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Physical Heart, Virtual Body is a special guitar that combines physical acoustic properties with virtual sound processing capabilities.
Amazing idea, sounds like a real revolution in the way we will create music… If the sound is good enough, it will probably be a great success.
This innovative approach is so mind-blowing and inconceivable that i can’t even start describing my feelings right now.
i think i’m gonna blues myself to death…
Yalla Amit!
Great movie, great guitar sound!
When are you coming to a visit again?
Look up Roland’s VG-99. It does everything they are doing and more.
Acoustic (Body Size, Body Shape, Body Type [Resonator, Sitar, Banjo, etc], String Type, etc) Electric (Strat, Tele, LP, L4, etc) Sitar, Synth.. Alt tunings.. The list goes on and on..
Honestly, this is a waste of time!
The guitar sound is weak, and gives the impression that once again musical instruments are designed by tone-deaf scientists.
you really expect any of us to believe that these ply-boards can sound the same when they are cut like this?
The formants (resonance peaks that give the body its fundamental characteristics) of the board will change dramatically, this calls for digital compensation beyond just modeling the body with waveguides (a 20 something year old technique that sounds like “plastic” on every attempt to this day).
is it really worth the hard work? if the board looses the guitars character anyhow as it is cut (fundamental physics) what is the point in the board in the first place?
The guitar is the worst candidate for an overhaul, since it is an instrument that has successfully passed the test of evolution, through decades of scrutiny. any attempt to bring a major change to it will either fail or at best case will create another branch of musical instruments, but it will leave the classical guitar as it is now.
Making instruments is an art. musicians have a special bond with an instrument. digitizing it is the exact opposite of what the music industry needs! instead, investigate ways in getting digital instruments to become as expressive as the acoustic ones!
Why don’t you spend your amazing talents and funds in fields where you can really do some good? why invent another digital guitar out of many? isn’t MIT about innovation and not imitation?
I like this project quite a bit. I think the innovation comes in three areas:
1. significant collaboration between interaction designers and artisans to reconsider the opportunities between digital processes and physical materials. The collaboration is key to the uniqueness of this project and something that could yield an interesting methodology for problems other than music instrument design.
2. Personalization of instruments is an area where a lot can happen. The signature sound of many great performers has, at it’s input, the performer and the mechanics of their playing. How does the instrument reflect that process of pairing, mastery, and individuation? Who gives a crap about the roland VG whatever. It’s not about making the best martin-esque guitar. This project marries direct physical characteristics of an interface and digital processes exclusively with the goal of personalization. I want my cell phone to do that too.
3. As far as modeling is concerned, this work provides a springboard for thinking about hybridizing between a model that uses physical materials in the loop, with purely digital modeling. Are there any instrument models that update their parameters based on resonance of contact points on the body of the instrument?
And one last thing about major change, decades of scrutiny and the test of evolution?! Electric guitar is one of those instrument revolutions that wasn’t all that incremental. Amplification technology was redefining media post-war, guitarists wanted to be heard in big bands, bang, rickenbackers. Most of the major electric guitar developments were subsequently offered by individuals, Les Paul, Fender, etc. Why wouldnt continuing to explore the relationship between technology and traditional instruments allow for new opportunity?
[...] first collected Added 16 Feb 09 from labcast.media.mit.edu Flag as inappropriate or [...]
[...] The project is discussed here. [...]
Brian: not even close! The Roland module doesn’t contemplate physical intervention in the production of sound, it’s all digital data, the random factor that the physical body of this guitar add is the key of it success. Adam here explains it quite extensively.
Well, I love this project (judging from the comments above it has mixed acceptance) and would love to see more done in this fashion, and would also like to know if there is a plan to sell any of these even in an experimental phase, would like the chance to riff one just to test the different sounds in different scenarios: classic, rock, hall, music bar, studio, jam, etc. I think you have an amzing development here. Congratulations.
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