Strandberg has been a trailblazer on headless guitars for a while now, with its ergonomic design, unique neck shape, and fan-fret-capable fixed and trem bridges.
Boss/Roland has been on the leading edge of guitar synthesizers for decades, with its V-Guitar technology.
Blend these two together and you get the V-BDN VG-Strandberg guitar, just announced on September 8, 2017.
It features a Strandberg guitar (customized Boden model) with Strandberg-branded Lace Alumitones for the pickups as well as the Boss/Roland pickup used typically for guitar synth and modified tones. The main integration feature is that the electronics which generate the synth tones as well as modeled analog tones from the Boss pickup are all contained within the guitar.
A multi-position switch provides quick access to all types of modeled humbucking and single-coil guitar pickups, plus bass, electric sitar, and acoustic guitar tones. Five synth voices are available as well, including three variations of Roland’s classic GR-300 Guitar Synthesizer from the 1980s.
There’s also a tuning knob which allows the tunings to be changed (electronically processed using pitch shifting algorithms). Tunings include semitone down, whole-step down, drop D, drop C#, and drop C.
V-Guitar features are powered by four AA-size batteries, with up to nine hours of playing time with high-powered rechargeable Ni-MH batteries (2,600–2,700 mAh).
I think this guitar is definitely for the modern guitarist who needs access to many tones while being ergonomic and portable. It’s an interesting integration, but probably not for everyone. The headless Strandberg is already a guitar that some would say is in left field. Couple that with guitar synth technology which is even farther out of bounds for many, and you get a guitar that is unique, modern, and as far as you can get from vintage. I applaud these two companies for making a modern guitar even more modern, but wonder if the integration of two very unique products makes it too exotic for the mainstream. It’s a limited production anyways, so I guess we’ll have to see what the market reaction is.
