Guitar synthesizer

A system in which the guitar's output drives a separate tone generator or sample engine, so the string controls pitch and timing but does not itself produce the sound.

The instrument is converted into control data rather than audio, either by a divided pickup that senses each string separately or through pitch tracking of the audio signal, and the result can be any synth or sampled sound. This is different from a modeler, which still reproduces a guitar. Tracking accuracy depends on clean playing technique, since bends and sloppy damping become wrong notes in the data.

Example: a divided pickup feeding a synth module lets a guitarist trigger a brass or organ patch on stage without changing instruments.

Guitar synthesizer

See also