Micro-frets Orbiter - the first wireless guitar?

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Ralph Jones founded Micro-Frets Inc in Maryland in the 1960s. Coming from an engineering background he was an enthusiastic inventor and incorporated several innovations into the company's guitar designs. One such innovation was the "Micro-nut" which allowed for perfect intonation at both ends of the strings. This was DECADES before anyone had ever heard the names Earvana or Buzz Feiten.

This particular guitar currently being offered for sale on eBay, the Micro-Frets Orbiter, is one of the more eye-catching designs. It dates from 1970 and was designed to be wireless. It would originally have had a radio transmitter fitted into the extended upper body horn.

Other interesting features are the discreet volume and tone controls hidden between the two-layer pickguard, and Micro-Frets' own vibrato, the "Calibrato", which was designed to keep the strings in tune whilst the pitch was being altered.

G L Wilson

Additional: I just want to include this photo before the auction ends and the pictures are lost forever. This shows the upper horn of the guitar and the recess into which the radio transmitter would have been installed. GLWilson

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Duff McKagan Fender P-bass / snowboard hybrid!

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Here's an email from JPM:

Longtime Guitarz reader, it's an amazing blog.

Anyways, I don't know if you're aware of this or not but I just saw on YouTube a snowboard company that build a snowboard out of a Duff McKagan Fender P-bass that is both playable and rideable - its pretty crazy. They even have footage of it being ridden accompanied with a sound from the pickups that they hooked up to a wireless rig.

Check it out, I figured you'd appreciate something like this.

Hey, thanks for that JPM. We've seen a few guitars already made out of pieces of sporting equipment (cricket bat guitar, tennis racquet guitar, even a guitar made from a boat oar) so I guess it figured sooner or later we were going to get a guitar convered into a piece of sporting equipment instead!

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Apologies...

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...for the sparsity of recent updates. I've been having some major computer problems over the last couple of weeks but hopefully will at last be getting my laptop sorted out this weekend. The problem after that will be to get the wireless router to function properly - that's also been a major headache.

On top of all this I've been looking for work. Note to any publishers or magazine editors out there: Yes, I am available for any writing commissions. I have recently completed work on a book about guitars which will be published in December and am available to do further work like this, be it books, magazine articles, or whatever.

G L Wilson

NB: There are a lot of blogs STEALING content and bandwidth. If you read this anywhere else but on guitarz.blogspot.com then you are reading a blog that STEALS content. Please support original bloggers!

Guitar George is cycling on ice

Here is a bizarre news story about 18-year old George Britcher who has been alarming patrons of his local ice rink in Norfolk with his party piece which consists of riding his unicycle on the ice and playing guitar at the same time.

I'm assuming he uses a wireless connection to his amp as a guitar lead trailing behind him would surely make this feat even more hazardous!

Rob O Reilly Guitars - innovative electric and MIDI guitar from Ireland

guitarz.blogspot.com:

No-one could accuse Ireland's Rob O Reilly Guitars of pointlessly churning out the same old tried and tested guitar designs that we've all seen before. Instead they've gone for cutting edge innovation and originality with their guitar designs, the ROR BE and MIDI guitars.

Their latest model is a variant of their BE guitar and is is equipped with built-in Fishman TriplePlay wireless MIDI controller.

The standard guitar features a high grade maple fingerboard with ultra-tough white lacquer and non-chip binding and black edge fingerboard position dots; Maple bolt-on neck with smooth easy-slide matt black finish; 6 rear locking die-cast tuners for quick string change and stable tuning.  Most notably, the middle section of each guitar where the pickups and bridge are mounted is made from see-through perspex. A second perspex plate on rear of the guitar allows the owner to customise the guitar by inserting their own artwork. Upgrade options include an Apple iOS interface to allows the guitar to be played through an iPhone or iPad, and an "Infinity Mirror" which is essentially a cool lighting effect with LEDs inside the perspex sandwich of the body.

Other features include an integrated pick holder and a balance bar to ensure the guitar hangs nicely on a strap and doesn't neck dive.

It does look very cool even if it is reminiscent of half a pair of spectacles. I am also reminded of the Swinger Tennis Racket Guitars which also featured wooden bodies with a perspex centre section.

Furthermore these innovative guitars are affordable with the basic BE model priced at €399 and the Roland GK-3-equipped MIDI guitar at €599.

A bass model is also in the works!

G L Wilson

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