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Moog Guitar: Has The Guitar Finally Beaten The Violin?
Posted on Wednesday, August 19 @ 02:35:11 CDT by admin
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Andres Segovia had once remarked that the guitar is a small orchestra with each string being each voice with its own distinct character. This remark had been one of the most memorable praises bestowed upon the guitar. The fact is, however, from an acoustic standpoint, the violin remained supreme in its explosiveness and expression. In a sort of one-on-one match so to speak, the violin will beat the classical guitar in sheer volume and articulation with its singing tone.
Despite centuries of dominance alongside the piano, the 1930s saw the arrival of the violin's rival, the electric guitar. Standing up to the power of the big band, the electric guitar cut its teeth without the need for the orchestra to quiet down too much. Decades later effects and signal modifiers along with continuous innovation of its components led to its modern incarnations, and finally the Moog Guitar emerged.
As with the history of famous musical instruments, the violin underwent centuries of development that culminated in the modern form we see today. In a similar yet faster degree of only the last seven to eight decades, the electric guitar went from being the resonators and simple amplified arch top guitars to the postmodern variations we see today, one of them the Moog Guitar. The Moog Guitar's features that exhibit unparalleled control of sustain and decay and mastery over tonal color leads to new techniques that no single violin can duplicate.
Key features in the Moog Guitar redefine the perception of the guitar. Two sustain modes, full sustain and controlled sustain, lend to new techniques. Full sustain is the realization of Andres Segovia's typification of the guitar as orchestra. While using both hands to manipulate the fretboard is no longer new, full sustain enables the user to play multiple parts with both hands with the singing tone of the orchestra. No longer is the electric guitarist confronted with the problem of decay as the Moog Guitar can effortlessly deliver energy to the strings like having a clavichord that can sound on like an organ as long as you want. Controlled sustain takes away the concerns of crosstalk and muting strings as a guitarist can play on with unabashed virtuosity without worry. Mute mode gives that timbral variation of a short decay which sounds like no other electric guitar. The complex circuitry behind the sustain and mute functions gives unparalleled control that no other existing sustainer system can make at the present time.
The fundamental and harmonic frequencies can be controlled well by the Moog Guitar via the harmonic blend function and the Moog filter. Harmonic blend allows for transfer of power from the bridge to the neck pickup and vice versa allowing for control over how harmonics affect the overall output. The famous Moog ladder filter adds that finishing touch. Some may even say it's overrated, but like it or not the Moog filter's "flaws" are capable of giving the overall sound warmth and a degree of expression unique only to Moog instruments and the one that try to emulate them.
Given such features, electric guitarists can develop new techniques that make them standout like orchestras. Add to that a host of effects and various amplification options that have a palette of characters, the amount of timbral variation and expression you get from the Moog Guitar will be limited only by your imagination.
Can an acoustic or electric violin match all of that? We'll have to see in later years, but for this period of time it seems to me that the Moog Guitar outclasses the violin. The only thing the violin definitely beats the Moog Guitar at is the fact that it can create sound without electricity. If there be one day that Moog technology could be applied to the acoustic guitar without the aid of electricity, then the day that it happens will settle the score.
P.S. If you decide that a guitar is better than the violin since popular anecdotal opinion suggests that guitarists are sexier (and get the girls more often) than violinists, that's another thing altogether that's not in focus here. Might I remind you for that matter that Niccolo Paganini (who played both violin and guitar) was the "rock star" of his age.
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