News: Kickstarter ipad guitar

Time to back a new type of guitar? http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/starrlabs/itar-turn-your-ipad-into-a-guitar?ref=category





Our project is designed for musicians, guitar heroes, electronic artists, iPad junkies and hackers looking for a fun and easy way to take their show on the road. At it's heart the device is a button-based guitar fretboard (Starr Labs patented fingerboard) integrated with a dock for the iPad which will transform the tablet into a 21st century musical instrument we call the iTar (tm).

Our fingerboard has been battle-tested and proven for years to be a professional-quality electronic music instrument. We've built custom instruments for the likes of Vernon Reid (of the endlessly awesome Living Color), the Chemical Brothers, Pendulum, Linkin Park, Lou Reed, Kesha, Michael Jackson, Stanley Jordan, and many TV/film studios. Check out the gallery at www.starrlabs.com to see the high quality instruments we've been building around this impressive technology for years. Our line of Ztars and Z-boards are each custom built by hand, from scratch.

By mass-producing the fingerboard and linking it to everyone’s favorite music player/tablet we are making this professional grade equipment affordable and available to a much wider audience. One of the coolest features is that the iPad's touchscreen interface will allow you to strum a guitar, tap on keys, bang on the drums, shake the maraca and more. You will literally have a full band at your fingertips. Imagine you start by looping your drum pattern, then you play over that with a bass-line, now bring in a little soulful trumpet and back that up with some piano. Nice. Or, you can set up some beats or samples, modify and jam over them with wild abandon. A DJ's dream!



The possibilities are truly endless.

Other Applications:
We have primarily focused on the musical performance side of things because that's who we are. However, we realize that there are a number of application areas that will benefit from this technology beyond our passion for playing; guitar education, music-mixing software, jamming over the Internet, and interactive gaming come to mind. We can also envision podcasters, studio techs, and amateur film makers using it as a soundboard/lighting controller. The iTar will come with it's own proprietary music app for strumming and using the whammy bar, as well as letting you set up the fingerboard for your own special uses. We eagerly invite developers and software gurus to contact us about creating their own applications. Anybody with a great idea about other uses should email us too!

The Pitch:
We honestly could not be more excited to introduce this new technology to the world, but there is one major hurdle for a small shop like ours and that is funding. Building one-off custom projects like our Ztars and Z-boards is no problem in our little shop, and though we are now building the prototype iTar, sadly we don't have the capacity or the money to jump into high-volume production on this project. That's why we need your help. With your pledge we can gather the funding to produce the electronics for the neck and the rest of the docking assembly, and setup the injection-molded plastic for the enclosure. You are our Obi Wan. You are our only hope.

ADDITIONAL NOTE TO INTERNATIONAL BACKERS: If you are outside the United States we would really appreciate an additional $10 (USD) added to your pledge for any reward level above $1 this is to help us cover international shipping fees. Thanks friend.

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