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[Bo D]

This is neat!!!!!


http://www.rdmag.com/ShowPR.aspx?PUBCODE=014&ACCT=1400000101&ISSUE=0902&RELTYPE=SOFT&PRODCODE=00000000&PRODLETT=AQ&CommonCount=0

The guitar of endless acoustics


Feb. 4, 2009

By David Chandler

Natural wood, with its unique grain patterns, is what gives traditional acoustic instruments warm and distinctive sounds, while the power of modern electronic processing provides an unlimited degree of control to manipulate the characteristics of an instrument's sound. Now, a guitar built by a student at MIT's Media Lab promises to provide the best of both worlds.

The Chameleon Guitar—so named for its ability to mimic different instruments—is an electric guitar whose body has a separate central section that is removable. This inserted section, the soundboard, can be switched with one made of a different kind of wood, or with a different structural support system, or with one made of a different material altogether. Then, the sound generated by the electronic pickups on that board can be manipulated by a computer to produce the effect of a different size or shape of the resonating chamber.

Its creator, Media Lab master's student Amit Zoran, explains that each piece of wood is unique and will behave in a different way when it is part of an instrument and begins to vibrate in response to the strings attached to it. Computers can't model all the details of that unique responsiveness, he says. So, as he began experimenting with the design of this new instrument, he wondered "what would happen if you could plug in acoustic information, like we do with digital information on a memory stick?"

[me]

Wonder if he put anything on Youtube to demonstrate it.  Sure sounds neat. 

[me]

Here's one.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vj1TanqJZuU