New guitar pickup system uses lasers to record its pitch

If you’ve ever attempted to record your guitar playing and convert that into a MIDI synth, you’ll have realized that some of the common issues faced would be signal lag combined with pitch issues. While it’s not entirely impossible, sometimes it just ends up being more work than you would have expected. Well it looks M3i Industries has a new product that may very well solve some of your music recording woes.

The Laser Pitch Detection (LPD) Pickup system introduced by M3i Industries basically runs a beam under each string, ranging from the bridge of the guitar to the end of the fingerboard. It then monitors its return to photosensitive receptors in the unit, so when a player’s finger touches a string, the beam is shortened and the system then quickly measures and calculates the exact pitch. We’re guessing this could be a welcome system for recording musicians who constantly face pitching and latency issues when attempting to record guitar into MIDI.

The LDP Pickup system is said to be able to work wirelessly and will incorporate a Bluetooth interface that should allow communication with an app on a smartphone. It could be like a form of wireless recording even, just your guitar along with your phone, no cables and no fuss. Unfortunately it looks like we won’t be seeing this device just yet, although M3i Industries has plans to make the LDP Pickup system available in 2012.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Audio
Tags: laser