New Product preview at the Ethermusic festival

[kkissinger@kevinkissinger.com]

Hello to all!

I just returned from the Ethermusic Festival, sponsered by Moog Music,  
in Asheville, NC.

Prior to my set on Thursday night, Jason Danillo from Moog Music  
expertly demo'd a new product from Moog Music that is simply called:  
"The Moog Guitar".

I am not a guitarist myself however I was very impressed with what I  
learned and heard about this product.  I run the risk of sounding like  
a "salesperson" however I want to share with you what I learned and  
heard regarding the Moog Guitar.

My first impression of this instrument is that it was an electric  
guitar with built in (software driven) fx in the body of the guitar.   
And I would add, super CLEAN fx.  And the infinite sustain, for  
example, was INFINITE with no noise, glitches, etc.  However, my guess  
about the theory of operation was mistaken.

The guitar utilizes built-in ebows -- I'm not sure how many are built  
into the guitar however there is a least one per string.  As many  
readers here know, the ebow imparts energy to a string to set it into  
vibration and keep it vibrating forever.  The engineers at Moog took  
things to another level -- for ebow technology can do the opposite: it  
can be used to remove energy from a string, too.

Each string is independently settable -- some can sustain, others can  
sound in the normal (unsustained manner), others can produce a  
staccatto pluck -- in fact, on of the sounds is a strum followed by a  
bow.  This is all user-settable.  Jason strummed a chord and as the  
chord died down a "bowed string chorus" came up -- as if an entire  
string section was doubling Jason's guitar part.

My first thought was: Ohhh... my looping friends would LOVE this.  And  
the tone was really clean.  During Jason's demo, he mentioned that  
some people can't believe that this is all being done on the strings  
until he unplugs the guitar and folks listen to the strings themselves.

I look forward to hearing the "buzz" about this product among the  
looping community as well as the theremin community (which includes  
many guitarists and loopers).

While ebows have been around for awhile, this new product takes things  
to another level.

Best wishes to Moog Music.  May the new Moog Guitar inspire many  
musicians and be another success story for Moog Music.

All the best to one and all.

-- Kevin