If you’re a parent and you`d like to try and inspire the young ones to develop an interest in the guitar then the Yamaha EZAG stringless guitar might be just what you need!

IF the kids are hyped out of their minds on sugar, guitar hero or rock band then the Yamaha EZAG guitar might be the next step upon the ladder towards beginning playing a real guitar. It’s not just for kids though this is a serious learning machine and at a the RIDICULOUS price of $220 U.S. it`s within reach of most of us!

I think we`ll be seeing alot more of this kind of guitar controller in the future perhaps?
After all flicking a switch ain’t strumming a string is it? I`d be jamming out on GUITAR HERO alot more if it was tailored more towards the real guitar experience.

This futuristic self-teaching guitar with Guide Lights means no sore fingers, no tuning required and no broken strings – and you play along with the built-in band from the first day you pick it up! The EZ-AG is a new musical instrument that provides all the fun and excitement of a guitar without the sore fingers, broken strings, poor tuning and tedious exercises. Now, anyone, of any age, can learn chords and strumming by following lights.

It features 6 lighted frets that show beginners the actual hand positions for chords, plus six “strings” that emulate strumming or finger-picking.  The onboard selection of songs can be expanded via the Web – songs can be downloaded into the guitar’s Flash ROM and a quick connection to a computer.

You’re literally playing in minutes. And, as easy and fun as the EZ-AG is – you’re really learning to play and you can plug the EZ-AG into a standard guitar amplifier, or use the mini-headphone jack for private practice.

Cheers,

Jake Edwards

Sustainability, in a broad sense, is the capacity to endure. It can be defined as the ability of an ecosystem to maintain ecological processes, functions, biodiversity and productivity into the future. In ecology, the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time.

Sustainable maintenance of the natural world and the responsible use of natural resources is a defining issue of our time.

In musical terms sustain is the duration of a sound before it becomes inaudible.

Guitars have a lot of sustain, which is one reason for their rich sound and tone. Rosewood, maple, mahogany, ebony and spruce, are some of the more popular tonewoods because they are workable as well as durable and beautiful.

Unfortunately it has become highly important for the guitar manufacturing industry as a whole to consider preserving the trees from which guitars are made so that they do not become irrevocably lost.

Bob Taylor, cofounder and president of Taylor Guitars, says it’s a simple function of    “More people, more goods and a higher rate of harvest than regrowth.” And, he says, “We need good, quality wood.”

Gibson, Fender, Martin, Taylor and Yamaha have put their best foot forward though and joined forces with Greenpeace to create the MUSIC WOOD COALITION:

The Greenpeace Music Wood Campaign is partnering with the music industry to protect threatened forest habitats and safeguard the future of the trees critical to making musical instruments.

There are several eco-friendly guitar makers so there is no EXCUSE anymore for destroying the environment for the sake of tone! THe Mada guitars below are some of the most beautiful guitar-art-objects I have ever seen.

Simon Lee Cyclotrons

High Quality, hand made, sustainable guitars and basses, using environmentally sound processes and materials where possible. Explore each style, each has its own unique tone and feel. Full specifications are listed on each page. Full and partial customisation of styles and body material and pickups are available upon request.

First Act Eco guitars

The Bambusa guitar’s body and neck are constructed of bamboo, one of the fastest growing plants in the world, and an uncommonly renewable resource. In its processed state, bamboo is harder than maple, making it a supreme-sounding and killer-looking substitute for high quality tonewoods. The guitar also has a water-based natural matte finish, and uses food safe glue.

“It’s a guitar you can rock out with, and feel good about playing. It feels so good, like you’ve played it a thousand times, but it has a ‘sizzle’ to it’s tone that you’re hearing for the first time.” says Craig Small, Director of Product Development.

Zero Impact Guitars

Zero Impact Guitars’ lovingly hand-crafted eco-Axe body is made from SmartWood FSC-certified Alder, the neck is moses graphite and the bridge is made from recycled steel.

Mada Guitars

The MADA caimes body is an organically shaped semi-acoustic electric guitar body made of hemp pulp and is not carved or milled like traditional guitars. Design has revolutionized the production technique. One form without any linings or bracings. With its edge-less organic shape, MADA develops an unmistakable, wonderful sharp and organic sound.  Why hemp? The permanent transition from impact sound into airborne sound is essential to the sound. Thats how resonances are formed. This makes Hempstone® the perfect 3 dimensional molding material for music instruments. The material consists of 100 % hemp fibres and contains no plastics, which would close these resonance-gaps.

Flaxwood guitars

We’re open to any technology (ancient, medieval or new) that can help us make a great guitar.

What sets Flaxwood apart from many other great guitar producers is that we don’t limit our options; the phrase “…because that’s the way guitars have always been built” is constantly questioned at Flaxwood. Is there a better way to do things? Do the new technologies now available have something to offer that we are unaware of?

Yes, we’re irreverent, we’re curious, we’re open-minded, and innovative technology does not spook us. But we don’t love innovative technology for its own sake; we only use technology that delivers, that helps us get closer to that tone and that feel we crave for. If technology does not deliver, we stick to time-tested solutions.

As much as we love wood, we wondered whether wood could be made more resonant, more uniform, and more stable.
In the process, using spruce as our base material, we created a completely new high-end tonewood in its own right – flaxwood. This wonderful material gave us a combination of properties that we were unable to find in traditional woods, and this material is at the heart of the wonderful vintage Flaxwood tone. And yes, it really is probably the most environmentally friendly tonewood available today.

Cheers,

Jake Edwards

As a user of a bucketload of effects at the start of the nineties (zoom 9050 + 8050 controller) I`d be hard pushed to describe myself as a hardcore traditionalist – certainly not a Luddite although certain aspects of my approach to the guitar are traditional. I like great sounding amps, stratocasters and using my hands to play.

In 2003 Gibson were the first musical-instrument maker to release an electric guitar with a digitizing microprocessor and circuit board built right in. Of late they`ve come up with the Dark Fire which although comes equipped with a humbucker, a single-coil and a bridge-mounted piezo acoustic pickup is DIGITAL through and through. The Chameleon Tone Technology claims to emulate every single guitar sound of worth ever, comes with a firewire connector and a midi adaptable hex connector too, a robot interface pack and Ableton Live 7 plus Guitar Rig III.

Have alook at the following electronic hybrids, controllers and synth axes if  you`re interested in where the Dark Fire`s genealogy really rests: Roland GR-500, Yamaha G10`s, Starr Labs Ztar, or the Synth Axe. Maybe Alvin Lee could see this coming when he put a robot on the cover of his album RX5.

Gibson have stepped up to the plate and brought the magnificent Dark Fire to life taking guitar straight into the future.

The exclusive Gibson version of Ableton Live software  dubbed Ableton Live 7 Gibson Studio Edition ? provides Dark Fire owners with the ability to record, play loops and perform every other function needed to play in any live or studio setting. Enjoy the benefits of using the same virtual studio software and stage solution package already used by hundreds of touring professionals all around the world.

Guitar Rig 3 features 12 supreme-sounding guitar and bass amps, new matched cabinet module, a total of 18 guitar and six bass cabinets, four rotary speakers and nine microphones and an integrated tuner, metronome and two tapedeck modules for easy recording.

Here is a fantastic review from Guitar World – you`ll be suitably impressed with this machine for sure, it’s a killer!

Here`s a link to New Zealands The Trons, where meccano meets metal and the Crazy J guitar playing machine, both pictured above. Sooner or later  I`ll have a look at why some people say that analogue sound is standing beneath a waterfall and digital sound is throwing ice cubes into a steel bucket!!