CES 2014: Stefan Lindsay Demonstrates the gTar (Video)

It looks like an ordinary electric guitar, except for a little LED screen on its body and blinking lights up and down the fretboard that show you where your fingers should go. But the gTar, besides being "The First Guitar That Anybody Can Play," hooks to your iPhone. The gTar app includes "...a variety of classical guitar pieces, modern rock, pop, and everything in between." The gTar Kickstarter campaign in 2012 raised $353,392 even though it only asked for $100,000. The company that makes the gTar, Incident Technologies, started in a garage in Cupertino (Silicon Valley) and is now located in San Francisco after several moves caused by the company's rapid growth. On their Support page they say, "We don't have a brick-and-mortar location for you to try the gTar yet, but we're working on it. In the meantime, check us out at events like Maker Faire, TechCrunch Disrupt, and many others."

Comments

"First?"

[Jethro]

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. I remember seeing an infomercial-type thing where they had Mark Knopfler play with one.

I find it fairly interesting how a lot of things labelled as the "first" to do something are really not.

Re:"First?"

[Anrego]

My view (as someone who learned guitar the old fashioned way (you know, through youtube videos..)) is this might act as a stepping stone (kinda like rocksmith and even rockband) to get someone through the dull and tedious part where you can't do anything besides make your fingertips really sore.

I kinda see two use cases for this thing:
-people who buy it, use it mostly like a toy for a while, then eventually put it in the closet
-people who play around with it, and gradually transition to a traditional guitar / traditional learning approach

One thing I find really interesting about these new learning aids is the focus on "just start playing, learn technique later" vice the approach I (and probably most people who currently play guitar) generally took of learning chords and scales first.

Does an unwillingness to grind things out the old way make one unworthy of music? Personally I think if this gets more people into music than it's a force of good.

Re:You lost me at...

[Adult film producer]

He does mention in the video there are latency issues with Android that prevents them from writing useable software for the guitar.

As A Guitarist...

[CanHasDIY]

As a person who's been a mediocre guitarist for over a decade, I both like and dislike this Slashvertised product.

Pros:
- The bridge looks kinda neat
- with the right software, music teachers would find it very useful for teaching scales and other basics
- $400 isn't *exceedingly* expensive

Cons:
- $400 for a specialty instrument is kinda expensive
- Ugly. As. Sin.
- HUGE, awkward body. I sure as hell won't be teaching anybody with short arms to play with this thing
- Light up fretboard only encourages you to stare at it while you play, which you're really not supposed to do (I do, but as I already implied, I'm not very good)
- More fancy electronics == more stuff to break
- WTF is that slotted thing at the end of the fretboard? A pickup? Some sort of crazy vibration arrestor?
- I can't see a 1/4" jack anywhere on that thing... how am I supposed to hook it into my Marshall?
- I don't have or want an iPhone
- from the website: "we have a free SDK that can be used to build all kinds of applications on the gTar" Oh, great, so my fucking geet-box is going to have proprietary software on it? No thanks.

I'm sure there are plenty more pros/cons, but that's what I've got so far.