Advances in music technology are driven by artists who wish they had something that doesn’t exist yet, which is how Sedona guitarist Brian David and saxophonist Roy “Rahelios” Figueroa came to develop the Wizzax, a new style of microphone for guitarists that mounts directly to the body of the guitar.

“Roy and I met in music school,” David explained. “I moved out here from Gainseville, Fla., and I was studying geology at [Northern Arizona University] but quickly switched to a music major when I found out that Tom Sheeley was there with a classical guitar program. And I went through the jazz program where I met Roy, graduated there in ’03.

“We have three children, my wife and I, and I was driving down to Sedona for 20 years now, performing at special events, weddings, all the resorts … About eight years ago I moved from Flag with my wife and kids and we live on Lower Red Rock Loop Road. I play mostly nylon-string, finger-style, Spanish-style guitar.”

“My father was a professional musician, so I grew up around music,” Figueroa said. “I started playing formally in school band, learning the saxophone, and I ended up going to Northern Arizona University on a jazz studies scholarship for the saxophone … where I met Brian, and at that time I was also starting to pick up the bass guitar. So Brian and I started jamming together and became friends at music school.”

The duo embarked on the Wizzax project in 2016, inspired by David’s friendship with Mark Thatcher, the developer of Teva sandals.

“I had a dream, actually, about it,” David said. “I almost forgot about the dream the next day, but Roy called me about another business project, and I told him about the dream, about a microphone coming off the guitar, that Mark Thatcher invented and was pitching to me.

“Roy called me back a couple weeks later because he saw a need in the market. He hates headsets. He’s the direct target market. So it was like, ‘Dude, I want one for myself,’ and that kind of triggered where we are now.”

The Wizzax microphone system consists of three components: A hub that attaches to the body of the instrument, an adjustable gooseneck available in multiple sizes and the microphone itself.

“The microphone is our design,” David said. “It’s a stage microphone, dynamic, supercardioid … We continue to isolate the capsule from the outer shell more and more and we’re patent-pending on that right now.”

The key component of the Wizzax system, however, is the hub rather than the microphone, which has to be adaptable to different styles of instruments.

“It was a huge challenge. We didn’t realize at all how big of a challenge that was going to be to get the balance to work,” Figueroa said of the difficulties involved in designing a clamp that could stay attached to a guitar body without damaging the instrument while an active performer was moving around a stage. “There was no kind of clamp that existed that would do that, and to fit all the range of different sizes of guitars, and then to not transfer the vibration of the guitar through the microphone. There was a whole series of different things we had to figure out and work through in order to get it to actually function.”

It took the two eight years of experimentation to arrive at “something that seems pretty simple and straightforward,” Figueroa said.

“We did it without debt or investment,” David added.

The Wizzax can be modified for different instruments or even different types of instruments by swapping out the hub’s backplate.

“Just today someone asked me — they want one for his standup bass,” David observed. “Pretty much all we really need to do is create a specific backplate for that. The main hub is what it is, and all the various backplates are to accommodate different instruments. Electric keyboard as well, banjo.”

The hub uses an XLR connector for outputs, which David said can be used with off-the-shelf wireless devices or with a cord like a conventional electric guitar: “We have a Billboard jazz artist, Steve Oliver — that’s how he does it, and he still has freedom to run around the stage.”

Oliver is among the few people doing that with the Wizzax at the moment. Figueroa estimated that there are “probably less than a hundred people all over the country that have tried it,” and the duo are still building early units by hand at home. In January, they debuted the Wizzax at the National Association of Music Merchants trade show in Anaheim, Calif., where, David said, “everything turned from the torture chamber to praise.”

David and Figueroa also showed off their invention locally by throwing a free Earth Day concert at the Posse Grounds Pavilion on April 21, from 1:30 to 6:30 p.m.

“Everyone that’s going to be performing is going to be using the Wizzax,” David said before the concert. “The FigFam is Roy’s family band. It’s three generations. That’s going to be a great show — and friends. We’ll get up and the energy will build.”

“It’s a very large family,” Figueroa laughed. “I have 11 children, but they’re all musical, and they all come up on stage and perform, singing, playing various instruments, dancing. It’s three generations deep. My father, he still plays as well. My wife gets up there, too, and we all have a good time playing music together.”

David and FigFam were joined by local acts Rebel Ashes, the Paul Valentine Ordeal and Stevi Bax. “In between the bands, we’ll have solo acts,” David said before the show. “Then we’ll give away a Wizzax at the event.”

The Sedona concert will be followed by similar events later in the year in Flagstaff and Show Low.

“Now we’re ready to bring the Wizzax to the world,” David said. “It’s been such an uphill journey to get here.”