By Curtis Soloff, AJ Berry, and Max Berman

MU 3910 Musical Robotics, B-2024

Electromagnets can excite metallic strings, including those on guitars and pianos, causing them to vibrate continuously. This has been used for several projects and commercial products to create unique sounds and ways of playing. However, they are all limited, either in the number of strings or the selection of specific ones to be excited; or in form factor. The EM Guitar solves these limitations by combining an input system, individual electromagnets for each string, and a power source into a single, self-contained package. Multiple strings and individual strings can be excited. The EM Guitar offers a complete package that allows for new methods of playing with its infinitely sustaining notes while still retaining the ability to be played in traditional ways.

The guitar is controlled with a combination of string and fret selection. Pressing one of the pads on the guitar’s body will excite that string at the frequency of the fretted note, or with the open frequency if no note is fretted. Multiple strings can be excited simultaneously, although they can only be fretted in certain patterns due to coding limitations. These patterns could be changed, but there will always be limitations due to the EM Guitar’s inability to detect what string a fret is being pressed at.