Where many guitarists petulantly sulk about these damn kids today plinking on their plastic guitars, completely degrading the mystical art of the five-string craft… at least until the first Rock Band royalty check comes in… Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne has built a Guitar Hero controller right into his double-necked guitar, using the five brightly colored buttons to control a built-in Korg Kaossilator synthesizer. You’ll have to get through a rather sloppy vanity piece on some NBC jingle promotion to see it in action, but if you can get to 1:55 in this Entertainment Weekly piece, it’s terribly neat.
Wayne Coyne’s Guitar Hero guitar [Hollywood Insider via Hack-A-Day]
I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who thought about the synth potential in these things… Just can’t wait until there are like a million of them at garage sales. XD
Small correction: you said “art of the five-string craft” but guitars generally have 6 strings. (Note, though, that the “real” half of the guitar in the photo is a 12 string…)
I want a Rock Band synth controller; a 49- or-so key synth hooked to the ps3 would be awesome.
Of course, who wants to be the keyboard player in a rock band? (slinks away, chastised for his lameness.)
Holy crap, that video made me want to puke. Sure, Wayne moves around a lot, but the cameraman could have at least kept the camera on the guitar during the guitar segment.
dogrocket/#2:
Brownlee just plays too much Banjo Hero – it’s an understandable mistake.
G, E, C! General Electric Corp.! It’s all becoming clear now…
“You’ll have to get through a rather sloppy vanity piece on some NBC jingle promotion”
I had no problem simply clicking ahead to 1:55.
@#3 hook it up on a strap and be a modern day keytard
“Here’s a camera. Now pretend that your getting attacked by bees.”
The Kaossilator is really the cool part. Waiting to see someone do a Nostromo Speed Pad mod with one of those.