Digital Guitar (2010)

Posted on August 02, 2022by

 


Once upon a time, Guitar Hero was ridiculously popular.  Kids would spend thousands of hours practicing pressing the colored buttons on the guitar neck when the video game told them to.  I looked at this and lamented, "All of those hours spent playing this game, but those skills can't translate to playing an actual guitar!  What a waste!!"

So I decided to make a digital guitar that worked just like Guitar Hero.  Instead of pressing a colored button when the video game told you to, you press a chord button on the neck of the guitar whenever the sheet music told you to.   Want a "C" chord?  Press the "C" button and strum.  F#m?  Press the "F#m" button and strum.  Just play whatever chord shows up on your sheet music. How simple is that? 


A built-in synthesizer and speaker produce an authentic acoustic  guitar sound as you strum each of the six pressure-sensitive "strings".  Or, press a button and the pleasant acoustic sound gives way to chord-shreading distorted electric guitar!

Oh, but you can do so much more than just strum:

  • Instantly do finger-picking just like a an experienced player. 
  • Transpose at the press of a button.
  • Memorize key settings
  • There's even a built-in demo mode so you can really show off to your friends!
  • The Guitar is self-contained and campfire-ready.  No game console or AC power needed.

The neck of the Guitar allows you to choose any major or minor key you may find on your sheet music.  You can also play 7th and Major 7th chords by also pressing the button below the chord you want.  The unit is powered by 8 AA batteries or via the supplied AC adapter.  There's also an Audio Out (for headphones) and Line out (for recording or for an amplifier) on the instrument's bottom.

The Instant Campfire Guitar makes playing real guitar as easy as playing Guitar Hero™.

Postscript: This is also the ONLY invention of mine that ever made it to market.  I got it listed in the (then) famous Hammacher Schlemmer gift catalog, and they sold a few hundred, but then the troubles started.  Poor construction quality meant a lot of people returned the guitars as being defective, and the cost of a replacement plus two-way shipping for such a large and heavy instrument completely ate away at the small profits.  Today I have just one working unit left and it should probably go into a museum somewhere.