Hi guy's,

This may sound like a daft question but i'm trying top find the name of an synth type instrument used in the 60's/70's era. Basically it looked like a type of synth but with a series of strings and the player wore a ring of metal upon their finger and moved it along the strings to obviously acheive higher and lower pitch sounds. When played it gave what be described as a ghost or high pitch sound, its used quite a lot in the album 'Moon safari' by 'Air', especially in the track 'kelly watch the stars' and i think the beach boys used it quite a lot too.
It is really bugging me because most people know what i'm talking about but cannot name it, can any one help me?

Please email me at:- Castleford@btinternet.com

by your description, I believe the instrument is a

Onde-Martenot

from the 1920s

[This message has been edited by Soft Machine (edited 12-06-2002).]

a harp.

Live ive seen the The beach boys use
ribbon controller

and AIR used a Theremin

Cheer's guy's i'll have a look!!

But a harp it is not, that doesnt give the sound i mentioned matey! haha...

Yeah, but at least it has a set of strings and if you move your fingers along the strings you'll achieve higher and lower pitched sounds!

"Basically it looked like a type of synth but with a series of strings and the player wore a ring of metal upon their finger and moved it along the strings to obviously acheive higher and lower pitch sounds".
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A typical synth doesn't have a string. Based on your description it looks like it's a slide guitar. Like the one that Don Felder (EAGLES) used in many of their songs

I already told the answer

it's a "Onde Martenot"

the guy said a RING, not a bottle-neck

and besides, how can it be a guitar if it has a Keyboard Danb??

What keyboard? Nobody mentioned any keyboard and I doubt the Beach Boys used the Ondes Mertenot.

-tek

Hey Soft, I'm talking about pedal steel guitar. Some people thought it's a kind of synth and not a guitar. Obviously, Andy didn't mentioned the word "keyboard" on his post.

The Beach boys used the Theremin which use electromagnetic feilds to control pitch with one hand and amplitude with the other. The synth engine was a bunch of tubes capable of spitting out some simple wave shapes. How ever in the video for Good Vibrations, the dude is playing a Ribbon controller. This would work just fine too

The other do dad that is being talked about here used an accually electrical contact or the "ring" to let the electroncs decide what pitch to play.

Others have used light and all sorts of things.

Synths are not restricted to being keyboards, just keyboards happen to be the interface of preference.

I remember seeing an early Serge(?) modular which used copper touch plates for interfacing.

-tek