As we've already seen from the beautifully intricate instruments of Olaf Diegel, 3D printing can liberate traditional form factors into the realms of the incredible. The 3D-printed Hybrid Slide Guitar from Florida-based MONAD Studio pushes the creative envelope even further with a twin-horned beauty designed to form part of a sonic wall installation that serves as both a visual backdrop for musicians and an instrument rack.
The 3D-printed Hybrid Slide Guitar is the brainchild of Eric Goldemberg and Veronica Zalcberg, in collaboration with Scott F Hall, Associate Professor of Art at the University of Central Florida. The oversized baritone guitar is described as "a marriage of the older form luthier handcarved wooden electric guitar neck, fingerboard, and analog electronics technology with new digital form creation in 3D software and 3D printing."
As with Diegel's guitars, the body of the instrument is 3D-printed and is bolted to a fretless wooden neck sporting white dots marks along the upper edge at the 3, 4, 7, 9 and 12 fret positions. A Telecaster-style bridge and single coil pickup are installed on the part of the neck that flows through to the main body, with chrome tuning heads topping out the covered headstock at the other end.
"Compared to the other MONAD stringed instruments, this one tries least to take players out of the comfort zone – I can easily play a lot of 70s hard rock rhythm guitar standard hits on it, for example," revealed Goldemberg. "Still, fretlessness does move players over into ambient soundscape experimentation with plucked slide and harmonic notes through effects, looping delay, and a combo amp."
The 3D-printed Hybrid Slide Guitar was designed to form part of the Studio's 5 x 2 m (16.4 x 6.6 ft) Multi installation, which was originally made up of five 3D-printed instruments – the hornucopian dronepipe, a two-string violin, a one string electric bass called the monobaribasitar, a one string monovioloncello and a didgeridoo.
You can see and hear the 3D-printed hybrid slide guitar, which is normally played using a glass slide, in the video below.
Source: MONAD Studio
