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http://fretlight.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

a real guitar with lights on the fretboard that you can play through an amp normally...

not a stupid "case" for your iPhone...

I remember seeing ads in Guitar Magazine and the like decades ago for guitars with LEDs in the fretboard that teach you how to play.

Here you go, Fretlight's been around for ages. Found an early one in a pawn shop, was a copy of a Fender strat... and it had better action than my actual Fender, so I bought it. Only down side is that it's *very* heavy. Still, with that great neck, it's really enjoyable to play.

The early ones -- like mine -- have a rotary knob that lights up various scales. The more recent models can lead you through a song or whatever, they connect to the computer via USB, and so can be programmed to do anything with the LEDs.

Yeah, it's come a long way since the original, it's called Fretlight. Sure, there's some added features on the gtar over what the Fretlight's have, but not much.

Oddly you may be right. I found no immediate results for iThing software for fretlight or similar.

http://fretlight.com/software

Other than maybe the part where it connects to a smartphone instead of a computer, this is certainly not the first, and not even new. Fretlight ( http://fretlight.com/ ) has been doing it for years. The only place this is anything new is in gTar's imagination.

http://www.fretlight.com/ looks like the wheel has been reinvented.

Finger position sensing technology in a guitar is not the same as having some LEDs light up where your fingers should go.

I've often wondered why the computer can't just audibly detect what note you played with a visual indication of where your fingers need to be to play the correct note (I'm sure there's a simple explanation though.)

http://www.fretlight.com/ looks like the wheel has been reinvented.

Actually, they do.

http://www.fretlight.com/

All you need to do is figure out how to get a driver for this to work with
frets-on-fire.

I think one of the most important things the game teaches you is RHYTHM! Plus, it really helps you *feel* the song while pushing you to keep up the rhythm like teaching one to climb a rope by lighting it on fire. I personally enjoy the aspect that it's *not* like playing a real guitar. The challenge is real. The feeling is real. And most importantly, the FUN is real! I've actually been inspired to learn some of the songs I play on guitar hero, and not just because of the embedded suggestion that "You should consider getting a real guitar at some point" (it really says that on one of the loading screens).

Not to mention the fact that they need to hit a sweet price point that would be largely difficult with having so many buttons as you propose. I hear naysayers like you say "it's not a real instrument" all the time. To this day, I have yet to have any of these people who can outperform me in the game OR on an actual guitar. Maybe a snare drum isn't a real instrument to you because it only has one "button". I had to play a stupid plastic recorder in middle school all the time, and it seriously turned me off from wanting to learn music. Guitar hero has the complete opposite effect for me.

If you really want an electronic guitar learning experience, check out FretLight! http://www.fretlight.com/ It costs quite a bit more than guitar hero, but it's a real quality guitar.

Oh, and another rebuttal to the "it's not a real instrument" claim: Check out these hacks that enthusiasts have made, among them turning the controller into a sampler and fitting a real guitar to play the game:
http://www.pixelsumo.com/post/guitar-hero-hacks

Go pick on DDR'ers for "not really dancing" at your local arcade. I dare ya.