Transformative
Create a guitar with a free spirit, that can transform itself instantly to virtually any form the imagination can create.
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Optimized
The accomplishment - The Chrysalis guitar allows a full-size guitar to fold down to its bare minimum, and but allow it to be re-assembled in seconds to full functionality without tools, simple enough to be done by a young child.
s
Guitars are wonderful, but they are a pain in the neck to transport. "Travel guitars" distort, shrink and/or amputate various parts of the guitar's form, and so are not an optimal solution.
The Chrysalis guitar revolutionizes portability - it maintains the normal full size of 400mm (16") body width and 638mm (25.5") scale length, while reducing the guitar to its bare minimum structural essence for transport with precision joinery.
The cases shown at the left demonstrate the improvement in portability the Chrysalis system provides for a full size guitar.
The minimum leather case shown in the front of the series is roughly the size and a human infant and weighs 1.5kg (3.1 lbs) total. The instrument unpacks and deploys to playing pitch in seconds.
The Chrysalis guitar revolutionizes portability - it maintains the normal full size of 400mm (16") body width and 638mm (25.5") scale length, while reducing the guitar to its bare minimum structural essence for transport with precision joinery.
The cases shown at the left demonstrate the improvement in portability the Chrysalis system provides for a full size guitar.
The minimum leather case shown in the front of the series is roughly the size and a human infant and weighs 1.5kg (3.1 lbs) total. The instrument unpacks and deploys to playing pitch in seconds.
modular
The Rev 1 Chrysalis was sold in a carry-on briefcase. Airport security did not know what to make of it.
Beautiful
The design intent of the Chrysalis guitar was to supersede and extend the traditional inanimate guitar box structure into the realm of living biological beings.
The undulating shape of the guitar's face is hyper-feminine. Making up this undulating grillwork are two different structural elements - an array of relatively strong "branches" connecting the bridge attachment points to the outer frames, and a superimposed fine grillwork evocative of a dragonfly's wing, but more abstract.
This CAD image from early in the design process shows the design that would become the fine element grillwork, incorporating intermingled elements of musical sound waves, guitar geometry and biology.
The major structural grill elements have cross sections ranging from 3 - 5 mm in size, a kind of rounded triangle. The fine grillwork is a constant oval 2mm high and 1.5 mm in width.
The undulating shape of the guitar's face is hyper-feminine. Making up this undulating grillwork are two different structural elements - an array of relatively strong "branches" connecting the bridge attachment points to the outer frames, and a superimposed fine grillwork evocative of a dragonfly's wing, but more abstract.
This CAD image from early in the design process shows the design that would become the fine element grillwork, incorporating intermingled elements of musical sound waves, guitar geometry and biology.
The major structural grill elements have cross sections ranging from 3 - 5 mm in size, a kind of rounded triangle. The fine grillwork is a constant oval 2mm high and 1.5 mm in width.
tried and true
Fourteen Chrysalis prototype guitars were built and sold between 2000 and 2001. Some have traveled the world, and still do. Others are kept as collector's items. Others are played in basement bands. All work. Made of tough carbon fiber composites, the Chrysalis guitar takes a beating and stays like new.
