As multitouch becomes more widely available, there’s an opportunity to re-imagine all sorts of interfaces. And yes, that includes the guitar.

I’m way behind on mentioning it, but thanks to all the readers who spotted the fascinating Misa digital guitar. Strings and frets are each replaced with digital touch controls, and the soundboard touchscreen is set up to control notes, velocity, pitch, and filters. In fact, it makes the guitar more like a keyboard, and less like a guitar. But as with all digital instruments, abstracting the gesture from the actual sound means that you can arbitrarily redefine what the instrument really does.

Engadget wrote up the Misa last month

Misa Digital of Sydney has a bare-bones site and waiting list / queries via email.

Don’t want to wait around on a list for the fully-integrated version? Thinking about how you could just strap an iPod touch or iPhone to an instrument and use that instead? You’re in luck. In fact, if you’ve got an Apple mobile and Ableton Live, you can start right now.

What if controllers were not only wireless and multi-touch, but could find software to control automatically, or share control between more than one person or more than one computer? On one-level, yes, Mrmr is a free and open source OpenSoundControl app for iPod and iPhone. But on a deeper level, it’s an illustration of how controllers could work in the future — not only Apple mobiles and multi-touch, but any control hardware and software. Imagine intelligently finding and sharing control seamlessly, whether you’re mixing music and visuals or sharing control with other people or working with more than one app or machine — or all of the above. And imagine you could do this without prior configuration (aside from designing a control template), then change that control on the fly.

We saw the beta on Create Digital Motion and have been covering it on an ongoing basis, but I want to make sure music folks don’t miss it, either.

Stay tuned, as we’ll be looking more closely at how to use Mrmr and some other OSC apps on iPhone/iPod (like the wonderful TouchOSC and Sonic Life, both by hexler). We’ll have plenty more to say. If you do go out and get something cool working, be sure to share it.

And watch for a new Mrmr project site — we’re working with Eric and others to build a new home for it.

Mrmr OSC controller @ iTunes