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Guitar Hero, On a Real Guitar, To Hit Shelves In 2009
An anonymous reader writes "The Minneapolis Star Tribune features an article (with photos) about a prototype electric guitar that doubles as a Guitar Hero controller. It is not just another guitar-shaped controller with buttons: it is an actual, playable guitar, shown in-action. The startup company, Zivix, LLC, intends to bring the product to store shelves in 2009. Web searches indicate that the company may have raised around $800K for the venture. The company is also working on technology that enables finger sensing on a real guitar that would allow your computer to teach you how to play chords or evolve into a future guitar synthesizer."
Wasn't this idea thrown around when the MIDI interface was created, 20+ years ago?
The problem I see with it is that unless you turn your TV's sound way up, you're going to hear the tinny off-key strings of the guitar while you play. It'll just be random notes (chromatic scales on a lot of the runs) that will be very off-putting beyond the first few minutes. I appreciate the feel of a real guitar, but the Guitar Hero controllers feel just about perfect for what they're asked to do.
while you can't use a fretlight guitar with Guitar Hero, it is an excellent teaching tool when you are just starting out. LEDs for each string/fret position that light up as you play a specially formatted midi tune for the guitar. You can get a fretlight strat knockoff for about 300 bux off ebay.
Isn't the point of the game to pretend/act like you can play guitar? I don't want to learn how to actually play guitar. I can barely be bothered with learning the controls.
http://www.fretlight.com/ looks like the wheel has been reinvented.
It's cool, but I highly doubt it will convince many people to really learn the guitar. Guitar Hero is a game. You can pretend to be Slash or Jimmy Page with minimal effort. That's why people play it.
I smell Christmas cash-in on parents who worry little Johnny and Susie are wasting too much time on a video game. "Now they can REALLY learn music... the FUN® way!"
People would be better off putting that money into a month's worth of guitar lessons at the music shop down the street. That's about the amount of time it would take for someone to decide they're serious about learning to play, and also about the amount of time it would take to get sick of playing this "Headliner."
Just imagine a guitar teaching you how to place your fingers on the strings. A little negative feedback for misplaced fingers maybe? As long as the current is limited, it shouldn't kill anyone. :)
Neal Schon, of Journey riffing fame, originally though he'd like to be a part of Guitar Hero, but eventually decided not to contribute when he found out the guitar used in the game was a fake. He was hoping that the game could be used to teach a person guitar and was disappointed when he learned the truth. Chicken and egg here?
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
Real guitars are lame
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
The biggest problem I see is that Guitar Hero is not designed to be played with a real guitar, and the colored buttons do NOT correspond to real string/fret positions, or to real chords. There's nothing in the game that says "the first three notes are a D chord, the next note is an A chord", only "the first three notes are the red button, the next note is the green". How is this product going to map real chords into something the game can understand?
Or will it just use one string (or allow the player to use any string), and map frets to buttons, e.g. playing F on the E string or A# on the A string maps to the green button; playing F# on the E string or B on the A string maps to the red button, etc.? If that's the case, then this isn't really any more "real" than using the $40 plastic controller, except that it'll build strength in your fingers and calluses on your fingertips, which is important, but it won't actually teach you how to play anything.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
now with real heroin!
to be followed with Rehab Hero w/Dr. Drew!
I'll be impressed when you can just plug in any guitar, and the software can interpret what you're playing and if it's in sync. Games could have different rules - some would require strict following of written music, whereas others would allow room for interpretation and improvisation. The direct feedback from the software could really accelerate the process of learning to play.
I would be interested in getting this if the price and availability meets my criteria. Too bad this seems like a very niche idea.
I'm a guitarist and I find that one of the hardest things to do is sit down and practice (especially fundamentals). I refuse to play Rock Band or any of that crap because I hate the illusion of something I've actually experienced. $500? Done. I'll buy it. What would be even better is if one could get tabs+songs online. I would be willing to pay for a small fee to (more easily) learn a new song. Perhaps there could even be a subscription service that gives you new tabs from musicians you like on a regular basis... maybe even a difficulty rating system that would deliver more difficult songs as you learn. If you build it I will buy it, and I bet other gaming musicians will too.
The article makes no mention of how someone actually controls the game with the guitar which is a very important detail. If it's too hard for a beginner to get started then it's not likely that it will sell. If there is a slow gradual path of learning (rather than jumping in and being required to play the actual chords from the songs) then I could see it doing well. I would even get one for myself, I've always wanted something just like this to learn how to play.
Not only would this help you with your calluses, finger strength and picking skill, you'd be able to translate the rhythm of the game to your own guitar playing. I've found that guitar hero with its layout helps me to visualize rhythmic structure which helps a lot in song writing (I never have bad rhythm, but I'm not a big counter).
The game component will probably be the first thing they check out when they get the axe, and they'll probably use it for awhile since they paid a bit more money for it, then maybe they'll learn a few chords which only should about 30 seconds to learn Em. I bet they'll be able to bust out powerchords. It'll make a couple kids into punk rockers, I guarantee, where they go from there no one knows. I doubt your going to get jazz players right off the bat.
The lawsuit they brought against the makers of Rock Band and Guitar Hero was tossed out as the judge agreed that the toy controllers were not capable of making music on their own (or something like that). This time, I wonder if Gibson may have a better chance of winning. But then, I doubt that these guys will do all that well so what would Gibson possibly gain other than make themselves look more stupid? Anyway...
That nobody has mentioned Guitar Rising yet or Little Big Star yet.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Unfortunately I'm probably sufficiently stupid to make the version of the game I suggest very unenjoyable.
From TFA: "(First-time players might spend $500 for a quality electric guitar.)"
