The Infinite Guitar is a modified
electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...
created by
Michael Brook
Michael Brook (born 1951) is a Canadian guitarist, inventor, music producer, and film music composer. He plays in many genres, including rock, electronica, world music, minimalism and film scores. His collaborations with musicians around the worl ...
, as a way of allowing a note to be held with infinite
sustain. It consists of an electronic circuit that takes the signal from a standard guitar pickup, amplifies it, and feeds it back into a separate pickup coil. When set up and used correctly, the result is a continuous sustained note that can be used as is, or treated to create new sounds or emulate traditional instruments.
In addition to his own instrument, based on a
Tokai Stratocaster
The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of double- cutaway electric guitar designed between 1952 and 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporati ...
copy, Brook produced two other Infinite Guitars. One belongs to
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Roland Lanois ( , ; born September 19, 1951) is a Canadian record producer and musician.
He has produced albums by artists including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Robbie Robertson, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and Harold Budd ...
, and the other belongs to
the Edge
David Howell Evans (born 8 August 1961), better known as the Edge or simply Edge,McCormick (2006), pp. 21, 23–24 is a British-Irish musician, singer, and songwriter. He is best known as the lead guitarist, keyboardist, and backing vocalist o ...
of
U2, who used it to record "
With or Without You" from 1987's ''
The Joshua Tree
''The Joshua Tree'' is the fifth studio album by the Irish rock music, rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 9 March 1987 by Island Records. In contrast to the ambient music, ambient experimentati ...
''.
The principle has been the subject of patent litigation in the past, and is (or was) available commercially in several forms, including the
Kramer Floyd Rose Sustainer, the
Sustainiac, the
Fernandes Sustainer, the
Guitar Resonator and the
Moog Guitar.
Additionally, it has been suggested that Brook was inspired by the Holland Infinite Sustain Guitar introduced prior to his design. In 1978, guitarist
Randy Roos and Steve Holland modified an SG guitar with a stainless steel fingerboard and infinite sustain device. The sustain device was patented by Steve Holland. The guitar can be heard on Randy Roos' recording "Mistral" which features Roos,
Tony Levin
Anthony Frederick Levin (born June 6, 1946) is an American musician and composer specializing in electric bass guitars, Chapman Stick and upright bass. He also sings and plays synthesizer. Levin is best known for his work with King Crimson (19 ...
and
Mike Stern, among others. Similarly, musician and producer
Jim O'Rourke has suggested that the concept did not originate with Brook, who simply refined previous similar designs by others.
[As quoted in "The Dirty 30", ''Guitar Player'', January 1997]
See also
*
EBow
The EBow is an electronic device used for playing string instruments, most often the electric guitar. It was invented by the American guitarist Greg Heet in 1969 and introduced in 1976. The EBow uses a pickup and a magnetic feedback circuit to ...
*
The Gizmo
References
External links
1995 Interviewwith Brook, i
Sound On Soundmagazine, including a sidebar of Brook's guitar setup.
Guitar parts and accessories
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