Musical instruments haven’t really evolved from their basic configurations. Take the guitar for example; they went from being acoustic to becoming electric and that’s it. Don’t even try to count the ‘p-tar’ that instrument needs to be left under the rug, never to see the light of day again. It’s time to bring these sound makers into the digital age and a company by the name of Misa Digital Instruments has done just that with their guitar called ‘Kitara’. The guitar uses 24 frets like a traditional axe but uses no strings what so ever. The unit is situated around an 8 inch touch screen that lets you ‘pick’ one string or multiple strings to create chords. The screen also lets you ‘customize’ the sounds created by the guitar such as distortion, reverb and compression, but you can also combine or switch sounds ‘on the fly’ through mapping on the x- and y- axis on the screen. The guitar has MIDI out, audio out, over 100 digital sounds and uses a Linux operating system. These don’t come cheap though as the standard Kitara costs $849 and the Limited edition is priced at a whopping $2,899. At that price I don’t think we will see anyone pull a ‘Jimi Hendrix’ and light the guitar on fire. For more information on Kitara please visit: http://www.misadigital.com/index.php?target=home&lang=en
Eavesdropper