All mechanical parts of the Circle Guitar are housed in a single 3D-printed unit, according to Guitar world. Plectrums slotted in the rotating motor can play up to 250bpm (beats per minute). There are 128 slots for picks, and you can program your own streaming pattern that can sync with a DAW. As such, the Circle Guitar could theoretically strum the strings 32,000 times per minute. Even someone who can play ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ at 1,600 bpm can’t do that for every continuous length of time.
Given the way the engine works, you would imagine that the guitar would only be good for chords that use all six strings. That is not quite the case. There is a hexaphonic pickup and each string has its own output. The body of the guitar has six switches and knobs that can dampen individual strings. That’s a clever idea, that the Circle Guitar provides more utility than it would otherwise have.
Best of all, the Circle Guitar sounds cool. Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien was impressed when he had to try. There is no word on if you can buy one, but you can join an email list if you are interested.
