Learn To Shred… With Laser Beams
[via engadget]
The world needs another instructional guitar tool like it needs another hole in the ozone layer, but in all seriousness, this one is stupendous. Er, it exhibits remarkable potential, considering that it’s not yet beyond the concept stage. Designer Eugene Cheong has dreamed up the Maestro, an attachment that can supposedly be adapted to work on any guitar (of the electric variety, we presume) and teach you what frets to mash in order to actually become a halfway decent player. Put simply, the device accepts MP3 files via SD card, and then it breaks down the tunes into tablature which can be displayed via lasers. Once you see the beams lighting up your fretboard, you mash / strum in order to keep up and “learn” the songs. We can only hope this thing adds a slowdown mode should it ever hit store shelves, ’cause even the amateur probably doesn’t want to tackle select Dream Theater tracks at full speed.
It should be reitterated that this is only a conceptual product, and there are a lot of potential problems that I forsee with it. I’ll list them out here, as well as thier solutions.
1) I wonder if Gibson will let them keep the name “Maestro” as is.
SOLUTION: Rename it. Maestro’s not that catchy of a name anyway.
2) The product claims to rip the guitar parts out of your favorite MP3 files for transcription to their laser-guide system. I’m not sure how they pull the guitar part out. Even with advanced FFTs, Melodyne’s DNA and the like, there’s a lot of room for error in any software being able to properly identify and single out just the guitar part (especially in songs with multiple guitar tracks).
SOLUTION: Figure out a way to import song files from Guitar Hero or Rock Band, as those have the guitar parts pulled out. From those, analyze and produce the appropriate tablature cues.
3) How does the device detect whether or not the song at hand is played in an alternate tuning?
SOLUTION: If the solution to #2 above is employed, the song data could include any tuning info for the guitar.
4) Won’t the user’s hand get in the way of the lasers at times?
SOLUTION: Develop some type of guitar neck that lights up under the player’s hand, rather than trying to project anything through the user’s hand. That might be cheaper, and infinitely easier to calibrate than a complex laser system too. You would definitely lose the versatility of being able to use the device on your favorite guitar though… I’m not sure that’s the point though.
So basically, the solution to the Maestro’s problems is to take the initial concept and purpose of the project, and completely redo the system in which it’s executed.
Plus, we need to save all the laser beams we can; otherwise, what are we going to attach to the heads of all those sharks I just bought? I don’t want to go back to ill-tempered, mutated sea bass.
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