the incremental future of the guitar ?

ICBM

2003amxl said:

I'd love perfect single coil and humbucker sounds from one guitar. I don't mind if its done on the guitar end or digitally modeled on the amp end. The Line 6 variax was promising but had quirks such as palm muting where it fell apart.

Not having a go at you personally, but... this is part of the problem. If people stopped wanting *perfect* reproductions of sounds from the past, and just wanted *good* sounds which fulfil the same musical purposes, it would be possible to advance the technology much more easily in very effective ways.

I do not care whether my hum-cancelling 'single coil' pickups sound exactly the same as the pickups they replaced or not - all I care is that they can make the same *type* of sounds, sound great, and do not hum - all of which they do. I no longer own any instruments with non-hum-cancelling pickups - but my guitars and basses are all what are thought of as 'single coil' instruments.

The same applies to my amps, pedals, and everything really. I'm not interested in reproducing vintage sounds to the degree that some people seem so obsessed by at all - as long as I can get the sounds I like then it's all good. I've owned plenty of vintage gear and while some of it did sound great in some contexts, it all had fairly major compromises in practical terms.

Brize

sev112 said:

But there is a serious flaw - very taut metallic strings, set out in a way that the majority of people who try to play the instrument try and give up.

why should rock and roll, and guitar song writing only be limited to those who can persevere through the pain of playing 6 string F chords (like all new guitarists get told they have to learn.

 innovations could make learning and developing much easier - 3or 4 string guitars which could be simply extended to 6 string when you become more accomplished; simpler tunings to start with so that you can learn and play a barre chord with just one finger (and not have to add the other 3 fingers in an F chord); comfortable and adjustable “rest” that you can rest your right hand on instead of resting on the painful bridge; nylon wrapped metal strings so that you can play an electric pickup guitar with the comfort of nylon; modular neck that can be put on which lights up minor or major 3rds, or myxolydian notes etc while you are playing ;  

yes I know that all of them exist already in various ways, but we still sell teenagers a painful standard electric to learn on and make them play 6 string F chords).

What absolute drivel. Shall we put frets on violins and cellos as well to make them easier to play?

Clarky

Brize said:

Shall we put frets on violins and cellos as well to make them easier to play?

David Cross did on the lower half of the neck.. lol..

2003amxl

ICBM said:

2003amxl said:

I'd love perfect single coil and humbucker sounds from one guitar. I don't mind if its done on the guitar end or digitally modeled on the amp end. The Line 6 variax was promising but had quirks such as palm muting where it fell apart.

Not having a go at you personally, but... this is part of the problem. If people stopped wanting *perfect* reproductions of sounds from the past, and just wanted *good* sounds which fulfil the same musical purposes, it would be possible to advance the technology much more easily in very effective ways.

I do not care whether my hum-cancelling 'single coil' pickups sound exactly the same as the pickups they replaced or not - all I care is that they can make the same *type* of sounds, sound great, and do not hum - all of which they do. I no longer own any instruments with non-hum-cancelling pickups - but my guitars and basses are all what are thought of as 'single coil' instruments.

The same applies to my amps, pedals, and everything really. I'm not interested in reproducing vintage sounds to the degree that some people seem so obsessed by at all - as long as I can get the sounds I like then it's all good. I've owned plenty of vintage gear and while some of it did sound great in some contexts, it all had fairly major compromises in practical terms.

I meant that the single coil sounds perfectly like a single coil, not like THE perfect single coil if you catch my drift.

ICBM

2003amxl said:

I meant that the single coil sounds perfectly like a single coil, not like THE perfect single coil if you catch my drift.

Ah, sorry - I misunderstood .

Actually that's probably possible already, but not by splitting a standard Gibson-type humbucker. I think you would agree that trying to make an *exact* reproduction of the sound of (say) a '54 Strat and a '59 Les Paul in the same guitar is a fool's errand though.

