Like the birdfish, the concept of the tesla midi is the complete separation of both signals: midi to converter and magnetic pickups to amplifier. Therefore the pure tesla tone is not affected by the midi converter. Only via the 13 pin jack the acoustic sound of the piezo bridge can be transduced. The magnetic pickups and the magnetic control circuit is connected to the 1/4" jack only. This is very important for high-gain sounds.

Magnetic pickups and midi sounds remain separated. Therefore the guitar has two jacks: one 1/4" jack for the analog signal and a Roland 13 pin jack for the midi signal and the piezo-signal. The jack mounting plate is cut from a solid 8 mm (0.32 inches) aluminum plate.

The foundation of the MIDI guitar is a Tune-o-matic bridge in conjunction with RMC piezo saddles and a MIDI controller. On the bridge there is a string rest made of ebony. It optimizes the string pressure on the piezo crystals and prevents string-to-string crosstalk by dampening the strings between the tuners and the bridge. This enables faster tracking.

The tesla midi can be controlled by a volume knob and a tone knob for the magnetic pickups, a volume knob for the Synthesizer and a volume knob for the acoustic sound.

Beneath the pickups there are two push-button switches which control the channel selection of the MIDI converter (up – down).