Paul Vo is cooking another innovative guitar gear, the Vo Wand, an innovative handheld controller that manipulates string vibrations to produce synth like guitar sounds.
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Behaving like a sustainer or e-bow on steriods, the Vo Wand utilizes the same acoustic synthesis technology that was used in the Vo 96 guitar, which impressed guitarists, inventors and other musicians world over.
The technology behind this invention is called “acoustic synthesis”, it utilizes electro-magnetism to control the amplitude of the harmonics of vibrating guitar strings. By controlling the harmonics and vibration of the strings, the Vo 96 serves as both a sustainer and a pseudo synth effect that applies the effect directly on to the physical strings. Obviously, this innovative invention has captured the interest of many world over.
The Vo 96 had a successful Kickstarter campaign, thanks to its unique ability to turn acoustic guitars into synthesizers. At the recently concluded 2015 NAMM Show, it is no surprise that Paul Vo’s booth was widely visited and talked about. The primary reason for this is his impressive invention called the Vo 96, which literally transforms the acoustic guitar into a totally new instrument that is capable of producing an expanded range of sounds.
Now this same technology is stripped down and miniaturized into the Vo Wand, allowing for single note application of the technology without doing any modification to your instrument. Paul himself demoed the wand at the conference, to the amazement of the media, artists, and merchants that were able to get a glimpse of the produce in action.
Check out one of Paul Vo’s demos at the 2015 NAMM Show, where he showcased a prototype of the Vo Wand:
The operation of the Vo Wand is very similar to the E-bow, but it does more than just sustain, allowing synthesizer-like expressive tone shaping. This handheld synth and sustainer is equipped with pressure sensitive control, giving you the ability to precisely adjust the Wand’s magnetic energy. As you exert more pressure on the wand, the energy increases which then progressively increases the string’s harmonic frequency and sustain.
The Morphic mode is another cool feature of this wand that adds expressive control over the resulting sound. When this is engaged, moving the wand across the strings will modulate the harmonics, while staying still will result in a steady sustain. Finally, the Vo Wand has a Haptic Switch that gives you tactile feedback of how close the wand is to your string.
The Vo Wand is currently still under development, Paul used a prototype in his demos, and that one was actually just built early this year. Although no specific availability date was mentioned, the inventor did point out that it should be available for pre-order soon, with a retail price of about $200. More information about the Vo Wand will soon be available at Paul Vo Music.
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