You RAWK! 3D Rapid Prototyped Acoustic Instruments of the Future

by Josh on October 31, 2008 · Comments

3d rapid protoyped acoustic instrumentsExactly how rockin’ would you be with your own guitar? Not as rockin’ as you would be with a sweet, custom manufactured axe made to your exact style and specifications.

Amit Zoran, from the MIT Ambient Intelligence Group, has been fiddling with the concept of Rapid Prototyping acoustical instruments. But are the materials that rapid prototyping machines use suitable to get the sustain and amplification you need to impress the crowd or your cat?


The Perfect Sound
rp guitar comparisonAmits concepts are incredible look and the video shows just how much sound you can get out of a very small chamber. Without a chamber the sound is tinny, but with a simple chamber, the sounds becomes as custom as the Rapid-prototyped body.
More on the reAcoustic eGuitar.

What RP Machine is used?
Really, a simple chamber could be created using a variety of methods, but for full-scale guitar body creation, 3D printers with larger beds would be required. Here’s a video of how RedEye RPM creates custom guitars with Stratysys fused deposition modeling (FDM) process using Thermoplastics.

Update: Editor’s Note – SolidWorks was used to create the main section of this guitar. Then Materialise was used to merge a mobius shape together to create one body. Here’s the guitar Case Study.

More about Redeye’s Fused deposition modeling (FDM) – (Flash video). You can also download Redeye 3D Print driver for SolidWorks, Inventor and Alibre.

Amit’s Concept Images
These are Amit’s concepts of the possibility of being able to print your own guitar. Really, the variations are constrained by material options and size, but traditional instruments could have incredible new looks and sounds. What would you create?
3d rapid prototyped guitars and instruments

3d printing guitars

rapid manufacturing using FDM for instruments

reAcoustic eGuitar. (via Architechradure via Jessica Hanson)

(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ... Loading ...

Tagged as: 3d printing, Design Fabrication, I can't play guitar, musical algorithms

  • Cool concept on the guitar!!! The 1st concept image appears to be cubist in nature, the second one looks like a flattened feather duster, the third seems to represent swiss cheese (maybe it was close to lunch). The final one is the design I find most appealing visually.
  • Totally awsome. Thanks for including my video, yes that's me. I get so jazzed thinking about building more guitars, but just never have the time. I love that you experimented with building an acoustic. I want to try that as well or even a semi-hollow.

    I've built a few other guitar bodies, check out the images on: https://www.redeyeondemand.com/CustomApplicatio...

    The Tele models were made in Polycarbonate and I did some tweaking to the slice file to get a hollow fill in the regions where I wasn't mounting any hardware. This also helped bring the weight down. The Tele's actually sound really good and stay in tune. The other customs ones I made, the SSYS one and the mobius one in the video don't sound the greatest and for some reason didn't stay in tune as well.

    I guess I need to go back to the drawing board. If you have any cool designs for a solid body or semi-hollow I would love to see them. Maybe I'll squeeze in a build for you as well if I can do the same for myself.
blog comments powered by Disqus