Hardware Hackers: Zoybar

ZOYBAR MASHUP GUITAR

Ziv Bar Ilan, the creator of the Zoybar Mashup Guitar explains why he came up with the concept and his expectations for future hacks.




 

Guitar players tend to be conservative people when it comes to innovation. The classic Fender models still are bestsellers and they didn't change for half a century! Will Zoybar change that attitude?

"We have much respect for conventional guitars and we have no intention to replicate their exact sound. However it is a very expensive and frustrating process to experiment with conventional instruments. The conversation over Zoybar should not be on how close it is to the original, but rather on how far it could go and evolve from it. We are proud to say that even without any mashup with sound effect controllers the Zoybar instruments sounds great."

Can we mount a Laptop?

"The short answer is hell yeah!
The great thing about Zoybar is that you don’t necessarily need to hack your hardware to mashup it with Zoybar. If you'd change your mind or have another idea you could just rearrange or replace component. Since the moment Zoybar was officially launched (February 2009), users have started to upload several modifications and upgrade options. Some of these instruments can already be seen at our video gallery. As more developers will join the community more are foreseen."

Zoybar estimates that the concept will give birth to hundreds of new music instruments in the years to come that would have not been produced under the terms of conventional business models. As an independent developer you can use the Zoybar hardware platform to integrate your application and become relevant to the Zoybar community. Machinehead? Go make that laptop guitar .... or should we say guitar laptop ;)

  Zoybar.net

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