential licensing. Priced at £9,995 plus VAT, the Circle Guitar is aimed at redefining sonic exploration and expression for a diverse range of guitarists.

More Info:

https://circleinstruments.com/"

SQRL-01 - Custom synth guitar - Indoor demo

video upload by Love Hultén

"C&G Pocket Piano
Walrus Fundamental Reverb
Overengineered-drawbridge-nut-dispenser"

Junkie XL's Chaos Guitar - Rare Aum Chaos Lap Steel Experimental Ambient Slide Guitar

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
video upload by Aum Guitars - Journeys into Sound

"Trying out the instrument that we made for the film composer Junkie XL AKA Tom Holkenborg. We're kinda hoping it'll be used in one of his film scores at some point.. Technical note - the instrument is capable of self oscillation due to the active drive circuitry on board. The feedback frequencies are determined by a number of factors determined by the player. I used a Zoom G3 in part of the demo to sequence the feedback. The Matrixbrute wasn't used in this demo btw.. http://aumguitars.co.uk/"

Note this video was from 2019. Note the listing below is one from 2022 and has a different finish.

via this listing

"Up for auction is a very rare, custom-built device from France. This was ordered in 2021, and received in 2022, having taken 10 months to construct. It was used in the studio on a soundtrack recording, and is in excellent 100% operational and cosmetic condition. A detailed Owners Manual is included. Please see below for a video demonstration.

The Chaos Guitar is an 8 string Lap steel with dual piezo elements, (one is magnetic), and an E-bow sensor as well as a standard magnetic humbucking pickup. It features a passive mixer and and active section that allows the user to sustain notes using an inbuilt feedback system, (actually 2 of them). One of these systems is built into a slide, (see Vibraslide page) and plugs physically into the guitar when not being held thereby transferring the vibrations back into the body of the instrument. Furthermore, it is possible to insert an effect into the input of the sustain system to process the feedback signal. This can either be added to the original signal or remain independent of it via a switch. Each of the sound producing elements has a direct output for individual processing if desired."

CLICK FOR MORE »

Templo Devices T2 - Recreation of the Maestro G2 Guitar Synth Effects Pedal

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
video upload by 60 Cycle Hum

"Back in the late 60's Maestro came out with a multi effects unit that was super weird. Fuzz, tremolo, envelope filter, low octave and even percussion settings all mashed together into a playing dynamic triggered, creativity inducing fever dream. Half a century later Templo has recreated that experience with pedalboard friendly modern convenience."

You can find some pics of the original G2 here.

via this listing

"Templo Devices T2 Multi-Effect

Based on a classic coveted Maestro Rhythm N' Sound effect console from the 60's, this unit has kept the original analog flavor, while adding some much needed footswitch functionality.

Combining many unique effects in a handy, pedal-board friendly version, the Templo T2 has the following features:

PERCUSSION

-A percussion synthesizer with 4 different sounds that are triggered by the instrument attack

BASS STRINGS

- A sub-octave generator with quick decay on initial pick attack


FUZZ

- A fuzz effect with parallel dry-blend option (Natural Amp)

WOW WOW

- A triggered filter effect with two fixed (cocked wah) color tone positions

ECHO REPEAT

- A percussive tremolo that resets with each note played giving the illusion of a delay effect.

The main advantage to this unit over a vintage unit (besides availability and price) is the handy footswitching arrangement:

The CANCEL footswitch true-bypasses the entire pedal.

The FUZZ footswitch toggles the fuzz effect, and:

-When the fuzz is bypassed, the Natural Amp setting is always on.

-When fuzz is engaged, the Natural Amp rocker switch toggles a dry blend in parallel with the fuzz

The WOW footswitch bypasses the modulation section, comprising the WOW-WOW, ECHO REPEAT and COLOR TONES 1 and 2 effects. These can be selected for use with the rocker switches and then bypassed using the footswitch.

This pedal is very fun, funky and colorful, imparting a vintage, somewhat lofi vibe to your sonic signature.