One of the things I wonder about now is what will happen when the boutique builders run out of different vintage designs - whether that's guitars, amps or pedals - to copy... a large chunk of the market seems to be taken up with that now, even of obscure stuff whose only claim to desirability seems to be that it's old and someone famous once used one.

sev112

Brize said:

sev112 said:

But there is a serious flaw - very taut metallic strings, set out in a way that the majority of people who try to play the instrument try and give up.

why should rock and roll, and guitar song writing only be limited to those who can persevere through the pain of playing 6 string F chords (like all new guitarists get told they have to learn.

 innovations could make learning and developing much easier - 3or 4 string guitars which could be simply extended to 6 string when you become more accomplished; simpler tunings to start with so that you can learn and play a barre chord with just one finger (and not have to add the other 3 fingers in an F chord); comfortable and adjustable “rest” that you can rest your right hand on instead of resting on the painful bridge; nylon wrapped metal strings so that you can play an electric pickup guitar with the comfort of nylon; modular neck that can be put on which lights up minor or major 3rds, or myxolydian notes etc while you are playing ;  

yes I know that all of them exist already in various ways, but we still sell teenagers a painful standard electric to learn on and make them play 6 string F chords).

What absolute drivel. Shall we put frets on violins and cellos as well to make them easier to play?

Yes, absolutely if it helps people learn and then stick with the instrument and then make fabulous new creative music as a result of sticking with the instrument and then moving onto the more “traditional”/ more difficult instrument

Lewy

sev112 said:

Brize said:

sev112 said:

But there is a serious flaw - very taut metallic strings, set out in a way that the majority of people who try to play the instrument try and give up.

why should rock and roll, and guitar song writing only be limited to those who can persevere through the pain of playing 6 string F chords (like all new guitarists get told they have to learn.

 innovations could make learning and developing much easier - 3or 4 string guitars which could be simply extended to 6 string when you become more accomplished; simpler tunings to start with so that you can learn and play a barre chord with just one finger (and not have to add the other 3 fingers in an F chord); comfortable and adjustable “rest” that you can rest your right hand on instead of resting on the painful bridge; nylon wrapped metal strings so that you can play an electric pickup guitar with the comfort of nylon; modular neck that can be put on which lights up minor or major 3rds, or myxolydian notes etc while you are playing ;  

yes I know that all of them exist already in various ways, but we still sell teenagers a painful standard electric to learn on and make them play 6 string F chords).

What absolute drivel. Shall we put frets on violins and cellos as well to make them easier to play?

Yes, absolutely if it helps people learn and then stick with the instrument and then make fabulous new creative music as a result of sticking with the instrument and then moving onto the more “traditional”/ more difficult instrument

I doubt that removing the technical obstacles to playing the guitar (which are minimal compared to a lot of other instruments) would lead to a creative explosion.  People with the kind of creative vision you're talking about seldom find themselves unable to overcome the odd technical challenge, in fact they usually embrace those challenges as part of the creative process.

lysander

The hard technical part about playing guitar is not pressing strings behind the frets, it's the picking ( go ask Troy Grady ).
No amount of technological change is going to make that easier

crunchman

I think the future is digital processing to get different sounds.

We are partly there already with things like the Variax and the Fender Acoustasonic, but I think it will reach a point where there will be outboard processing where you can just plug in a standard Strat/Tele/LP without the need for the special pickups and complex onboard gadgetry that will be unfixable in 15 years time.

Kemper are meant to be releasing an acoustic simulator.  I don't know how good it will be, and it may be the next generation of kit that perfects this stuff, but if I can plug my Strat into a box and get a convincing acoustic tone then that's a game changer.

If you look at the EHX organ pedals etc then there are possibilities there.  Sooner or later, there will be a box that you can plug your bog basic Strat into and get an acoustic sound, a keyboard sound, and loads of effects, and everything else in one box.

We might not even need a dedicated box.  Just a computer/tablet with plugins and some kind of controller.

