There are plenty of ways to hack guitar-themed toys into synths and controllers, like this guy with a hacked GH controller.

The Misa Digital Guitar (Kitara) – Image courtesy of misadigital.com

But what’s that to me? I can’t hack electronics at all without causing a fire (yet!) and my knowledge of C++ coding is limited to knowing that a piece of software made with 200 to 300 lines of code is considered “pretty basic and simple”, which scares the living bejeezus out of me. So, for those not willing to  delve into all sorts of weird software or hardware tools and hacks with steep learning curves (although all of us here at Controllerism.com highly recommend it), here’s a list of user-friendly controllers available now or currently being built that are based on the guitar:

Misa Digital Guitar

Sweet Mary mother of Jesus, that thing is gorgeous! The main reason it tops this list, though, is that besides looks (*drool…*) and MIDI output, the Kitara has an internal synth engine, a good number of modes for different playing styles, and it runs on Linux-based open source software! Oh, and that screen? It’s multi-touch.

Misa have also announced a stripped-down version of the Kitara at NAMM 2012: They’ll remove the synth engine and basically turn it into a somewhat more affordable MIDI controller. I can’t wait to see it done!

Starr Labs Clipper

Starr Labs have been, to my knowledge, the only company consistently making MIDI guitars for the past 20 years. Although they’re currently also selling their way more affordable iOS-based iTar guitar controller on their website, my personal favorite is the Clipper (which we’ve written about before), an awesome MIDI controller with RGB LED-lit notes on the fret board. It’s hard to beat that kind of eye candy.

Robocaster

Now, how could a guitar-themed article exist on this website without a mention of the Robocaster, a collaboration between Visionary Instruments and the Godfather of Controllerism? The Robocaster is currently still under development, but watching the above demo, you can definitely hear some of Moldover’s sound quirks and tricks being applied to a guitar sound, even when Moldover himself isn’t playing it. Make no mistake, this isn’t just a controller – it also works as a traditional guitar. But the guts inside and the added functionality that all those buttons and sliders and knobs provide help shape the sound of that guitar beautifully.

You Rock Guitar

The You Rock Guitar (or YRG, as it’s being marketed now) started its journey as a hybrid between a Guitar Hero controller and a toy for learning how to play guitar. The first generation also had a sound engine filled with the General MIDI library that everyone knows and loves (why? because it sound cheesy and awful, but we grew up with it).

The stroke of genius about this first YRG is that they added  MIDI out, so that it became one of the first dirt cheap but decent guitar controllers available. Their success in that direction meant that now we have the more ‘professional’ version of the YRG gen2, being marketed towards more serious musicians. Price and functionality-wise, this one really does rock.

Jamstik

Currently being crowd-funded on Indiegogo, the Jamstick is a nice little controller aimed at the iOS crowd, and although the only good demo video (drums being played on guitar strings, yay!) that I’ve seen so far involves using an iPad, I don’t see any reason why this couldn’t be easily adapted to send MIDI to any other software running on any other platform.

Artiphon Instrument 1

We’ve also written about this one weeks before its release. Although it’s not technically guitar-shaped, the guitar-style note layout and the fact that it allows you to strum notes make it worth mentioning in this context. Also, it’s made out of wood, and looks pretty cool.  So if you have an iPhone and want to bust out some quick jams on the go, check it out.

Gtar

Finally, a guitar with an easy mode! There’s nothing more I can say about this, except that it looks like fun, and it’s also based around the iPhone.

It seems that whatever your the level of musicianship and experience, there’s a guitar-shaped controller out there for anyone, be it tool or toy, and neither of them have to be hacked to function musically – although I’d love to see some hacked versions of these – what wondrous functionality and fun can be achieved with these beyond their intended purpose? If you know something new about this, let us know in the comments.