The Vo-96 Acoustic Synthesizer is one of the most innovational melodic instrument product created in years . trounce one onto any acoustical guitar and you’re able to transform the way it sounds by relegate — or at least manipulate — the laws of physic . Here ’s the story of how discoverer Paul Vo made a twist that sounds like legerdemain .
Vo is easily known asthe inventorof the infinite support technologyinside the Moog Guitar . In one of its context , if you thrum the string section of that mantrap , they ’ll keep vibrating constantly . It ’s a staggeringly telling technological achievement , but that ’s just a fraction of what Vo ’s acoustic deductive reasoning technology is capable of .
Moog ’s First Guitar Features Infinite Sustain : So Go Out and Have a Bite
TheVo-96builds on those concepts and explodes them ; it ’s a enormously advanced add - on for an acoustical guitar that basically transforms that older wooden loge into an totally young instrument . reckon which ready you ’re using , the Vo-96 can vocalize like everything from a fiddle to a woodwind instrument to an parallel synth .
Vo , 61 , has been break the engineering science for about a decade . In 2004 , after 20 years of working in ware development in the audio industriousness , Vo sour his sights to the oscillation control engineering behind the Vo-96 . He says he ’d been convinced the technology could cultivate since 1979 but that it was n’t realistically possible until about 2000 .
Vo go to Raleigh , North Carolina from California , sic up a laboratory and have down to work . In 2006 , he first presented the technology to Moog in nearby Ashville , North Carolina as a gnarled but usable acoustic image . A cobble - together galvanic prototype of the instrument come the following yr after which Moog and Vo officially start the 18 - month process of designing and work up the Moog Guitar . The leave cat’s-paw is a chef-d’oeuvre of engineering inside and a work of art outside .
Now , Vo has turned his aid back to his orignal construct with the Vo-96 , which he escort as the purest construction of his technology . Initially , the thing itself look sort of monstrous , like , “ How the hell am I blend to confiscate this to my guitar ? ” There ’s a lot start on in this diagram below , but after you ’ve installed the Vo-96 in a guitar , the only constituent that ’s seeable is the top user interface slice . The corner containing the Vo-96 ’s electronics goes inside the guitar ’s trunk .
You ’ve probably heard an electric guitar make all form of softheaded sounds thanks to either digital or analogue processing . The Vo-96 works entirely other than , although technically the building block is doing both analog and digital backflips to alter the guitar ’s strait . Rather than alter the wave form after the fact — as in the case of an electric guitar and an effects foot pedal — the Vo-96 alters the waveform in literal - time .
In other words , the Vo-96 changes the very physics of how a guitar makes auditory sensation to begin with . How do you do that ? The gadget has what Vo cry a “ two - way conversation ” with the guitar strings . It listens to the string and then applies a precisely calculated magnetised energy back to the string to change how they go .
The port dower of the twist contains 12 transducer , two for each string . The transducers take samples of the energy from the vibrating string , commute the sample into an electrical sign and then sends it down to the battery - powered controller box inside the guitar . The box computes incisively how much energy take to be utilize to each string , and sends that information back up to the transducer , which in turn do the piece of work . That functioning happen at a much faster rate than the string is resonate , which means that from a hard-nosed point - of - view , the transducers are at the same time take heed and talking .
And , really , that verbal description is an simplism of the technology . The Vo-96 has intensely grainy controller over the way the strings vacillate . You see , what it ’s actually doing is altering the vibration of 16 different harmonic on each twine . ( 16 harmonic partial x 6 strand = Vo-96 . ) For each of those partials , the gimmick can either apply more effect or take force aside . you could tone down a special harmonic , or you could sustain it forever — or at least for as long as you ’ve draw battery index .
Depending on which harmonic you alter and how you alter them , you get an entirely different - sounding legal instrument . For practical understanding , the first edition of the Vo-96 will come with just six preseets that you could pull off using three capacitive - tactile sensation sliders . You just ca n’t build a simple substance abuser interface to modify all 96 - possible dominance channel .
So this is just a fraction of what ’s possible . “ female parent nature has been generous with this affair , ” say Vo . “ It turn out that there is more strait in a string than I could have imagined in my head . ” The presets on the initial run of the Vo-96 represents what Vo reckon is interesting based on his own experimentation . But now , he want to hump what guitar nerds across the world think .
Information about the Vo-96 only just started trickling out about six months ago . Moog Music — which possess a license to Vo ’s engineering science — posted photos of amysterious image codenamed “ LEV-96 ” in last October . There were beautiful images of the kit and an enticing description of the technology , but it was still unvoiced to understand what exactly the equipment was . And it was n’t until February that anybodyactually learn it .
Moog LEV-96 : Forget Synths , Moog Is Making a Batshit Acoustic Guitar or Something
Today , Vo launched a Kickstarter to endeavor to get 350 units of the Vo-96 into production . Kickstarter might seem an odd pick for a proved inventor like Vo . Indeed , the Moog Guitar has been a successful product for the company , and it ’s universally lauded ; it took top honor at the euphony diligence swap show NAMM when it was announced back in 2008 . Despite Moog ’s ebullience for the LEV-96 image last fall , the society has no public plan to turn it into a production — or at least not into a product like the Vo-96 . The company did a beta test - run of 12 LEV-96 units last yr , but that was good old - fashioned research and development . Moog is a legendarily modern melodious pawn party , but it ’s get a bottom production line to worry about , and in its current sort , the Vo-96 is n’t urbane and ready for primetime .
Vo , on the other hand , is n’t unforced to give up so easy . “ I was convince there was a market for this even if it ca n’t be a retail merchandise , ” he says .
Vo constantly state his gratitude to Moog for their support on both the Moog Guitar and the Vo-96 task , calling them “ entire benefactor . ” But Vo ’s 100 - percent attached to developing and advancing the vibration control tech , and the two party mutually decided that he should go off on his own and develop the concept further . That ’s what the Kickstarter is all about — funding additional R&D with manufactured , in full functional units as it has been developed so far . ( Earlier today , Moogissued a insistency releaseinviting people to lend to Vo ’s Kickstarter . )
He tell he wants to get the Vo-96 out there to see what a large test hearing would do with it . From there he can make modifications to the software package for firmware upgrades and to the ironware for future iterations .
Getting a Vo-96 wo n’t be cheap — between $ 1050 and $ 1450 — depend on when you sign up on to the project . The money from the Kickstarter political campaign would go to paying for the components for the initial mathematical product launching as well as to quicken software development . It ’s been a recollective time lag already , but it still ca n’t get here fast enough .
[ KickstarterandVo Inventions ]
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