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Creativity Quote by Andy Summers

"If the guitar synthesizer is really going to stand as a synthesizer on its own, it needs to develop a more characteristic sound; I don' think it's gotten there yet"

About this Quote

Summers is doing the most musician thing imaginable: defending the romance of an instrument by talking about its flaws like they’re moral shortcomings. The line isn’t anti-technology; it’s anti-anonymity. A “synthesizer on its own” isn’t just a box of tones you can trigger with a guitar-shaped remote. It’s a new voice that has to earn its place in the bandstand, with fingerprints you can recognize in the dark.

Coming from Andy Summers - a player whose signature was always about texture, space, and the sly intelligence of timbre - the complaint lands as aesthetic, not nostalgic. The Police thrived on the tension between organic attack and processed atmosphere: chorus, delay, clean stabs that felt architectural. He knows what it means for a sound to be instantly identifiable, to carry attitude and authorship. A guitar synth that merely imitates strings, horns, or generic pads turns the guitarist into a courier for other instruments, not an artist extending the guitar’s vocabulary.

The subtext is a warning about the culture of presets before presets fully ate the world. If a tool’s best trick is being everything, it risks being nothing - especially in pop production, where “usable” can become a synonym for “interchangeable.” Summers isn’t asking for better tracking or more features. He’s asking for character: the quirks, limitations, and happy distortions that become a style. Until then, the guitar synthesizer isn’t a new instrument. It’s an identity crisis with a pickup.

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TopicMusic
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APA Style (7th ed.)
Summers, Andy. (2026, January 17). If the guitar synthesizer is really going to stand as a synthesizer on its own, it needs to develop a more characteristic sound; I don' think it's gotten there yet. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-the-guitar-synthesizer-is-really-going-to-40405/

Chicago Style
Summers, Andy. "If the guitar synthesizer is really going to stand as a synthesizer on its own, it needs to develop a more characteristic sound; I don' think it's gotten there yet." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-the-guitar-synthesizer-is-really-going-to-40405/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"If the guitar synthesizer is really going to stand as a synthesizer on its own, it needs to develop a more characteristic sound; I don' think it's gotten there yet." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-the-guitar-synthesizer-is-really-going-to-40405/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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Andy Summers on Guitar Synthesizers and Musical Identity
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About the Author

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Andy Summers (born December 31, 1942) is a Musician from England.

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