• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.119-126
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• 2009

This paper describes the non-stringed guitar composed of laser strings, frets, sound synthesis algorithm and a processor. The laser strings that can depict stroke and playing arpeggios comprise laser modules and photo diodes. Frets are implemented by voltage divider. The guitar body does not need to implement physically because commuted waveguide synthesis is used. The proposed frets enable; players to represent all of chords by the chord glove as well as guitar solo. Sliding, hammering-on and pulling-off sounds are synthesized by using parameters from the voltage divider. Because the pitch shifting corresponds to the time-varying propagation speed in the digital waveguide model, the proposed model can synthesize vibrato as well. After transformation of signals from the laser strings and frets into parameters for synthesis algorithm, the digital signal processor, TMS320F2812, performs the real-time synthesis algorithm and communicates with the DAC. The demonstration movieclip available via the Internet shows one to play a song, 'Arirang', synthesized by proposed algorithm and interfaces in real-time. Consequently, we can conclude that the proposed synthesis algorithm is efficient in guitar solo and there is no problem to play the non-stringed guitar in real-time.