There was a wave of gear innovation that broke across the 80’s music scene and deeply influenced the sound of that era. Electronic drum kits, samplers, synthesizers and MIDI were inventions either born or cradled in that decade, and were useful enough to stick around. But much like 80’s neon chic, most of the novelty music tech didn’t make it out of that decade. Although Steinberger-styled headless guitars have made a triumphant return in recent years, some cool pieces of gear have been lost to the ages. Some cool gear, like the SynthAxe.
I’m a sucker for vaporwave aesthetics and artifacts of 80’s futurism. The SynthAxe and this gear demo are shining examples of both (skip to 11:30 for #aesthetic dolphins). Check it out.
No 80’s guitar video is complete without a softly spoken, mullet wielding, fusion virtuoso. Nor is it a true piece 80’s gear unless it’s an awkwardly shaped, boldly colored, wedge of aerospace material. And at an RRP of over $10,000 when it was in production, you’d want to hope the SynthAxe was made of aerospace material.
As far as shape goes, the SynthAxe appears to resemble a robot’s cock-and-balls (not sure if that’s what they were going for?). While it does look stupid, it actually has some really interesting features. I’m not aware of any other MIDI guitars that utilized actual strings, for fretting with and modifying MIDI on the neck. And it has so many buttons and functions that it’s like the instrument of a one-man-band, from a faraway sci-fi dystopia.
The functionality attracted legendary players like Allan Holdsworth, who recorded a bunch of material on the thing. But it was far too expensive/weird for a wider market, and the SynthAxe went out of production by the late 1980’s.
Do you have a MIDI guitar that you write/record with? Which modern ones are good? Are you a Synthwave artist that would totally shred one of these? Talk to me in the comments.
JOHN / July 10, 2018 12:11 am
“No 80’s guitar video is complete without a softly spoken, mullet wielding, fusion virtuoso.”
LOL I remember seeing Lee Ritenour pull this contraption out at a gig around 1986, and I immediately thought it was simply a self-indulgent, dumb-looking thing. But that was the 80s…everything to excess…you coudn’t have enough toys…Guys like Pat Metheny were touring with $100k Synclaviers, that was $100k in 1984 money….imagine what that figure would be adjusted for inflation in 2018. Things went too far in those days with this stuff. I personally used to play a Roland guitar synth system, the GR300 blue box. Loved it at the time (1985-89), though I wouldn’t want to use it nowadays.
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