I find it very peculiar no one mentioned the Roland GR500 guitar synth yet. It was back in the 70s. It had, on top of on an unwieldy synth device, a polyphonic or HEX sustainer that worked for guitar sound and in guitar mode only. It used WIRES UNDER THE FRETS to make it connect somehow to this infinite sustain and thus, open strings couldn’t be infinite sustained (like on this Moog guitar). The Roland had no zero fret, just a regular nut. The Moog guitar has no wires under frets I’ve been told.

However, on the GR500, when removing a cover plate that sat there instead of a neck pickup, the infinite sustain disappeared mysteriously and came back when put back on again! I owned one myself, and the frets had worn down and when the luthier opened the fretboard up he said “Hey, look here, I can’t do anything to this”. As the frets had worn down considerably I used it for sustaining chords only. Sold it because it became unplayable due to the low/worn out frets. And that they couldn’t be replaced. They – Roland – incorporated this polyphonic infinite sustain in order for the synth section to be able to track properly. And to have long decaying filters sweep.

Most people owning a GR500 today, uses it JUST for the polyphonic infinite sustain, and leaves the synth section off, which has laughable out-dated sounds anyway. However, infinite sustaining chords, still seems to be intriguing.

Whatever you think about the infinite polyphonic or hex sustain, it has been done before. It is not that novel, and not rocket science. Michael Brook built one or two of his own and sold it to Daniel Lanois, and The Edge of U2. His “infinite guitar” had hex sustain too. My qualified guess is that he “borrowed” some ideas from the GR500, otherwise, he would sell it publicly by now.

The Moog guitar hasn’t copied anything from neither Sustainiac, Fernandes, E-bow, Gizmotron, nor Guitorgan as suggested elsewhere. It ain’t no reversed engineered from anything. The only thing it comes even remotely close resemblance to is the Roland GR500 Guitar synth of the 70s.

To produce a polyphonic or hex infinite sustain with equal volume requires a hell lot more than on a sustainiac and e-bow. However, as we can see, at a price. The Sustainiac people had this idea for quite a while, but said the price it would cost didn’t justify it. And come to think of it, when the people themselves behind Sustainiac and infinite sustainers can’t justify the price for going polyphonic, well… go figure.

This may just turn into a show-off novelty gear. For the ones with very deep wallets. And to tell people and friends “hey, look at what this can do…”. This seems to me just a fad gadget. They produce it just because they can show that they did it. Not that there ever was a real need for it. Loopers and creators of ambient and textural pads will be the hottest target customers for this thing.

Thus, the Moog guitar, will do wonders in the hands of Michael Brook, Robert Fripp, David Torn, Stanley Jordan et al, but it’s for the few, and well off elite.

I think, if you watch the videos, players automatically switch to DOUBLE HAND TAPPING and fretting and thus, such an invention would provide more viable on instruments that were made for tapping from the start on, like the Warr Touch guitars, or CHAPMAN STICK. Those instruments higher notes disappears instantly anyway, and are in serious need for some infinite sustain. I would LOVE to see this technique incorporated on a Stick. There, is where it would make some real sense. However, it would cost even more, but so be it.

Just my ten cents. I am not in favor of it totally 100 percent, but don’t diss it entirely. Somewhere in between. The price, and that you have to use special strings is the off-putter in my book. On this, I agree with the Sustainiac people who went “If we can’t bring the price down considerably, then it’s no use putting it out”. Regardless of if they could make one or not.

/henke

It produces sounds like a Fernandes Sustainer or EBow but it senses which strings you are fretting and mutes whatever strings you are not fretting. You can fret one note on one string, which will sing with sustain, and leave the other five strings open, and they will not ring out at all.

It does this silently and unobtrusively. There is nothing else like it, and nothing else produces the sounds it can make. It can also be made to produces eerie harmonics unlike anything you’ve ever heard while listening to a cranked-up or feeding-back guitar. And it produces these sounds completely cleanly, with no distortion whatsoever, if that’s what you want.

This may be the sound Alan Holdsworth has always been trying to create.

I remember reading that in 1952 Les Paul joined with Gibson to make a heavy, dense solid body guitar which could produce enough sustain and legato to enable him to play solos that could compete in a band with a saxophone or trumpet. Of course Les wanted a sound with no distortion or overdrive.

The Moog Guitar can do this sort of thing. I hope Les is paying attention.

That said, it creates a completely new kind of guitar sound that nobody’s heard before. Will this be a sound that lots of guitarists are willing to pay big money to acquire?

The other thing I don’t know is how good this guitar will sound through an amp and effects without the sustain mode enabled. Will it produce a good-enough regular-guitar rock ‘n roll rhythm tone for the whole song, before you crank up the sustain for your face-melting solo?

I believe Moog has done something wonderful here. After Summer NAMM I’m sure a lot of guitarists will be registering their impressions on blogs like this one.