through five pickups and can then be manipulated digitally in the guitar’s built-in computer
to simulate different sizes or shapes of the
same wood—allowing for sounds that would
not otherwise be physically possible. Zoran
says that the nature of the Chameleon Guitar
lends itself to greater freedom to experiment.
Instead of having to buy an entire new guitar
to experience different wood combinations,
players would be able to make a relatively
small investment in a new soundboard. It
would also be possible to take advantage of
the tonal characteristics of pieces of wood that
aren’t large enough to build a full guitar. For
example, Zoran used a wooden beam from a
bridge in Vermont to build a soundboard.
Zoran built the first proof-of-concept version
with instrument builder Marco Coppiardi
last summer, and debuted a more polished
version at the Consumer Electronics Show in
Las Vegas in January ’09. He plans on continuing the guitar’s development as his doctoral thesis project, and hopes to eventually
develop it commercially.
To watch MIT’s video of Zoran
explaining the guitar, plus sound
clips, visit premierguitar.com.
The Chameleon’s frame and electronics without a soundboard in place.
Photo Webb Chappell
For all the latest news
from around the guitar
industry, updated daily,
visit premierguitar.com.
Media Lab student Amit Zoran shows the Chameleon Guitar, along with
a variety of the interchangeable soundboards — made of different woods
and other materials — that can be inserted to alter the guitar's acoustic
characteristics. Photo Webb Chappell
the Carr Raleigh–“when a very big 3-watts is all you need”
Suppose you could own a compact, lightweight,
low-powered 1x10 actually capable of delivering
lush, clean headroom, naturally fat output tube
distortion, plus an overdrive channel with master
volume for those times when rocking the casbah
may not be such a good idea…
Now you can.
The Raleigh is our first single EL- 84 amp, and
being guitar players ourselves, we spent a lot of
time considering what we could bring to a small,
compact new design – like clean ‘blackface’
headroom, thick distortion at even discreet volume
levels, actual bottom end from an Eminence ‘Lil
Buddy hemp cone ten, convenient external bias
points, and your choice of covering colors and
classic hardwood custom panels.
Play a Raleigh today at your Carr dealer or visit
our web site at www.carramps.com for more information on the Raleigh – our new little big amp.
“the little big amp”
919-545-0747 www.carramps.com