The T2 operates on a standard 18V DC center negative power supply.

We recommend running it from a dedicated power supply, as it may sometimes have issues with a multi-output supply.

All analog construction, with mechanical true bypass switching."

Introducing: GUITAR HIVE

video upload by The Crow Hill Company

"You have never heard a sample library like this before. Instant, Cure, Smiths, Cocteau, Lanois, Eno, Edge, Steve Reich vs Pat Metheny under your fingertips. An homage to great British guitar beds from shoe gaze to stinking student union bars in the north of England to the pristine layers of Reich’s Electric Counterpoint. Construct endless layers of interweaved guitar parts that become a highly controllable sonic weapon that goes from elegant to pure filth in no less than a turn of a dial.

Join the minds (and fingers) behind this; Christian Henson and Theo Le Derf on the beginning of your Hive journey. This is the gift we all wanted this Christmas."

Press release follows:


EDINBURGH, UK: The Crow Hill Company is proud to announce availability of FILTH - GUITAR HIVE — heading up its FILTH sub-range of products produced and recorded at the Annex in Edinburgh, Scotland, its self-styled safe house packed with vintage equipment, rarified instruments, synths, processing, and potential, with the main emphasis being on creating more experimental sample projects that think out of the box and are the very antithesis of virtual instruments; in this case, guitar performances on a limited-edition Fender Telecaster by Theo Le Derf, D.I. (Direct Injection) recorded via a pristine Thermionic Culture The Rooster Valve pre-amp with EQ & attitude and mixed through countless processors to give users control over the uncontrollable, ultimately providing what all at the music-making community tools-maker collectively yearn for in the process... utter filth — as of December 18…

Now knowing what FILTH - GUITAR HIVE is positioned as being, best to take a function-highlighting, whistle-stop tour of its clearly considered UI (User Interface) implemented to take that mission statement to the musical masses, filthy or otherwise. On the face of it, the front panel-dominating ‘Obutsu!’ is basically a ‘filth’ dial, allowing users to effortlessly transform their sound with three simultaneous signals — from tasteful and pure D.I. to a crunchy deluxe amplifier, all the way to overdriven feedback and tempo-synced tremolo; SHIMMER is a dual-direction granular pitch shift fed into a massive reverb chamber, creating a cascading, shimmering veil of tone; DRIVE is an unmistakably distorted, crunchy signal, modelled after a tube amp that has been utterly misused; ECHO is a tape-based, multi-tap echo/delay that syncs to the host tempo — an associated speed control determines what subdivision of the beat the repeats play at; and SPLOSH is a suitably reasonable decaying reverb for anyone’s roomy needs.

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Roland GR-500 Synthesizer with Roland GS-500 Guitar Synth Controller

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this listing

Additional Retro Gear Shop Listings

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Roland GR-300 and GR-300 with Boss SY-1000 BX-13-Micro

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
video upload by WayneJoness

via this listing

Note the listing is for the guitar only, not the synth.

"This sale includes:

Roland G-303 Vintage Guitar Synthesizer Controller
Original Hard Shell Case
New Shielded 15 foot long 24-pin clone cable Works with any 24-pin Guitar or Synthesizer
New Shielded 8 foot long 24-pin to DB 25-pin for BX-13-Micro
New BX-13-Micro - NEW Roland BC-13 clone with internal VCA (Voltage Controlled Oscillator)
I have tested this G-303 with a Roland GR-300 and everything works as expected. Please check out the video."

Pic of the inside below.

CLICK FOR MORE »

The Rarest Guitar Effect Ever: EMS Synthi Hi-Fli

video upload by foleytronics fx repair

"Here we have one of 350 EMS Synthi Hi-Fli multi-effects boxes; this one showed up with a very loud buzz and, after figuring that out, no audible suboctave. It is now working perfectly and oh so much fun to play with, as you can tell by the look on Dan's face in this video and thumbnail.

We also made use of Brandt's TC Electronic 2290 Dynamic Digital Delay, which are amazing for adding depth and width to any signal."

