You Rock Guitar spotted at CES, we shred on video
By Sam Sheffer 
posted January 8th 2010 7:08PM
posted January 8th 2010 7:08PM
posted January 8th 2010 7:08PM
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Say all you want, but you gotta at least recognize how significant of an accomplishment this is. Color me impressed.
@kenny goo
What are they accomplishing, MIDI guitars are an old concept. They're about 200 bucks on musicians friend. I don't see how this will let you bend strings, do palm mutes, do normal mutes or anything that makes you feel like your genuinely playing guitar.
@Tiptup300
...it's a touch sensitive guitar that works like a guitar, sounds like a guitar, can output through an app like a guitar, that has tuning configurations that can you can switch on the go, *and* it doubles as a video game peripheral.
I'm pretty sure that's a significant enough accomplishment. They've finally been able to bring the two words together, which, rumor has it, is what Harmonix is gonna try to be doing with the next Rock Band iteration. I repeat: color me impressed.
@Tiptup300
That should just be a matter of sufficiently sophisticated sensors and driver software.
@JadeMatrix
How the hell are they supposed to pickup muted strings!?
And at the very last few seconds of the video you can hear the guy say" it doesn't support ben-" It cuts off right after that.
@Tiptup300 : Midi guitars that are pitch to MIDI are slow and unusable as game devices and not even good for MIDI programs on the Mac or PC like Garage Band or Finale. I saw the demo and it was amazing, immediate and accurate.
@Tiptup300 - Bending is done up and down with the whammy bar. Nice. Mutes are done with th palm on the back of the bridge, also nice.
@Tiptup300
Well you feel pretty dumb now don't you?
@kenny goo
I'm not saying this isn't a nifty accomplishment, but tiptup had a point. MIDI enabled guitars have been around for quite a while, and not just as novelty items.
@rockdog
Latency is an issue with any MIDI controller, MIDI enabled guitars can be just as responsive (or not) as a keyboard, percussion, or wind controlled devices.
To anyone who doubts that MIDI guitars have been around for years, or how effective they can be, I simply point you to http://www.roland.com/products/en/GR-20/
@StvDvs
I'll add that as a cheap(ish) video game peripheral, this is quite an achievement. As a strictly technological advance, not so much...
@rockdog
Whammying a note is way different then bending a note. It's a totally different type of maneuver.
What you described is palm muting. Yes that would be possible if it had a button down near the bridge. I'm talking about muting a string where your fingers rest over the string near the center of the neck. Also describe how you're supposed to do harmonics on this.
@kenny
No, actually I don't.
Neither of you know what you're talking about.
@Tiptup300
It's funny because you're completely missing the point of my original comment. It's not that MIDI guitars or this MIDI guitar can't do such and such specific things you would be able to do on a real guitar, it's that these guys have a working prototype of a MIDI guitar, that can be used as a nearly fully functional guitar, with little to no latency problems, and can also be switched over to work as a video game peripheral.
That is significant, because no one's done that before, or if they have, it wasn't anything successful or worth talking about. Stop bickering about minute bullshit. You sound like a raving idiot.
@kenny goo
I do admit that the abillity to have a jam intstrument also being able to play on rockband/gh to be cool. I was just assuming you thought MIDI guitars are an amazing new technology or one that hasn't already been done well.
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4989MOL8k8&feature=related
It's hard to tell from the video, but is there much delay when using this thing?
@nerdherd No perceivable delay whatsoever, it was wild.
@nerdherd i noticed that too, it looks/sounds like theres alot of lag/delay between strumming and note processing. when he strummed 3 times really fast it only picked up 2. hmmmm
@nerdherd - I too saw no delay at all either. The CES demo had an "Elvis" rocker, really playing fast and clean. I was impressed with the sounds, I heard about 10 different guitars. I also expected the "loops" to be corny, but they were prett rockin'
wat?
This thing sounds absolutely horrific!
@Benjirowell Haha, the "amp" it was hooked to was awful. But yeah, don't buy this for your next stage gig. Bedroom rocking is okay, though.
@DarrenMurph Haha maybe, I'd still rather pick up a real guitar and strum away!
@DarrenMurph - They only had a PA, no amp. so I guess all the "amp" sounds were built in. The guy said they had 25 different guitars
Am I the only one who thinks there is just something fundamentally wrong about this concept?! This thing is to guitars what the borg are to humans!
