How learning to play the guitar turned into creating my own digital one. Part 2

It’s been four months since the previous article was written, and I have a lot of news both in the technical part and in the positioning of the device.

Let me remind you of the requirements I set for the device when I started its development:

1. It has to imitate a 6-string 12-fret guitar.
2. It has to be quite small, ideally collapsible, for a person to carry it anywhere.
3. It has to support all popular operating systems — Android, IOS, Windows, Linux, MacOS — and be identified as a MIDI device without any drivers.
4. It has to support the power supply.
5. It has to support wireless Bluetooth Low Energy connection (but since it will have a USB port for charging, it will be possible to connect it using a cable)
6. It has to have the opportunity to start playing right away, without any need for training and adapting your hands.
7. Each string and element of the fingerboard has to have a LED to start the tablature of the tune, and the guitar itself should show where to put your hands.
8. There has to be an opportunity to use the main guitar playing techniques: hummer on, pull off, slide, vibrato.
9. Latency of carrying MIDI event messages has to take not more than 10ms.
10. Everything should be made out of simple elements without any difficult technical processes or expensive electronics.

I’ve managed to do all of this and even more. I’ve also integrated an accelerometer to manage the parameters of using digital filters by tilting the guitar and the vibratory motor (I still don’t know why, though).

While I was writing the previous article, it looked like this:

I’ve made the decision to try launching a startup and use Kickstarter.

So, what happened next?

The next step was to find a pre-seed investment round. I needed money to improve and develop a new prototype, engage in promotion, and pay for legal processes (to use Kickstarter, you need to have a legal entity in the USA, so you have to deal with all the organizational expenditures). My partner (who is responsible for the business processes) and I managed to solve this problem in two months.

Positioning

To confirm the product’s usefulness and functionality, we decided to meet all the musicians from Saint Petersburg and Moscow that we could contact; we then filmed videos for social media.

Professional guitarists were quite skeptical of the device. I totally understand them — you can’t replace a real guitar with it. This device should be used in cases when you need portability, universalism, simplicity, opportunity to use it wearing headphones, etc. Imagine: you are on plane, children around you are crying, it’s very noisy, emergency oxygen masks are dropping. You can’t sleep. Suddenly you feel inspired, take the device, put on your headphones, and record a new track.

The general public really liked the guitar despite the limited functionality and big constructional disadvantages of the current prototype. The device turned out to be so fascinating it even got reviewed by a popular Russian blogger, Vaganych.

After the discussion, we realized what our target audience looks like — sound designers, music makers — people who deal with digital music. It turned out that they have serious difficulties with recording guitar and other string parts using MIDI keyboards. It’s really complicated and takes so much time that sometimes they have to give up using string instruments, and that limits their art. They were super enthusiastic about our device and said it’s going to be really popular.

Rivals

We have rivals in this market, so we’ve bought their products for review.

1. Artiphon – a touch-sensitive pad shaped like a guitar but positioned more like a MIDI-controller.

It’s an interesting but expensive product. In general, it works well, and you can play different instruments using it. It has built-in speakers, but it’s better not to use them. It can be connected only via USB.

2. Jammy – a guitar form-factor. It consists of real strings and elements that can be disassembled. Sensors independently...

How I learned to play guitar, and create my own digital one

My name is Dmitriy Dudarev. I develop electronics, and I love to create different portable devices. I also love music.

A long time ago, in April 2020 or so, when the whole world was shaken by the terrible quarantine, I decided to learn to play guitar. I borrowed an acoustic guitar from a friend of mine and started to study the instrument by lessons on YouTube and tablatures. It was hard. Maybe, I was doing something wrong, maybe, I didn’t try hard enough, or maybe, fine motor skills prevented my predecessors from reproduction. All in all, I couldn’t produce anything but sounds of rattling strings. The constant mistuning of the strings strengthened my resentment. And my neighbors got no pleasure from listening to my uneven “Nothing Else Matters” thousands of times.

But, in the middle of all these sufferings, I haven’t forgotten the main rule of a techie. If something exists, you can insert a microcontroller there. Or, at least make a portable electronic modification.

Electronic guitar? Hum, an interesting idea, I thought. But it would be even better if I could learn to play this guitar myself. On the same day, the acoustic guitar was returned to my friend, and I started to develop the idea.

As I’m an innate engineer; I made a list of requirements for the device.

What do I want from my guitar?

1. I want something that looks like a guitar as much as possible, that is, six strings and at least 12 frets on the fingerboard.
2. I want it to be compact and portable. So that I can take the device wherever I go, not having to book a truck for transportation.
3. The device should be able to connect to anything without any tricks — from iOS to Windows. Ok, ok, let’s be realistic– to all the popular OSs.
4. Work using a battery.
5. The connection should be wireless (However, there will be a USB-port for recharging and connectable using a wire too)
6. The most important point — learning to play the guitar should be easy, without the necessity for long training on wrist ligament adaptation. So, how do I make it come true? It occurred to me to equip the guitar and the strings with LEDs. For example, you upload tablatures in your guitar, and it shows you itself where to put your fingers. That is, there is nothing like looking at the screen, then at the guitar, then again at the screen, and again at the guitar. I don’t need all this stuff. You look only at the guitar. And you play the same guitar. That’s all. That’s what my idea was!
7. I’d like to have the support of different playing techniques: hummer on, pull off, slide, vibrato.
8. No retards. Speaking scientifically, the delay of midi-commands shouldn’t exceed 10ms.
9. Everything should be assembled “from shit and sticks” — easily available materials without complicated technical processes and expensive electronics

As a result, we should get a compact instrument that I can play like a guitar free from the shortcomings of an analog one, equipped with a visual learning system; it sounds realistic.

Of course, we need to write an app for mobile platforms, and you can choose a tablature for training with LEDs, choose an instrument (acoustic, classical, electric guitar with different filter presets, ukulele, etc.), and make sounds.

Existing analogs

But do I need to invent a bike? Because for each great idea, there is always a Chinese person who has already done it “in hardware” and made it better than you were going to initially. I’m looking it up on Google.

The first digital guitar turned out to have been created back in 1981, but it hasn’t become popular because of its weak functionality.

More modern variants have also been found, for sure.

For example, with an iPad instead of strings, or another, in the shape of a mollusk:

However, fulfilling all my wishes–first of all, compactness and “press-on-LEDs” training mode — there is no such a thing. Besides, such midi-guitars are still purposed for a more skilled audience. Moreover, they are...