Horizon Scanning - Guitars

On the horizon for 2012, the first thing I found was the release of a reboot for the Guitar Hero series - published by Activision! It seems that although the games died a death in recent years, Bobby Kotick, the founder of the series is determined to prove that they can still be popular. It will be interesting to see whether the reboot is worth their time and resources, or just a massive waste. Perhaps the media silence surrounding the series for a while will act as a reprieve that means people will be genuinely interested when the series reappears.

Bobby Kotick - (igogaming.net 2012)

 

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Looking into the technological developments for the guitar I found an article about the 'Q-Tuner' pickup, an innovation from this year that apparently massively improves the quality of sound for guitars and bass guitars. Perhaps innovations like these will take hold in the coming few years, pushing the limits of the instrument and perhaps even instigating the creation of the guitars' successor.

The Q-Tuner - (Patent 1991)

Another technological innovation set for 2012 is the Laser Pitch Detection (LPD) system, that detects what frets the player is strumming and calculates the pitch of the note before it has even been played, this technology could then be used to electronically synthesise exact guitar riffs, or even play a super-advanced, accurate version of Guitar hero that uses the real chords and notes instead of buttons! (Something which could, in fact, be used as a valid reboot for the franchise amongst the musical communities, as a major complaint I personally heard whilst the game was popular was 'It wasn't like playing the real thing').

The LPD - (GIZMODO 2011)

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There are a seemingly never ending amount of events occurring in 2012, ranging from rock concerts to classical guitar workshops, to guitar making seminars. The popularity of the guitar worldwide is truly staggering. There are so many events it is hard to distinguish what events are actually new and original and what are more of the same.

Screen grabs of a variety of event schedules for 2012 - (Various sources)

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An interesting article I found concerning what the guitar could develop into was stumbled upon whilst looking for other advances in technology. the chameleon guitar, as the name suggests, can change its sound depending on the type of board the user places into the middle of the guitar. With interchangeable technology like this, more sounds could become available to a player at a more affordable price, without having to buy a whole other guitar. Perhaps the next stage in design is a fully modular guitar, that could be assembled as a bass, a classical, an electric or an acoustic guitar. Perhaps the design could even be perfected to the point as to incorporate other string instruments like banjos, cellos and double bass!

Amit Zoran with his invention - (Zoran, A - 2009)

The Chameleon Guitar - (Zoran, A - 2009)