If you're a first time player, you aren't likely to go out and buy a "quality" guitar for $500 unless you're a rich kid or something. More likely, you'd go out and buy a $50 used strat from the pawn shop.
I have an older mint condition Charvel a family friend gave to me years ago. I never learned to play but it would be fun if this game could somehow let me use my real guitar. I still would like to learn. I am sure it is possible to develop a box that houses a preamp and a USB A/D converter. Then implement a tone decoder in software to detect the notes so you don't have to mount anything on your guitar. What better way to learn than an interactive video game so you can learn the basics and then move on to playing the real thing.
Imagine trying to play Buckethead on this game. Awesome.
Ooo, can't wait! I'll finally be able to toast the poseurs! BRING ON VAN HALEN! (wonder how it'll handle tapping?)
try this: http://pianobooster.sourceforge.net/ An equivalent for the midi piano, I presume. I haven't tried it, but it's free software, so you can make it better if it sucks.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
I've been joking around for a while with friends that GH/RB is a decent warmup exercise before a real practice, and that someone would be making a "tab hero" game that you can play a real guitar to very soon. Now after reading all these comments, I think I'm going to buy a better sound card and try some of these MIDI progs. Mad props to slashdotters for spreading good info. And yes I must be new here XD
For best results, avoid doing stupid things.
Guitar Hero must be one of the most overrated, unexciting games I've ever played. I thoroughly agree with the subtle point being put across in South Park's Guitar Queer-o episode; why waste hundreds of hours of your life playing this game, when you could learn a real guitar? And the clicking of the keys sounds ridiculous.
Hopefully this device will actually help some kids learn to play a guitar properly.
[Note: I can't play the guitar or any other musical instrument at all, for that matter. This isn't elitism speaking here, although I rather wish it was]
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
Here is a presentation by Richard Johnson about how to do it:
http://rjohnson.uninformed.org/Presentations/200804%20Toorcon%20-%20Fast%20n%20Furious%20Transforms/Fast%20n%20Furious%20Transforms.pdf
"All guitar owners, because having the capability to play the same tablatures of copyright music is the same as pirating music over VPN tunnel over copper, will have a coin-operated control mechanism onto every guitar housing. You are not allowed to play any music outside of the license clause of Ernie Ball's strings", said a huffy Hillary Rotten when fighting a spoon of Yogurt. "We want to broaden the music experience by lawfully allowing and certifying re-performances of my and our Artists when you pick up a guitar, even down to the note that we intend you to play to your audience of yourself-or-present."
Musicians are outraged by this new feat of encroachment. One psalmist, Bunney Singh Atselrot claims "Thees is absolutely horrible. Every note I play in my native tongue, the guitar fines me for not playing Stairway To Heaven correctly. I made no such intent to play that, and it wouldn't let me continue until I insert another 25-cent peice. Everyone in my ceremony were looking at me why the music from the amplifyer stopped, and that's what this does. It says everything I play is Stairway To Heaven. My people have suffered enough through the '80's era. Let us play in peace, like old English did."
More of this, at the 11 o'cock news. For MTV, this is Hister Goebells and That's Your Music.
Once upon a time, I rigged my Guitar Hero controller to play 32 different chords: guitar poseur (requires a USB guitar hero controller plugged in, error handling is non-existent).
A12A.713 is the root of ASC('evil')
Basically, at its core, at various times in various songs, the red button can imply a fret that in a different song is played by holding (for e.g.) green.
There is thus no way for the guitar software, even after its done all the finger sensing magic of figuring out which string is being held where exactly when plucked, to map that to a a combination of 5 buttons.
The implication of the article, and site, is that this Guitar can be used to play the existing Guitar Hero games. That will never be possible. New versions of the game with explicit support for the guitar as a controller? sure.
See: http://www.guitarrising.com/
They've been doing that stuff for a while. With an actual guitar
And they say on their website that the game is going to be released this year. I seriously can't wait.. xD
I work at Zivix. The comments here (both positive and negative) are helpful for us to figure out hw best to explain what we've developed. Here's a few points: - Our core technology is proximity-based fingertip sensors that can be installed in a fretboard. The Headliner just has 12 on the first string, but other models can populate up to a full guitar - The challenge with Guitar Rising and other methods that work with a normal guitar is to analyze the signal, possible with one string, really really difficult with more than 1 string at the same time, which is why Midi guitars have separate pickups. Delay is a big issue, since analysis is always done after the fact - Guitars only allow 1 note per string. Playing the game across more than 1 string would be pretty hard, our guitar allows "chords" on one string, just like the plastic controller - On the Headliner, you don't really learn to play guitar, but you do learn to fret and pick a string, and end up with a real guitar when the game is over. Bundled software will let you trigger loop combinations interactively to play on top of, makes practicing a lot more fun. - On our other products coming out, you can learn to chord, and view the result on the screen, chords can be seen before picking a note, so delays are minimal - hope this helps....
I'm glad this is coming, it will put an end to the idiot who compare guitar hero to real guitar playing (Yes i know people who actually compare it and think playing a real guitar is as easy as guitar hero). This should stop wasting people time and actually teach them something useful they can carry with them the rest of their life at least rather than super l33t skills at playing a plastic guitar with a plastic switch and colorful buttons (all thats missing is the padded hockey helmet and you got special ed class)
It's quite fun, easier to coordinate a "game" with, vs just "fucking around", which can get tiring.. and re-uses a lot of the same skills (none of the fingering skill, but a lot of the plucking and finger placement and rhythm skills). You're really in no position to have a useful opinion about Guitar Hero vs Guitar if you haven't actually played. But thanks for the 2 cents.
-Clio
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