Andrew Huang Spins Up Chaos: The Circle Guitar Like You’ve Never Seen It

Right out of the gate, Andrew Huang and Anthony Dickens introduce us to the Circle Guitar—a contraption that’s as far from your dad’s Strat as a surfboard is from a boogie board. This isn’t just a guitar; it’s a rhythm machine with a mind of its own, thanks to a spinning wheel and a handful of clever engineering tricks. The Circle Guitar strums itself, flipping the whole idea of guitar performance upside down and giving even seasoned musos a run for their money.

Andrew’s channel is famous for taking gear out of its comfort zone, and this episode is no different. The Circle Guitar’s self-strumming action means you interact with it in ways that’d make a purist spill their flat white. Forget everything you know about picking and plucking—this thing’s all about letting the machine do the heavy lifting while you focus on the wild stuff.

Anthony walks us through the Circle Guitar’s party tricks, and mate, it’s a proper bag of snakes. The heart of the beast is a set of magnetic picks—‘mag picks’—attached to a spinning wheel, powered by a chunky fishing wire and controlled by faders for each string. You can route each string separately, sum them all up, or send them through a multi-channel output that’s got more pins than a porcupine.

But the real kicker? MIDI control. The Circle Guitar isn’t just a one-trick pony—it’s fully mappable, with buttons and faders ready to sync up with your DAW. Whether you want to trigger scenes in Ableton or tweak strumming speed on the fly, this thing’s got you sorted. It’s like giving your guitar a Red Bull and letting it loose in a MIDI playground.

Here’s where things get spicy. The Circle Guitar lets you isolate individual strings using Ableton’s drum racks and some clever filtering, so you can pick out just the sounds you want—even though all the strings are strumming away in the background. It’s a bit like herding emus: chaotic, but with the right tools, you can get them to dance in formation. For musos who love experimenting, the challenge is wrapping your head (and hands) around a totally new way of playing—one that’s as much about programming as it is about performance.

Now we’re cooking with gas. The Circle Guitar’s integration with Ableton is where the magic really happens. You can program complex rhythms, automate speed changes, and even create wild arpeggiator effects just by drawing curves in your DAW. Want to send each string to a different effect chain? Easy as. You can have one string droning, another going through a distortion pedal, and a third getting all spacey with reverb—simultaneously. It’s like running a six-lane highway of sound through a single instrument.

Anthony and Andrew show off how you can use MIDI to control every aspect of the Circle Guitar, from the wheel’s revolutions per bar to the attack and release of each note. The result? Massive, layered textures that sound like three guitars jamming at once, all from one machine. If you’re the type who loves tweaking, modulating, and pushing gear to its limits, this is the stuff dreams are made of.

But let’s be honest—some of these tricks are better seen than explained. The video’s packed with moments where the Circle Guitar does things you’d never expect from a plank of wood with strings. If you want to hear those glitchy, techno-inspired textures or see how MIDI pedals can take control, you’ll have to watch Andrew and Anthony go full mad scientist mode.