A sad day…:(
My Wond finally gave out…
What’s that? you ask. A lot of people know about the e-bow. A delightful guitar gadget that provides endless sustain of a string when hovered over. this leaves the player to fret notes on that string without picking and is perfect for generating washes of sounds with drones etc. Well the Wond was invented by a bloke in America called Paul Vo and it takes the method a little further.
Firstly, the design is dramatically better. The unit is held like a pen and can move easily from one string to another – the e-bow is kind of clunkier and sits on strings either side which limits it’s movement quite significantly. Second, the Wond has more power making it more flexible musically. Thirdly, you could introduce transient harmonics and I don’t understand that at all but is was nice. Lastly, it played merry hell with the pickups creating swishing feedback sound if you got too close to them. I actually use this for effects although it’s probably an unwanted feature for most players!
Here is a link to a piece of music I made with it a few hours after it first arrived.
So after 3 or so years of happily recharging, it went totally dead and i think the rechargeable battery gave out. Being hopeful that it might be something I could fix I opened the unit and it kind of exploded in a shower of tiny electronic things. Oh well… Trouble is, he doesn’t make them anymore because he’s working on a new version which whilst it looks very intriguing and has some features I really don’t understand yet, isn’t finished yet. Although it looks like it will be ready in the middle of next year… (If you want one too, you can go here. Tell him I sent you!)
So I can’t be doing without my drones, so I will have to bide my time with the e-bow which is still very nice but my my, I’m going to miss the Wond.