Vintage 1984 Roland Gr-700 Guitar Synth w/ Flight Case

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this listing

CLICK FOR MORE »

Loopjam with Syntakt, Modular and Banjo

video upload by elias kohli

"That how I make music, mostly unfilmed. But here a version of doing the stuff I just do."

Roland GR-707 & GR-700 w/ PG-200 Programmer

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this listing

"This GR-707 synthesizer & GR-700 guitar w/ PG-200 Programmer are fully functional and in great condition. Includes original guitar connection cable.

The Roland GR-707 is a 6 voice analog synthesizer module with the same voice architecture as the JX-3P. It features 2 oscillators per voice with cross mod routing, a single LFO, ADSR, and low pass VCF. It is controlled by the GR-700 guitar with string per voice routing. These are great sounding synths & offer a fresh, flexible method of control rarely seen in synths then or now."

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1977 ARP Avatar

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this listing

See The Infamous ARP Avatar

"This is the ARP AVATAR. It is basically a Arp Odessy without a keyboard controller. It was intended to be used with the guitar MIDI controller pickup that I no longer have. my tech tells me that the Roland midi guitars or a Roland-style or any hex pickup will work. I used this with a Kenton box (midi to cv converter) which turned it into a tabletop synth module. I just had all the sliders replaced and it's pretty satisfying to play with.

It is from 1977 so it's not brand new. I just sent it to my tech to make sure it's all working and we decided to change all the sliders out. When I bought this 15 years ago it came in a road case that was deteriorated and left marks on the wood panels on the sides as seen in the pics. I did clean them up a little. If you are someone who is handy I am sure you could clean these up to look like new if you are inspired to do so."

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Flea - Bass, Modular Synthesizer And Pure Emotion!

video upload by RHCPtv1

(Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Flea - Bass, Modular Synthesizer And Pure Emotion!
#Flea #BassSolo #RedHotChiliPeppers
Partner: @PortalRHCP - (Instagram).

Go beyond Eurorack! Modular synth + Pedal & rack FX & instrument input // DPW Design Pedal Interface

video upload by DivKid

"I've always enjoyed integrating other gear beyond the realms of the Eurorack case. Synths and FX, guitar into modular, rack gear processing beats ... it's a great thing to explore, to find unique tones and new sounds.

The new Pedal Interface from DPW Design is a 4HP stereo or dual mono pedal/instrument input and output module. While it couldn't be simpler on the interface this was designed to address two issues and to improve working with the varied signals. DPW made sure to properly impedance balance so you're not sucking out the tone and brilliance in the signal and sought to address transient handling and add a tube inspired gain structure above the clean gain structure for adding tube like compression and saturation FX ... something we exploit for great distortion in the video!"

*TIMING INDEX // CHAPTERS*

INTRO
00:00 Hello & previews
00:56 What are we doing here?
01:38 Two improved design features with Dan from DPW

PATCHES
03:54 Simple pedal integration for characterful ambient FX
05:27 Handling transients with character (line level inputs)
06:28 #SockTone guitar & bass direct input
07:50 Patch it wrong for sonic treats! (Eurorack level saturation)
09:26 Integrating rack gear for parallel processing
11:16 Using pedals at the start of the signal chain (oscillator processing

P1, Pedal I/O

The P1 is a dual channel pedal interface. It can be used for pedal or line level in and out or as a guitar or bass input as the pedal in is a high-Z input that will not suck the life out of the tone of your instrument as low impedance inputs can do.

The module is designed to have more than 100kHz bandwidth in both directions to give you a very clean interface with in and out impedance to work well with pedals.

The two halves of the module are independent. You can use it as a dual mono or as a stereo interface.

Eurorack to pedal level is attenuating -18dB and pedal to Eurorack level is amplifying 18dB.

There is soft controlled symmetrical clipping in both directions through the module so if you are driving the inputs hard it will not sound harsh. You can use this as a creative effect.

The unit is AC coupled to be able to isolate your Eurorack from whatever you connect on the pedal side.

