Today in Tedium: If there’s one thing we love around here, it's technology. But we're also big music fans. So it's only natural that music-making technology would pique our interest. I've always been a big fan of synthesizers and synthesizer guitars. I just never quite had the talent to use them effectively, so I mostly stuck to acoustic instruments (which can make all sorts of unique sounds; just ask Fred Frith). In my youth, however, I dabbled in synthesizer guitars at a time when there weren't nearly the number of options we have today. In today's Tedium, we explore some of my experience with these instruments and cap things off with a review of a newer guitar that may (or may not) surprise you. — David @ Tedium
Usually we make our annual last-minute gift guide, a highlight of some of the year’s best issues, its own issue, but this year we thought we’d force you to visit the site to see it. Check it out here—and learn why you might be getting a forgotten cousin a vintage woodgrain cable box this year.
1983
The year Japanese musician Ryo Kawasaki released his own synthesizer software for the Commodore 64. Known primarily as a jazz musician (check out his album Juice, if you're looking for some fantastic listening), Kawasaki temporarily put his guitars aside to build synthesizer programs for early computers. After creating four programs, he returned to music and continued playing—including the use of a Roland guitar synthesizer, the Roland GR-500.
The Roland GR-20, a legendary beast of a guitar synth.
My first guitar synth was the best
Guitars have been on my mind quite a bit these days. Due to some health issues and other circumstances, I haven't played much as of late.
But back in 2022 (which seems like a decade ago), I bought a Lava Me 3 on a whim. Then I reviewed it for Tedium. We'd never done anything like that before, and it was a fun experiment. The guitar was extremely unique and fun for what it was. Made from carbon fiber and containing a plethora of cool settings that made it my favorite axe for quite some time. I'm sad to say that only two years later, I no longer own it (when I lost my writing gigs to AI, the guitar collection was the first thing to go). But that guitar wasn't my first foray into enhanced instruments or synths.
Once upon a time—around 19 years ago—my dad bought me a Roland GR-20. The GR-20 was a magnificent tool and had some incredible sound settings. I particularly favored the marimba (I was heavy into Frank Zappa at the time) and some of the orchestral settings.
Released in 2004, the GR-20 was actually based on Roland's more professional systems, using a sound engine that was modified from the early designs. It had 48 voices of pure, synthesizer sounds.
Although you can get one for around $200 nowadays, this thing cost over $600 at the time. I spent a great deal of time in the early 2000s recording weird music with that synthesizer. Sadly, none of those recordings still exist. Or if they do, Dr. Demento probably has them somewhere in his archive.
The GR-20 probably wouldn’t have led me to fame and fortune, but it was fun. Other artists I love—like Adrian Belew, Al DiMeola, and Robert Fripp—famously used Roland analog guitar synthesizers on some of their albums. And the amazing Allan Holdsworth used the Synthaxe in some of his work.
While I no longer own or even have access to the Roland, it remains one of the best—and certainly my favorite—guitar accessories I've ever owned.
GK-3
The guitar pickup used to communicate between a guitar and a Roland guitar synthesizer. The GK-3 was an amazing piece of tech. A divided pickup, it could pick up signals from each individual string and output them to the synthesizer. I liked it because I didn't have to drill a hole in the guitar to bolt it in. That, and the low latency. After I sold the guitar and GR-20, I discovered the buyer ripped off the GK-3 and threw it away. So it goes.
The Jammy G MIDI guitar, an recent pioneer of the synth-shaped guitar space. (It went out of business.)
The legacy of the Jammy and the Jamstik
A few years ago, I bought a Jammy G. It was a fun diversion for a while, but I quickly grew bored of its limited use. Engadget gave the Jammy a pretty thorough review around the same time.
And approximately five years ago, Mary Spender gave it a good review. I was supposed to get a Jammy E—a better version of their initial product—when they came out. But Jammy went out of business and never fulfilled their orders. So that was a disappointment (and about $400 down the drain). So what happened? It turns out the war in Ukraine took a toll on the company and they went out of business. That's sad for a number of reasons, but I hope their workers are okay.
With the Jammy no longer an option, I thought about getting a Jamstik, but never got around to it. They're kind of pricey and I just didn't have the time or set-up to mess around with one. Plus, I'd already purchased one $800 guitar previous—the Lava Me 3. Given my somewhat limited experience with MIDI guitars, I was a bit surprised to hear from a company that wanted me to review theirs.
nine
The number of presets that the Aeroband guitar has available. Aeroband—a company that seeks to make music more accessible while also creating innovative devices and products—are relatively new to the music scene, but are constantly trying to innovate and improve their line of portable music products for musicians everywhere. Available by just pushing a button on the guitar, the options are: dreadnought acoustic guitar (finger picked), dreadnought acoustic guitar (pick), blues electric, pop electric, classical guitar, piano, bass, banjo, and clarinet. Each one is accessible either through pushing a button on the guitar's headstock or by selecting it through the amp.
The Aeroband guitar, as it looks in the box.
Enter the Aeroband guitar
Now that you know my history with guitar synthesizers, let's get started on the reason we're here today: reviewing a new type of smart guitar.
