The Ebow

The Ebow is something that's been around since the 70's and it always amazes when it's used well.  With this little device, horn, violin, harmonica and even bagpipe sounds become available to guitar players.  When you incorporate effects it can get really fun, really fast!  You say you want to sustain a note for an entire solo? Great.  How about an entire song?  Ok, fine.  An album?  Please don't.

It also reminds me of when I used to take my old cable box remote control and point it at the pickups for cool results.  It's also fun to experiment with little "megaphone" type toys that your kid/nephew/demon seed may have.  Anything that blasts a little signal and disrupts the pickup's magnetics will make some kinda noise.  So go dig some stuff out and mess around.  

I have yet to find anything as cool as the Ebow.  It's very versatile and a very , very smart invention.  To be fair, there are some other interesting sustain electronics out there, but this little Ebow doesn't require ripping your guitar apart to get the sound you want.  I suggest checking it out.

LINKS!!!

I know some people don't like cut and paste type articles but I decided to aggregate some of the content out there in cyberspace so you could see how this thing works.


Phil Keaggy is a masterful Ebow player and if you haven't heard him play you should check out this YouTube video of him demonstrating the Ebow.  Really opens up some new ideas.  I will caution you that it's pretty new-agey so Yanni haters be warned.  Worth watching anyway.