Bass Synth fans: late 70s early 80s Ongkor B.G.S. 4000 bass guitar synth?

[bovine mind]

W.T.F.?



Found this ad on Ebay, Anyone know anything more on these?

No strings, spring loaded touch sensitive frets, w o w. I can't help but go wild for rare weird late 70's early 80's attempts at synthesized electric/acoustic attempts.

[Wud]

I've never heard of, or seen that beast before.

[bovine mind]

"Oncor Sound of Salt Lake City didn’t try changing pitches to voltage. Instead, they opted to follow a more keyboard-like approach: 96 fret switches determined which note would play when you struck one of the six "strum bars" that were laid out like strings. The synthesizer circuitry was built into the instrument, which let you mute, bend, hammer on, and infinitely sustain notes. In theory, it was wonderful, but in practice it meant that you didn’t get any real guitar sound since there were no strings or pickups."

-from http://www.mulhern.com/articles/musi...itarsynths.htm

Awesome!

[bovine mind]

Also who is Gerald Conway? Can't find anything about him online, wanted to see what bands he was in around this time.

[Matt Dean]

I played a stringless guitar (Korg I think) recently at Bananas at Large.

Seemed more of a toy to me, but it made some noise...

[Matt Dean]

Originally Posted by bovine mind

Also who is Gerald Conway? Can't find anything about him online, wanted to see what bands he was in around this time.

Maybe there's a reason we haven't heard of either.

[bovine mind]

Originally Posted by Matt Dean

I played a stringless guitar (Korg I think) recently at Bananas at Large.

Seemed more of a toy to me, but it made some noise...

Woah. Is it still there? I make a LOT of noise. And I had a friend that used to work there. Which model was it?

[Wud]

Is it 4 real?
Sound on Sound magazine used to run spoof April Fool joke adverts if I remember right, They now just tend to have a news announcement as opposed to the obvious advert.
Maybe other music gear magazines used to run spoof April Fool ads ?

[bovine mind]

Apparently it's real, based on the guitar synth history link I posted above.

Also a very real guitar version existed and was for sale on ebay:

http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2009...ch-guitar.html

[Wud]

Google got me there - http://www.jedistar.com/jedistar_vin..._dating_o2.htm
Needs moar knobs

[Basshappi]

Those ads appeared all the time in Guitar PLayer magazine back in the day. I've never seen one in the flesh however.

[superbassman2000]

isn't that how the new rock band controllers work?

[98dvl]

There's one for sale near Austin, TX:

rare vintage oncor synth bass

Came here to get some info on it, but can't seem to find much of anything anywhere... So, maybe they are pretty rare.

[abarson]

Same one up on ebay right now:
ONCOR BGS 4000 bass synth | eBay

[barrett1234]

It's called "The Touch". My wife's father, Robert Polson is the inventor (US Patent 4336734) and worked with an investor in Salt Lake City in the 70's and 80's. The company was called Oncor Sound, Inc. They sold one to Eddie Van Halen. He had a tough time playing it because his hands were moist and the electronic frets would not work right. One time Oncor received a call saying "this is the Who, phoning from England". They bought a few.

[Tim_Mofunk]

Originally Posted by barrett1234

It's called "The Touch". My wife's father, Robert Polson is the inventor (US Patent 4336734) and worked with an investor in Salt Lake City in the 70's and 80's. The company was called Oncor Sound, Inc. They sold one to Eddie Van Halen. He had a tough time playing it because his hands were moist and the electronic frets would not work right. One time Oncor received a call saying "this is the Who, phoning from England". They bought a few.