Turn your acoustic into a smart guitar with the HyVibe System

GEAR 2021: If you have ever looked despairingly upon your beat-up old  acoustic guitar and implored it to be something more, that somehow its mission in life was unfulfilled, well, maybe the HyVibe System could be just what the doctor ordered.

Designed by French audio tech firm HyVibe Audio, this all-encompassing mod fits what looks like a fully featured pickup and preamp system, but in fact transforms your instrument into a smart acoustic guitar. 

What is a smart acoustic guitar? One testimonial describes the HyVibe system as “Tesla for the guitar industry.“ HyVibe describes it as being able to “transform any acoustic guitar into its own self-amplifying multi-effect processor, looper, amplifier, and Bluetooth speaker – all without cables, amps, or pedals.“

• NAMM 2021 is cancelled, but we'll be covering all the big January gear announcements right here on MusicRadar.

Hitherto, the HyVibe System has only been available on HyVibe's Lâg Guitar series, but now it can be installed in any acoustic. This is a task you can do yourself, though HyVibe recommends getting a professional to do it, and they offer the service on their site.

How it all works is very clever. The system comprises a piezo sensor, high speed processor, and two actuators. The piezo measures the vibrations from the strings, sending the signal to the processor. 

Thereafter, the two actuators "excite the guitar", sending vibrations back to the processor to where feedback is eliminated and the sound enhanced. HyVibe says the the system's latency is under 23 microseconds.

This being a smart system, you can hook it up to mobile app, where you can create custom effects and create loops as backing tracks and so forth. And here we were thinking that changing our acoustic guitar strings was an after-market mod...

The price for such modernity is $390. See HyVibe for more details.