This is a photo of a rather unusual device that attaches to any acoustic guitar having a standard sound hole. It transforms the guitar into a system capable of Acoustic Synthesis™. It’s the result of a personal R&D project I’ve been working on since 2009. This work, which I conducted with my own resources and with important background support from Moog Music, has evolved into the Vo-96 Acoustic Synthesizer™. This device is now being independently manufactured and marketed by my own design company VoInventions LLC.

We’ve had a successful launch through Kickstarter and we’ve continued taking commissions, though the initial 100 units are almost all spoken for. These first Vo-96 Acoustic Synthesizers are being built now, soon to be delivered into the hands of a select group of daring musicians who want to experience this new form of synthesis and help define a truly radical step forward in music technology!

With Acoustic Synthesis™ any acoustic musical instrument – any object that makes a sound – can be enhanced to bring out its hidden acoustic voice. Think also of potential new instruments – playable objects of acoustic art.

So far I’ve worked mostly with vibrating strings. The musical instrument string is arguably the most ubiquitous means of making music. It’s also the most difficult to vibrate coherently using electronic control. One idea I had back in 1979 turned out to be a great solution. I was amazed to find it was still unknown and patentable 20 years later.

Bob Moog’s pioneering work sparked the wider use of electronic music technologies. Musicians have gradually over the decades accepted and become familiar with using synthesizers to create and explore an endless variety of sounds electronically. I’m saying we are now beginning to extend this idea into the physical realm. We can make the virtual become real. We can artistically create new sounds by bringing out modes of vibration that have up to now remained hidden within the material objects we call musical instruments. Through Acoustic Synthesis™ the same sonic exploration is possible for other acoustic instruments and even creative objects of acoustic art that no one has imagined – not just yet anyway.

Analog Synthesis. Digital Synthesis. Acoustic Synthesis™: it isn’t empty hype, this really is a distinctly different and new method of voicing instruments, designing new sounds, and making music.

- Paul Vo