You Rock Guitar spotted at CES, we shred on video

Surely you remember the You Rock Guitar from earlier this week. How could you forget, right? Well here on the CES show floor, we had the opportunity to rock out (gently, of course) with the lightweight, multitouch Guitar Hero / Rock Band controller -- which just so happens to be platform agnostic. It's got a plethora of settings and buttons, but it can actually double as a semi-legitimate guitar when plugged into an amp. For a music game peripheral, it's about as real as it gets, though it's hard to say if you're better off dropping 180 bones on this instead of a standard controller and a swanky new Squier. Don't take our word for it, though -- jump on past the break and mash play.

You Rock Guitar hands-on

See more video at our hub!

[rockdog Posted Jan 9th 2010 8:59PM]

@(Unverified) = Yeah I think everyone should have great guitars, lots of them, I have 5, I love 4 of them. I want one of these bad. I love playing with Garage Band and Guitar Hero, this guitar is what' next for me and its freaking cheap and I can take it anywhere.

[r00tcause Posted Jan 9th 2010 12:00PM]

The Yamaha EZ-AG Midi guitar sounds a hell of a lot better. This things sounds pretty terrible.

[rockdog Posted Jan 9th 2010 8:52PM]

@r00tcause - Yamaha AG? I wonder it sounds like on the floor of the CES show, that's where every one should check out their audio?? Are you kidding? This is a handheld video camera on the floor of a show. Go to the You Tube videos like that other guy said.

[r00tcause Posted Jan 10th 2010 11:54AM]

@rockdog

Fair enough. It does still sound a little more synthetic to me than the AG but it's certain 10x better in their promo video than in this CES video. I don't think the problem in the CES video is so much the sound quality but the guys terrible playing. I like the fret string system better than the AG's. I wonder if it can do hammer-ons and pull-offs?

[rockdog Posted Jan 19th 2010 12:21AM]

@r00tcause
Check this out. I think the jam track is in teh guitar and the guitar player is playing a jazz guitar setting. These guys should gig.

http://www.youtube.com/user/YouRockGuitar#p/u/0/n0pnzbvGNw0

[Sam Sheffer Posted Jan 9th 2010 2:29PM]

If you want to start playing guitar and you really enjoy playing video games, this might just be for you. In comparison to a regular Guitar Hero / Rock Band controller, it'll almost feel like you're playing with real strings.

[rockdog Posted Jan 9th 2010 8:45PM]

@Sam Sheffer - I heard the demo guy say to expect it to be more challenging with a pick and frets than just buttons and a paddle. The Danny Johnson interviewing was foretelling. "This is what everyone has been waiting for" I want one. I own 4 other guitars. I thinks it funny how guitarist are afriad of anythng new, but were supposed to be so cool... I wonder if Les and Leo heard the same jive 50 years ago with that damned "electric guitar" Hey, let's all create and play as much as possible. If I can get my ten year old to play a hybrid "real guitar" because it never needs tuning, doesn't hurt his fingers and challenges him more with his Guitar Hero and RockBand games, more power to them. Rock on....

[rockdog Posted Jan 9th 2010 9:02PM]

http://www.youtube.com/yourockguitar

Lot's of videos on the You Rock Guitar. Nice.

[mikeyts Posted Jan 9th 2010 10:44PM]

I first ran into this thing while searching for reviews by guitarists of a full-sized, wood-bodied guitar controller called the Peak Starpex. I found such a review (http://bombmatt.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/product-review-peak-starpex-guitar-controller-ps2-ps3/) and it was very positive, but I also found a little blurb there about You Rock Guitar, so I went to the site and checked it out. I was pretty enthusisastic about it and they were expecting at the time to have it out by Christmas, so I put my name on the waiting list and held out for a while but eventually got impatient and bought the Starpex. I really love the Starpex, but I still want the You Rock too. (It'd be great if Peak would create a module to allow me to use the Starpex with my Xbox, but as a consequence of them not having one, I'm getting a lot of _gaming_ use out of my PS3 for the first time since I got it, at launch).

Like any small company trying to launch a product they're going through numerous false starts. Now they're saying February and it sounds convincing, since they've had one round of production units (to which they decided to make a few changes), but it doesn't matter--I can wait :).

[Tiptup300 Posted Jan 10th 2010 9:59PM]

@rockdog

Whammying a note is way different then bending a note. You're a fucking idiot. 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.

[Davis Skye Posted Jan 11th 2010 5:33PM]

Yeah....that just doesn't do it for me.

[mikeyts Posted Jan 12th 2010 3:39PM]

Obviously, you can't do anything which requires you to pick or pluck the "strings" on the neck. You can do performance gestures for pinch harmonics on the strings, though I'm not sure that it will produce the expected results.

Again, it's not intended to replace all of your guitars.

[rockdog Posted Jan 19th 2010 12:20AM]

Just found this from the NAMM show. It seems that maybe this is the one to watch. This video is incredible. Especially the note for note playing with the saxman.

http://www.youtube.com/user/YouRockGuitar#p/u/0/n0pnzbvGNw0