Music Thing: The Tritare
By Tom Whitwell 
posted Jun 9th 2006 5:12PM
posted Jun 9th 2006 5:12PM
Each week Tom Whitwell of Music Thing highlights the best of the new music gear that's coming out, as well as noteworthy vintage equipment:
One of the first columns I ever wrote for Engadget was about Triple Neck Guitars, which are normally played by heavy metal guitarists with curly perms and an enthusiasm for lengthy solos. Now, straight outta the Mathematics department of a Canadian university, comes the Tritare: A guitar with three necks, but only six strings.
Last week, at the Acoustical Society of America's 151st meeting in Providence, RI, Sophie Léger of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Université de Moncton, Canada, presented a paper on "A New Family of Stringed Musical Instruments".
She's one of the inventors of the Tritare. It has triple-ended strings - one string goes up the fretted neck, and the other two resonate on the second, and third, fretless necks (which the guitar is standing on in this picture). You play it roughly like a normal guitar, with the two necks down to your right.
Obviously, the interesting bit is the sound, and this page contains several samples, which are amazing. Presumably they're uneffected, but sound alternately like bells or reverb-covered 'Paris Texas' slide guitar.
The Canadial professors are trying to market the Tritare as a product -- there's a homepage at Tritare.com, but absent are prices or availability. They're also experimenting with networks of strings, which at the moment are more at the clanking and atonal end of things.
Of course, if three necks doesn't sound hardcore enough, you could always build a double body guitar.
One of the first columns I ever wrote for Engadget was about Triple Neck Guitars, which are normally played by heavy metal guitarists with curly perms and an enthusiasm for lengthy solos. Now, straight outta the Mathematics department of a Canadian university, comes the Tritare: A guitar with three necks, but only six strings.
Last week, at the Acoustical Society of America's 151st meeting in Providence, RI, Sophie Léger of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Université de Moncton, Canada, presented a paper on "A New Family of Stringed Musical Instruments".
She's one of the inventors of the Tritare. It has triple-ended strings - one string goes up the fretted neck, and the other two resonate on the second, and third, fretless necks (which the guitar is standing on in this picture). You play it roughly like a normal guitar, with the two necks down to your right.
Obviously, the interesting bit is the sound, and this page contains several samples, which are amazing. Presumably they're uneffected, but sound alternately like bells or reverb-covered 'Paris Texas' slide guitar.
The Canadial professors are trying to market the Tritare as a product -- there's a homepage at Tritare.com, but absent are prices or availability. They're also experimenting with networks of strings, which at the moment are more at the clanking and atonal end of things.
Of course, if three necks doesn't sound hardcore enough, you could always build a double body guitar.
May i be the first to say: wtf? That thing is sooo cool!
Isn't this basically the same kind of idea as a sitar?
As a life long guitar player, who's been in several bands, let me be the first to say that that is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. It is soooo not cool.
Kudos for the Paris, Texas namedrop. But yeah if think you'd probably look like a bit of an doofus playing that.
"who's been in several bands"
Yeah, that'd totally make you the authority on what is, and is not, cool. May I have your home phone number so I can call you and check whether things are cool or not?
The concept may be intellectually intriguing, but those sound samples are god-awful.
A niche product looking for a niche market. I'll admit that I find the sound, and the idea, of the tritare interesting. Undoubtedly, others will as well. But I can't imagine that there is much of a market for the actual instrument. The link to Glenn Baranca is a great example, something like this might fit his sound, but not necessarily his style. Without the style, the sound is undoubtedly easier to achieve using a guitar synth. Still, great idea...and lovely engineering too.
I love it - I can just imagine Jimmy Page playing it :-)
Someone give this thing to David Gilmour, call me back when the album comes out.
Looks to be straight out of the short film "One Man Band" that plays before Pixar's latest, Cars.
I can definitely see Brian Eno or Harold Budd using one of these things in the very near future. I like it's sound.