The Current Scene

Click. Hummmm. Is everybody in the band plugged in? Everybody can be, for nowadays nearly every standard instrument from the violin to the tuba is getting wired for sound. So pervasively is electric current spreading through the music industry that amplified and amplifying devices made by far the loudest noises in Chicago last week at the annual trade show of the National Association of Music Merchants. One manufacturer alone (Vox, a subsidiary of Thomas Organ Co.) displayed 64 electronic instruments and gadgets. Some of the most notable--or at least most audible--new products on view: >The Conn Corp.'s "multi-vider," a transistorized digital computer the size of a cigar box, which, when hooked up to an amplifier and a microphone in a wind instrument, enables the musician to play as loudly as he wishes. He can also duplicate his notes over as many as four octaves, add reverberation or tremolo, and lighten or darken his tone quality. Vox has a similar device called an "ampliphonic stereo multi-voice" unit, to which a pedal may be attached to produce a "wah-wah" effect.

> An electric harpsichord, in which the sounding board has been replaced by guitar-type pickups leading to an amplifier. Special switches allow the player to transform the instrument's traditional tinkle into approximations of a vibraphone, a guitar and even a banjo. Admits the manufacturer, Baldwin Piano and Organ Co.: "There's not much left in the harpsichord that Bach would recognize besides the name."

> A hybrid electric sitar and an electric bazouki, both designed for the Dan-electro Corp. by Guitarist Vincent Bell and clearly aimed at capitalizing on the Indian music fad that is sweeping across the U.S. pop scene. Bell's sitar is really an ordinary six-string guitar with a special bridge and a set of twelve sympathetically vibrating strings to reproduce the sitar's characteristic "buzzy" sound and echoing overtones; the instrument can also be fingered and chorded just like a guitar.

What is sparking the switch to electricity is of course the success of the amplified guitar in the rock-'n'-roll sound. By gimmicking other instruments, manufacturers hope to tune in on the bustling sales that guitars have enjoyed in recent years. In addition, amplified wind instruments, with their ability to project normally dulcet tones and make small ensembles sound larger, may also find markets in the jazz, dance and school-band fields.

Since many of the new devices will not reach retail outlets until next fall, it is too early to predict the reaction of audiences and noise-numbed parents. But judging from the enthusiasm of dealers and observers at last week's industry show, there may well be a boom in earplug sales.

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