Visionary Guitars - A Vision Of The Future?

Insane looking video guitars with hi-tech features   07-Sep-09

Now I’ve seen some crazy looking guitars in my career, and when Gibson launched the Robot guitar I really thought I'd seen it all. But the guitars made by Visionary Instruments http://visionaryinstruments.com/  are extremely different! Combining LCD screens, midi technology and some crazy imagination Ben Lewry has pushed the boundaries of guitar design once again with his “Video Guitar”.

Each guitar is handmade, one at a time and according to Ben “Imagination and the laws of physics are the only limitations”. This makes for some amazing designs that really have that “Love it or hate it” factor going on. I am still undecided which camp I am placed in, after all these ground breaking guitars are essentially Guitars with LCD (invented in 1972) and midi (created in 1982) so I guess not that ground breaking after all.

However, you’ve got to hand it to Visionary Instruments... They certainly don’t hold back on the technology. Take the “LCDetar” for example:

with onboard components like a Toshiba Laptop Pentium IV, Echo Audio I/O, MXR preamp, Midi-tron controller platform, Eight switched knobs, four push switches, and one arcade button. It is setup to run Ableton live, Guitar Rig II and Milkdrop simultaneously. You can access windows through a wireless mouse and keyboard... and yes, it even has wi-fi m/

Before you know it, there will be guitars where you just waggle a control and it plays itself... oh wait a minute...

Chappers out m/

Rob Chappers

The Monkey Lord