@Stiksi better?
@Stiksi
You can't even pretend that this counts as an instrument. It can't produce real music, and what does emit from it sounds terrible. Infinite terrible.
@magic6435 That's one way of looking at it :)
@HardToBelieve Well, a hive mind would produce music by committee, so you're probably right about the sound. But it's definitely an instrument… an instrument of EVIL!
@Stiksi
Resistance is futile.
@Sonicslasher
Darn it! I was just getting my resistance on…
@HardToBelieve - This is an instrument. You obviously have not played or seen it live. I remember people saying a drum machine is not a drummer too.
No thanks. That's just another pointless piece of plastic that nobody really cares about.
@HardToBelieve
Exactly. The thing that is killing all of these "innovative" video games is the plastic crap they sell with it.
If you're a hardcore gamer, at this point you have a (cheap plastic) wheel-less skateboard, drum-set, two guitars, a beatmania dj thingy, a dj hero thingy, and a couple of ddr dance pads.
@futuredavid - I saw a wooden one with the same technology behind the booth. Snoopy me. But they took it away. I also heard they are showing that wooden and a wooden bass at the NAMM show next week.
XYZ. Please don't tell me I'm the only one that noticed.
@bigbrew Lol I noticed that right away. Zip up your pants dude! Can't believe that wasn't the 1st comment.
@metric LOL! That was the demo dude, not our staff. I just couldn't resist snapping that one. He's a true rocker, it seems.
@metric
I didn't notice it... at what point in the video?
@vickypollard
Never mind that...
I've already seen Guitar hero guitars used in live shows played through Macbooks ( http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3100/2452406615_63b5cb66fa.jpg ), so this is just the next step to ruining music. First it was autotune, and then it was kids playing music from their iPod while screaming in a mic at live shows and calling that a "band." ( http://www.myspace.com/bloodonthedancefloor ) Waiting for the Singularity http://singularity.com .
No thanks! I think its not that good.
In the pictures, one of the guys' fly was undone. Yikes!
Smells like teen spirit
I can't take it seriously with that headstock!
@Galley - I want a skull headstock.
Sounds like Crap. Get a real guitar and learn how to play. We are too saturated with all these mock-ups !!!
It sounds horrible, but at least it's an actual instrument. But in all seriousness, anyone who buys this "guitar peripheral," to anything other than video games, needs to get their head checked. There are much better beginner guitars out there (like a Epiphone Special II) that cost about as much as this nonsense, there's practical then there's stupid. By the way, how exactly do you tune that thing, or is it always in tune?
@Cyrs
It's a midi guitar. It's not actually tuned. So you could probably set any tuning you like.
@Tiptup300 - Its a MIDI guitar out, but internally it has 100 presets that never need tuning and the guy said it also has 50 guitar alternatte tunings. I use those all the time and its a freaking hassle to tune them. Don't know what the hell I'll ever do with 50, but that's out of box.
You can see a bunch of videos of people playing and commenting on this device at http://www.youtube.com/user/YouRockGuitar , the company's YouTube channel. In particular, you might want to check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC_Z0SCRvDc (an interview of George Pajon, Jr., studio and stage guitarist for the Black Eyed Peas among others) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-2sd4odKik (part 1 of an interview of Karl Aranjo, guitar educator and author of six guitar teaching books). They interview Pajon in his studio and have it hooked up to a quality amp--he sounds fantastic playing it and bubbles over with enthusiasm for it, giving numerous details of _why_ he likes it so much. The same thing goes for the Aranjo interview. There are many other interviews on their YouTube channel, with other pro guitarists as well as with a few rhythm game experts, like Danny Johnson, 3 time Guitar Hero Guiness record holder, who talk about how they feel about it. Now, either this tiny little company managed to pay all of these people to sell out their professional reputations to lie about their products or it really is as good as they claim it is.
Don't judge it on how it sounds as played by a blog staff writer of undetermined skill while standing on a busy show room floor through its built-in speaker, recorded by the mic on a handheld camera. I don't think that it's intended to replace every guitar that you might own or buy, but it has its legitimate uses, worth at least the $180 they're asking for it.
@mikeyts - for $180 bucks, its worth it as a hi=speed MIDI guitar alone, yeah the George Pajon tech demo speaks for itself, you can these guys aren't paid spokespeople. Seems like a real honest shot at a great bridge between video games and music.
ill take my les paul thanks