The Guitar Organ was a project led by engineer Dick Denney, and was a combination of the Vox Continental Organ and the Vox Phantom Guitar. The solid state circuitry from the organ was added to the guitar to create an instrument that was capable of creating both kinds of sound, either at the same time or independently of each other.
A remote power supply was connected to the guitar to run power to the organ circuitry, which was operated by pressing the strings down on to the fretboard, which would then trigger an organ tone generator under the frets. A little fiddling with the many controls on the guitar would switch it between the two sounds – guitar and organ – and could even set a slapback delay-type effect for the guitar sound.
The video below is a demonstration of the guitar organ set on what looks like a game or talk show. Somehow this instrument didn’t really take off, but it definitely seems to be able to create some cool sounds that modern artists would no doubt love to get their hands on.
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