ARP Avatar

1977–1979

Guitar synthesizer (1977–~1979) — an ARP Odyssey without keyboard plus a hexaphonic guitar-pickup interface and pitch-to-voltage converters. The $4M R&D and weak sales were the direct cause of ARP's 1981 bankruptcy.

Overview

The ARP Avatar, released in 1978, was a guitar-controlled synthesizer allowing guitarists to trigger synthesizer sounds from their instruments. This innovative but commercially unsuccessful product used a special pickup to convert guitar pitch to control voltages. The Avatar represented an early attempt at guitar synthesis.