The Eighties revival now appears to have lasted longer than the actual Eighties did, and it shows no signs of letting up.
No instrument is more evocative of the dry-ice-clouded synth anthems of the decade than the 'keytar' - a keyboard shaped like a guitar, usually paired with an extremely large hairdo and outfits made of synthetic fabrics.
The Kitara is a keytar for the iPhone generation: combining a multi-touch touchscreen, a fretboard and a fully fledged synthesizer, it enables you to assign 100 different sounds to its virtual 'strings'.
If you'd handed one of these to Duran Duran back in the day, it would probably have caused a guitar solo that would still be going on now.
The Kitara's 8in touchscreen can be 'played' with the same delicacy you'd use with a normal guitar (just touch the relevant part of the screen to pluck, or stroke it to strum), but unlike on a 'real' stringed instrument, you can make the volume of a note rise or fall - as well as apply sustain, delay and distortion effects by sliding your finger around.
The Kitara has an on-board multi-voice digital synthesizer with six pre-loaded effects, from crunchy guitar to floaty synth (you can add your own via a PC). It's also a MIDI controller, so you can record what you play on your computer's music software
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