Ever wonder how Matt Bellamy pulls of his incredible, very non-guitar tones when on stage with Muse? It could have something to do with the synth crammed into his axe.

We all know by now that Matt Bellamy pulls off some pretty insane guitar tones. But how? Turns out its a unique collaboration between three companies.

The Muse frontman had a specific request to fit a guitar with the Arturia soft synth, so he could play a specific patch from the track, The Dark Side. But of course, this came with specific challenges, as the band’s guitar tech, Chris Whitemyer told Music Radar:

“When Matt told me he absolutely wanted to use the Prophet V softsynth live on tour, but still be able to move around the stage without any restrictions, I knew we had to find a new kind of solution that would take the computer out of the picture.”

Therefore, a solution involving Arturia, Fishman and Mind Music Labs was cooked up. The guitar was fitted with a custom Fishman Triple Play MIDI contoller, which was loaded with Mind Music Labs ELK Music OS – which provided latency free performance for the Arturia patch.

Here’s some live footage of the system in action:

For more info visit Arturia, Mind Music Labs and Fishman.