FAD GADGETS

Rhodri Marsden on three of the latest must-have gizmos currently putting the prog in progress.

MINICORDA

Ever ponder the nagging, ever-present problem of how to fit a guitar in a suitcase? Well, you can’t, unless it’s a very big suitcase, or a very small guitar. And then where do your clothes go? Nightmare. Here’s a solution proposed by two guitarist pals, Augusto Filocamo and Diego Spina; they’ve made a nylon acoustic guitar which dispenses with the body – which, let’s face it, is the bulky bit – and transforms the neck into a hollow resonant chamber. The result: a portable plank, which sounds surprisingly good, can be taken to a range of foreign destinations, and costs less than £225. www.minicorda.com

GOOGLE TUNER

Musicians have never had so many ways to keep in tune. Back in the day you’d have to rely on a passing oboe player equipped with a tuning fork. Then came along a range of digital tools, from the foot pedal to the clip-on tuner to a handy app that’s buried somewhere in your phone or tablet. Now, however, you just have to Google ‘Google Tuner’, and the top search result will be a meter, which uses the microphone on your computer, laptop, phone or whatever to assess your diatonic accuracy. www.google.com

FART PEDAL

Yes, it has come to this. “What does The Fart Pedal do?” I hear you ask. The description on its Kickstarter page sums it up succinctly: “The Fart Pedal turns your guitar noises into fart noises.” At the time of writing, 507 backers have pledged £67,770 to bring the project to life, and if that doesn’t tell you something about modern society, I don’t know what does. To my shame, I just watched the promotional video and laughed. “It runs the gamut of sounds, from very dry, to very wet,” says inventor Steve Gatlin, who looks strangely pleased with himself. www.bit.ly/fart-pedal