Lewy

crunchman said:

Kemper are meant to be releasing an acoustic simulator.  I don't know how good it will be, and it may be the next generation of kit that perfects this stuff, but if I can plug my Strat into a box and get a convincing acoustic tone then that's a game changer.

Technically you could do that now with the right IR an associated hardware, but I wonder how broad the appeal is. Given that the vast majority of plugged-in "real" acoustic playing sounds a long way from a convincing acoustic tone (piezos and soundhole mag pups etc) I do wonder whether or not looking like you're playing an acoustic guitar is as important and often more important than sounding like you are....to the player and the audience too.

rossi

Fifty9 said:

This thread has made me buy a telecaster

All threads make me want to buy a Telecaster .

Clarky

crunchman said:

I think the future is digital processing to get different sounds.

interesting observation..
got me thinking..
as technology gets ever smaller, faster, more capable I'm wondering if the next generation of pups will be modellers..
Roland already did this yonks ago in the VG-99..
tone and tracking wise it was ok.. but not exactly stunning tone wise
it did however provide some interesting tone options that were clearly useful..
the down side was that it needed the special pup which meant:
- attach a huge ugly barnacle to the front of the guitar [which btw only works on right hand guitars]
- have the more discreet version built into your guitar [I didn't fancy having my custom V's hacked about for this]
- the cable is fkn mental thick and horrid

however - playing the 'what if' game
what if a pup that was the size of a HB with all the clever tech inside [with amazingly good pup modelling] could spit out the audio signal as if it were a real pup and so it passes through all the guitar's normal circuitry [vol / tone / selector / 1/4" jack]
and what if you could change pup via a floor controller too via bluetooth or similar [which would logically pave the way for pup-type changes to be triggered via MIDI from your processor <change preset and pup-type at the same time>]..

this could be really cool and very powerful...
especially for a touring muso like me that don't have the budget to take 4 electrics and an acoustic]..

WiresDreamDisasters

Bluetooth is too slow to do anything time-critical.

Clarky

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Bluetooth is too slow to do anything time-critical.

too slow to change a preset? it's not a huge message
or maybe some other wireless tech then..

WiresDreamDisasters

Clarky said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Bluetooth is too slow to do anything time-critical.

too slow to change a preset? it's not a huge message
or maybe some other wireless tech then..

Yeah it's pretty flaky for anything where you need to know "I wanna change a preset exactly at this point in time".

Bluetooth latency is roughly 3x a cabled latency, approx 224ms. Newer implementations are faster but not fast enough for our needs:

https://stephencoyle.net/latency
https://stephencoyle.net/airpods-pro

TLDR; good enough for 'listening' to music. But not good enough to put into a guitar rig IMHO.

Clarky

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Clarky said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Bluetooth is too slow to do anything time-critical.

too slow to change a preset? it's not a huge message
or maybe some other wireless tech then..

Yeah it's pretty flaky for anything where you need to know "I wanna change a preset exactly at this point in time".

Bluetooth latency is roughly 3x a cabled latency, approx 224ms. Newer implementations are faster but not fast enough for our needs:

https://stephencoyle.net/latency
https://stephencoyle.net/airpods-pro

TLDR; good enough for 'listening' to music. But not good enough to put into a guitar rig IMHO.

interesting articles... I see your point now..

Roland

Lewy said:

crunchman said:

Kemper are meant to be releasing an acoustic simulator.  I don't know how good it will be, and it may be the next generation of kit that perfects this stuff, but if I can plug my Strat into a box and get a convincing acoustic tone then that's a game changer.

Technically you could do that now with the right IR an associated hardware, but I wonder how broad the appeal is. Given that the vast majority of plugged-in "real" acoustic playing sounds a long way from a convincing acoustic tone (piezos and soundhole mag pups etc) I do wonder whether or not looking like you're playing an acoustic guitar is as important and often more important than sounding like you are....to the player and the audience too.

About 25% of our set uses a Telecaster through an IR which matches to my Taylor. it actually sounds too authentic because people expect on-stage acoustics to sound like piezos and soundhole pickups.