1985 called. They want their guitar synth back. What could be more wonderful than Starr Labs, a tiny little company based in San Diego who have been producing weird, semi-one-off guitar MIDI controllers in the long defunkt line of the Synthaxe, and Stepp DG1 for decades? Their Ztar guitars have buttons/keys along the neck, touch sensitive strings you can strum, and a few other buttons and controllers. Most interestingly, the buttons on the neck are polyphonic, so you can play multiple notes on one 'string', which must make for a bit of mental adjustment for most guitarists. Starr Labs just put out a press release about their new model Z7-S, which looks like a Steinberger and seems pretty much the same as all the others, including this previous post. It costs $1,495. Of course, for $1,300 less you could buy a Yamaha EZ-AG teaching guitar, which works in a similar way, and - according to one review - is "easy to wipe clean"...
Posted by Tom Whitwell.
Comments:
Starr Labs Guitars may have a very limited audience, but they are pretty neat and all of the gear I have seen come out of Starr Labs (including some custom stuff made for us) was really nicely built. Glad they are going strong. -Vance
I never knew about the Yamaha EZ-AG "guitar"... It does seem to have MIDI in/out -- looks like a totally fun controller. But then, I like keytars, too...
Starr's other controllers are more ergonomic, maybe, but I like this shape and hope to have one somday, or at least try one out. Every thing I"ve heard from Starr owners had been good reviews.
the ez-ag is great. search kvr for a 80 page thread on it, as well as pc-midi software to make it easier still. apparently yamaha have just stopped making them, so they're getting hard to find.
I've had a Ztar for ten years. They are excellent. What other guitar-style instrument allows you to play above and below the nut (not that that's the main reason for getting one).