You can now build a cardboard guitar with Nintendo Labo
How to build a six-string with the innovative DIY Switch peripheral
We’ve already reported on Nintendo’s ingenious Labo concept for the Switch, which allows keen tinkerers to create their own cardboard peripherals, including a piano. Now, the clever folk at GamesRadar have gone one better and figured out how to craft a cardboard guitar using the console.
By employing the Labo Garage coding software, GR’s Sam Loveridge programs the console to produce sound when touched, then uses six elastic bands to replicate a guitar’s strings, finishing the whole thing off with a cardboard cutout of a body and neck.
Four chords can then be mapped onto the left Joy-Con’s controllers, making for a swift entry point for six-string beginners.
Sure, the Labo is aimed at children, but we’re big fans of anything that inspires young guitarists - and for more grown-up music-makers, there’s Korg’s Gadget mini-DAW, which has just landed on Nintendo’s in-demand console.
This isn’t the first cardboard guitar we’ve seen, either; let’s not forget that time Fender Custom Shop used the versatile material to build a working Stratocaster.
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Mike is Editor-in-Chief of GuitarWorld.com, in addition to being an offset fiend and recovering pedal addict. He has a master's degree in journalism, and has spent the past decade writing and editing for guitar publications including MusicRadar, Total Guitar and Guitarist, as well as a decade-and-a-half performing in bands of variable genre (and quality). In his free time, you'll find him making progressive instrumental rock under the nom de plume Maebe.
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