Aeroband—a new smart guitar company—recently reached out to us about their smart guitar. They offered us an instrument to review at no cost, largely because they enjoyed the review of my self-purchased Lava Me 3. We mulled it over for a bit and figured, what the heck. It could be fun.
Full disclosure: Aeroband is not paying us to do this review, but they are letting us keep the guitar. That said, these opinions are entirely my own. I don't usually do this sort of thing and I'm going to be completely honest here.
These types of guitars are hardly new—just look at the Casio DG-10 and the Yamaha EZ-AG for example—but this one has some unique features. The first thing that stuck out was the box.
The box is slim and compact. Inside are two separate pieces: the guitar neck and its body. It just snaps together and turns on. Convenient. There are two buttons on the top—one for mic volume and one for tone volume. They also double as an on/off switch and a drum machine.
The strings are made from silicone, and they feel pretty good to play. Sleek, with a full scale length, they are pretty low latency. There are some real steel strings on the body of the guitar. These feel similar to what you'd have on an electric guitar and are situated next to a bridge cover that doubles as a palm mute switch. It runs on a rechargeable battery that uses a USB-C connection, with battery life lasting a long time on a single charge. There's a microphone input on the guitar, but I didn't find it to be very useful. Finally, there's a button on the headstock that lets you switch the tones on the fly as well as a “capo up” and “capo down” button. These let you set the guitar up as if it had a capo on a certain fret (because you can't use a real capo on silicone strings).
The drum machine is pretty handy and sounds quite good coming out of the guitar's built-in speaker. I was also able to hook my phone up to the guitar's speaker and use it to listen to music. It was fun hearing Phish coming out of the speaker. But what about the presets? How do they sound?
My experience testing the default settings of this not-quite-guitar.
The short answer is they're not bad, but some are better than others. I don't particularly enjoy the clavinet sound and the bass sounds a bit off to me. I dig the electric blues guitar though. I think I played with that sound setting the most. The piano setting was fun, especially when I played some simple arpeggios with it. The banjo is good but sounds best when adjusting the capo settings lower. I liked all of the acoustic settings, managing to play some fun licks (mostly Tom Petty songs on the steel string settings and bits of “Classical Gas” on the nylon setting).
There are some drawbacks to the guitar. First off, bending is impossible on this thing. You can set the guitar up to allow pull-offs and slides, but they're not switched on by default. Hammer-ons and pull-offs to open frets are also impossible. They just can't be done. On top of that, slides sound awkward or weird if you try to play too fast. Given these caveats, this feels like a guitar that would be better suited to composing than playing rock music.
A sample of the app’s design—usable but not perfect.
Then there's the app, which is a mixed bag. It has some nifty features. For instance, you can change tunings with just the click of a button. How awesome would that be on a standard guitar? You can also set it up to play chords and/or arpeggios on a single string. This is great if you're not adept at forming chord shapes and just want to make some cool sounds. I was kind of disappointed with the Guitar Hero style play-along feature on the app (not a great song selection, the songs sound weird, they seem like they're playing too fast). The tutorials were fine, but they only really covered the basics, which can be useful for people just starting out but were somewhat useless for me.
The company is interesting. It bills this guitar as an alternative to the real thing for people who want to learn and for those who might suffer from ailments like arthritis. While it can work for that purpose—fretting the strings doesn't hurt at all and it's pretty ergonomic—it doesn't really feel like a guitar for beginners. The sound banks are fun and it's easy to play (especially with the app), but it truly shines when used as a MIDI controller with a digital audio workstation.
MIDI
The name of a computer protocol, which stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, that allows musical instruments to communicate with a computer to make amazing sounds. Established in the 1980s, MIDI had a big impact on popular music and made it possible for musicians to take their music to amazing new heights (particularly with MIDI sequencing, sampling, and digital synths).
Using a guitar as a MIDI controller is nothing new. But it's probably the area where the Aeroband guitar shines the most. I don't currently have a good DAW set-up, so I was unable to fully explore the guitar's MIDI potential. Luckily, I found a few (much better than me) guitarists who really showed off what it can do with the right set-up. Like this guy. Or this one. They make this guitar sing and show off what it can do when used as a MIDI controller. It's honestly pretty cool and makes a good use case for the Aeroband guitar when players decide to expand their usage of the guitar.
This guy plugged the Aeroband into his iPad and got it to work with Garageband.
As for the Aeroband guitar, it was fun but has a few drawbacks. It's a costly instrument—retailing for almost $500—and although it can be fun to play with, it doesn't really feel like a starter guitar. I can see the MIDI controller aspect appealing to more expert or professional players though.
Ultimately, I don't feel like this type of guitar is really for me. I'm more of an acoustic player than anything else, especially when I'm composing. Plus, I can tap, slap, hammer on, bend, do pinch harmonics, and play percussively on my acoustic—something the Aeroband guitar lacks.
But when the music stops playing, it's fun for what it is and you may enjoy it. Or maybe not. That's really up to you. As for me? I'm retired. And I think I can hear some Masayoshi Takanaka playing in the distance …
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Thanks again to David for taking a stab at a synthetic axe.
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