Michael Egger's VideoBass is an instrument that plays moving images instead of sound. With your left hand you chose a video clip on the strings and you trigger it in rhythm with your right hand. The four strings can play up to four different clips at the same time.
This is a guitar amp by renowned steampunk craftsman Jake Von Slatt. The amp started life as a Crate 1215 tube amp, bought on Craigslist. The main cabinet is a 1930's radio rescued from the trash.
You can see this giant amplifier shaped music shop on Commercial road, Southampton. It is based on a Fender Super Champ, and of course the knobs go up to 11. The giant amplifier is inhabited by resident luthier Jamie 'Razor' Goatley and his assistant Wesley. Jamie says that the red jewel light even comes on at night.
Chris Gilmour is a UK born artist currently living in Udine, Italy, who specialises in life size cardboard scupltures of everyday objects. His work includes three full size gibson style guitars: an ES-335, a single cutaway Jazz guitar and a flying V.
Dan Wagoner modified his first guitar (a Fender stratocaster) to include a weird sound generator analogue synth. The synth control knobs protrude from a hand made pick guard made from a motherboard. Three switches have been mounted in the fingerboard. This instrument liberates the synth player, allowing them to assume outrageous poses previously reserved for guitarists.
This giant Flying V style guitar was seen at the New York guitar show. The massive scale length means you can get almost subsonic notes on it. An even bigger guitar was made as a school project at the Academy of Science and Technology, Woodlands, TX. It is over 43 feet long but still playable.
A 9V battery powered practise amplifier housed in a copy of the bible.
The Hoverbucker is a creation of Ronnie Hinton and Daniel Diaz Brauch which started out as a Squier Bullet stratocaster . They took the middle pickup and mounted it over the neck pickup, to give a sound like a humbucker. It is mounted upside down, with the top facing the strings.
Looks like some lost their assembley instructions from Warmoth!
You can buy this if you want for $400.
Between The Notes is an original work by Shannon Couture, an artist and musician from Western Maine.
Its a ukulele amplifier housed in a coconut. Perfect for that Pacific Island vibe.
Mike Shubic worked in marketing for 16 years, then one day he decided to quit the day job to make and sell outdoor sculptures. This giant guitar is one of his creations: it measures 12 feet by 4 feet (although he can make it to any size). It is made from metal, and Mike says it can actually be played. It is still available for sale for $6500.
Tear down those curtains and make me a guitar! Browsing Etsy again I found this one-off electric guitar said to have a strat look and telecaster sound. The unique selling point is the drapery finish: covered in curtains its the 21st century Floral Jem. From the picture it doesn't look like the fabric is sealed: I hope its not dry-clean-only!
The Alumitar was created by Paul Rubenstein. Imagine a guitar neck with no back, the curve of the fretboard going all the way around, now take away the frets and you have the Alumitar. It looks like it is made from an aluminium tube, it has 10 strings evenly spaced around the outside of the tube.
This is the musical equivalent of the Swiss Army Knife (the knife with a blade or tool for every occasion). It is the child of an unnatural coupling between an Ibanez destroyer 2 bass and a Yamaha KX-5 midi controller keyboard during the early 90s (those were crazy times - we all did things we would rather forget).
While attending the NAMM show over the last 10 years, Barry Wood noticed that many unusual products from the small independent companies were stashed away in side rooms and never seen by the mainstream visitor. Every year, like some modern day Indiana Jones, Barry hunts down these treasures in the darkened tunnels of the winter NAMM exhibition.