Playing Synthesizers...with a Guitar?! Jamstik Visits the Perfect Circuit Showroom

video upload by Perfect Circuit

"Jamstik makes a line of wildly fun guitars—but hey, you might be wondering...why does a synth shop like Perfect Circuit give a heck about a guitar? Well, for one, all instruments are beautiful—and two, Jamstik makes MIDI GUITARS. They function perfectly well as standard electric guitars, but they also use proprietary technology to translate your guitar playing into MIDI data that synthesizers understand.

Not only that, they use a clever mapping of detected audio data in order to generate MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) data...making them a nuanced and quite powerful and expressive means of interfacing with MPE-capable synthesizers.

Jamstik recently came by our Burbank, CA showroom to see what they could do plugging their guitars into our synthesizers. With the expert guidance of our very own Jacob Johnson, they narrowed in on the Groove Synthesis 3rd Wave, Roland Juno X, and, of course, a Eurorack modular system featuring Tiptop Audio's new ART-equipped modules.

Learn more about Jamstik on our blog, Signal

Pick up a Jamstik guitar of your own"

Roland G-505 Guitar Synthesizer Controller, GR-300 Polyphonic Guitar Synth

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.


via this listing

"Up for sale, a 1980s Roland G-505 Guitar Synthesizer Controller and GR-300 Polyphonic Guitar Synthesizer [SN 090427] in 100% original condition and in perfect working order, complete with the original 24-pin cable. First introduced in 1980 as a follow-up to the GR-500, the GR-300 is perhaps best known for its usage by Pat Metheny; produced at the venerable Fujigen factory in Japan, this versatile guitar synth can deliver a huge range of decidedly unique sounds, with a hexaphonic fuzz circuit, VCO synth, and combinations of the two. This GR-300 comes complete with the G-505 Guitar Controller, taking its design cues from a Strat with a sleek ash body, one-piece maple neck, and a trio of single coil pickups alongside the synth pickup.

The G-505 Guitar Controller guitar has plenty of natural sparkle and shimmer, and the Roland PU-134S pickups deliver a bevy of Strat-style tonalities via the five-way selector switch. Weighing 8lbs 12oz, the G-505 has been professionally setup here at Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar with 10-46 strings, low action, and spot-on intonation.

The maple neck has a slender C-shaped profile carve with good shoulders, gaining appreciably more heft and roundness in the upper registers, measuring .810” deep at the 1st fret and 1.015” at the 12th. The fretboard exhibits light finger wear through the gloss, and the slender fretwire ostensibly benefits from a level and crown in this guitar’s lifetime, showing virtually no wear. This Roland plays cleanly up the 25 1/2“ scale with a straight neck and a responsive, optimally-adjusted truss rod, and the nut measures 1.650” (42mm) in width. The headstock features a bullet truss rod nut and gold “GR” logo, and the Gotoh tuning machines function reliably. The back of the headstock retains the silver foil serialized sticker.

The electronics on the guitar controller are untouched, with a control scheme including Master Volume, Guitar Tone, Guitar/EG Balance (Blend), VCF Cutoff Frequency, VCR Resonance, and LFO (Vibrato) Depth knobs. Additionally, the three-position Mode toggle enables on-the-fly switches between Hexaphonic Fuzz only (Mode 1), Fuzz and VCO synth tandem (Mode 2) and Synth only (mode 3). The controls are capped by the original sextet of knobs with ridged grips for easy adjustments, and the three-ply white pickguard rounds out the plastics.

Cosmetic wear on the gloss Metallic Blue finish includes a number of nicks and dings on the body as a whole, most prominent along the lower bout perimeter, with some finish chipping adjacent to the output jacks, and some very subtle texturing in the finish on the top. The neck profile retains its smooth gloss, with a handful of shallow marks that have no impact on playability.

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Love Hultén Nymphes Custom MIDI Guitar

video upload by Love Hultén

Looks like it has the Dreadbox Nymphes built in.