SynthAxe: Difference between revisions
From Allan Holdsworth Information Center
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Briefly, but it was a few years ago. But it was like a step backwards for me; if I have to go from the '''SynthAxe''', the thing is going to have to be absolutely, incredibly remarkable for me to want to make a jump. | Briefly, but it was a few years ago. But it was like a step backwards for me; if I have to go from the '''SynthAxe''', the thing is going to have to be absolutely, incredibly remarkable for me to want to make a jump. | ||
==[[Interview_with_Allan_Holdsworth_(Jazz_Italia_2005)]]== | |||
ALEX: In your opinion, why has no one else in the guitar synth world proposed a valid alternative to Roland's hexaphonic pickup, which is not very faithful, apart from SynthAxe and Yamaha, which have a virtually error-free system? | |||
ALLAN: I do not know ... because probably many guitarists, when I did some clinics, they asked me: "well, can you make it sound like a Strat?" and I would answer "why do you want to make it sound like a Strat? Why take a guitar synth with all these sounds and then play it like a guitar? You already have a guitar!" But I think that most guitarists want to play the guitar so they do not want to waste time managing it from a technical point of view. The reason why nobody has done another is because it is very complex to make the sound of a guitar. As with a keyboard, driving a synthesizer is simple, you just have to switch on a switch or not, with the guitar it's hard. Yamaha has made a great system, the strings are very low. The problem, in this case, is that if you do bending you may have precision defects since it is calculated at the bridge level ... The SynthAxe was completely different. Each key was separated on each string and the sensors were inside the strings themselves - they are like microphones so it makes sense the movement of the string as well as knowing how long the string is and then know when bend is possible if you play more towards the neck and how much if you play more towards the bridge. It's all programmed, a great machine. But they are very delicate, I have one that works well and one that does not work. At the beginning they were very reliable but now I would fear to take another one. [Machine back translated.] | |||
