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I think it's fair to say that one reason guitar is so popular is because of the early reward effect. For this sort of price a beginner can go buy a pretty decen

by polemic 14y ago

I think it's fair to say that one reason guitar is so popular is because of the early reward effect. For this sort of price a beginner can go buy a pretty decent electric guitar and amplifier with some built in effects. Give them an hour or two and they'll be belting out a recognizable Teen Spirit in a few hours. Seriously. Meanwhile: > "...detect exactly what you're playing in real-time and relay each note to your iPhone, which then produces the actual sound." From the iPhone speakers? Um... no thanks.

ChuckMcM 14y ago
"From the iPhone speakers? Um... no thanks." Given what looks like a resonant cavity, and the 'short' battery life of the guitar body, I'm guessing they have an audio amplifier built into the guitar and they pick up the signal from the docking connector.
- polemic 14y ago
  It looks like it's a solid body guitar. Also: > "Since the gTar is entirely digital, it doesn't care whether the strings are in tune or not." I can't even see any pickups, so I'm guessing it simply checks what fret you're holding and detects strumming/picking some other way. That seems to be supported by "...cannot be retrofitted onto a traditional guitar...". So, basically, you're stuck using your iPhone as the only interface option. All up - isn't this just a solution looking for a problem?
gtani 14y ago
for < US $250, you can buy playable solid body electrics from Yamaha, Ibanez, Peavey or Axl, new. For $100 you'll find something that's tolerably playable on Craigslist in most large markets. There aren't other "real" instruments that can be mass produced like this in a few factories in China and Indonesia.
- CWuestefeld 14y ago
  An oddity of guitar is the way a cheap guitar affects one's ability to learn. In most any endeavor, it's true that working on your skills is much more important than upgrading your equipment: practice is the way to improve, you can't buy your way into being better. But this is significantly less true at the bottom end of the guitar spectrum. Cheap guitars really are worse -- not just in the quality of their sound or their durability, but in their playability. It is much more difficult to get a really cheap guitar to work right. A $100 guitar is going to be much more difficult to play than a $500 one. That's primarily due to the "action" -- the height of strings above the frets. On a cheap guitar, the (im)precision of the components -- the bridge and its springs, the neck tension bar, etc., conspire to make it so that the higher frets have much higher action (or else the lower ones buzz). That forces the player to squeeze the strings harder to the neck, which is painful, and is less forgiving about finger placement within the fret, requiring that fingers go closer to the fret rather than allowing more space behind it. The end result is that a new player, not wanting to invest too much money in something that he doesn't know if he'll like, is more likely to be discouraged and give up. If he'd had a better tool from the beginning, success would have been more likely.
  - elq 14y ago
    And this can solved, for the purposes of a rank beginner, with a $80 setup by a competent guitar tech.
  - gtani 14y ago
    You are correct. I've spent a lot fo time in instrument shop, craigslist and pawnshops (California, Seattle, Ohio, Wisconsin), looking at pianos, fluets/sax/clarinets and double bass/cellos, in addition to guitars and bass guitars. I'd consider Ebay if the seller has refund policy Most of the cheap guitars are not worth buying, especially for fretwear, warped necks, wonky trussrods or poor neck routs in the body. I also tell people to avoid cheap Floyd Roses, active electronics and 5 string basses (poor tension on low B
    - gtani 14y ago
      Addendum: i have a Korean Squier strat ($79.95) and a Samick fretless bass ($220) that I'm very fond of. I have another cheap guitar and bass that are just meh. Also i'd add Squier Classic Vibes to the list of mfrs with at least passable QC but not their Affinities
poissonpie 14y ago
I think it's also because guitars are relative cheap and portable. That and tablature - which basically takes away 1 pain point of learning an instrument - that of having to learn to read music at the same time as learning the physical skill. Anyway, good luck to them.

by polemic 14y ago

ChuckMcM 14y ago

"From the iPhone speakers? Um... no thanks." Given what looks like a resonant cavity, and the 'short' battery life of the guitar body, I'm guessing they have an audio amplifier built into the guitar and they pick up the signal from the docking connector.

polemic 14y ago
It looks like it's a solid body guitar. Also: > "Since the gTar is entirely digital, it doesn't care whether the strings are in tune or not." I can't even see any pickups, so I'm guessing it simply checks what fret you're holding and detects strumming/picking some other way. That seems to be supported by "...cannot be retrofitted onto a traditional guitar...". So, basically, you're stuck using your iPhone as the only interface option. All up - isn't this just a solution looking for a problem?

gtani 14y ago

for < US $250, you can buy playable solid body electrics from Yamaha, Ibanez, Peavey or Axl, new. For $100 you'll find something that's tolerably playable on Craigslist in most large markets. There aren't other "real" instruments that can be mass produced like this in a few factories in China and Indonesia.

CWuestefeld 14y ago
An oddity of guitar is the way a cheap guitar affects one's ability to learn. In most any endeavor, it's true that working on your skills is much more important than upgrading your equipment: practice is the way to improve, you can't buy your way into being better. But this is significantly less true at the bottom end of the guitar spectrum. Cheap guitars really are worse -- not just in the quality of their sound or their durability, but in their playability. It is much more difficult to get a really cheap guitar to work right. A $100 guitar is going to be much more difficult to play than a $500 one. That's primarily due to the "action" -- the height of strings above the frets. On a cheap guitar, the (im)precision of the components -- the bridge and its springs, the neck tension bar, etc., conspire to make it so that the higher frets have much higher action (or else the lower ones buzz). That forces the player to squeeze the strings harder to the neck, which is painful, and is less forgiving about finger placement within the fret, requiring that fingers go closer to the fret rather than allowing more space behind it. The end result is that a new player, not wanting to invest too much money in something that he doesn't know if he'll like, is more likely to be discouraged and give up. If he'd had a better tool from the beginning, success would have been more likely.
- elq 14y ago
  And this can solved, for the purposes of a rank beginner, with a $80 setup by a competent guitar tech.
- gtani 14y ago
  You are correct. I've spent a lot fo time in instrument shop, craigslist and pawnshops (California, Seattle, Ohio, Wisconsin), looking at pianos, fluets/sax/clarinets and double bass/cellos, in addition to guitars and bass guitars. I'd consider Ebay if the seller has refund policy Most of the cheap guitars are not worth buying, especially for fretwear, warped necks, wonky trussrods or poor neck routs in the body. I also tell people to avoid cheap Floyd Roses, active electronics and 5 string basses (poor tension on low B
  - gtani 14y ago
    Addendum: i have a Korean Squier strat ($79.95) and a Samick fretless bass ($220) that I'm very fond of. I have another cheap guitar and bass that are just meh. Also i'd add Squier Classic Vibes to the list of mfrs with at least passable QC but not their Affinities

poissonpie 14y ago

I think it's also because guitars are relative cheap and portable. That and tablature - which basically takes away 1 pain point of learning an instrument - that of having to learn to read music at the same time as learning the physical skill. Anyway, good luck to them.