At this point, it’s pretty hard to conceive of a new way to play guitar. Innovative musicians and producers have been playing and recording guitar pretty damn well for a while now, using a variety of styles, methods, technologies and psychotropic drugs. So it’s with reluctant optimism that we present to you One Man Band. It’s more or less what it sounds like—by which we mean, it’s an app-slash-high-tech-tool that allows you to play your guitar with a digital backing band in real-time, mimic other instruments with your guitar and use your guitar as a MIDI controller.  It is not a new psychotropic drug, if that’s what you were thinking...

This device is fully backed on Kickstarter, so you can order it now and expect it sometime around September of next year. Until then, you’ll want to practice your guitar without it—this thing will be significantly less fun for beginners.

Once it does arrive, though—either built into one of One Man Band’s own guitars or as an upgrade to your own—you’ll be able to use it in one of three ways.

1) You can use it to generate a backing band, controlling the mix of the instruments, for your own guitar songs—not one that’s pre-recorded, but one that follows your every note.

2) Given their patented technology, you can use it to transform the sound from your guitar into the sound from a piano. Or a violin. Or an accordion. Which is dope?

3) You can use it to make your guitar a MIDI controller—more commonly associated with keyboards—essentially allowing you to compose music using only your guitar and your production software of choice.

All the while, you’ll have the app open to control the rhythm and style of your backing band, or to let you solo on one of the many instruments it has in its database.

Like the accordion. Because there really just aren’t enough accordion solos in contemporary rock music...