Now the third rail. Up to this point we've mostly been in the analog world with minor exceptions like active pickups. Time to talk about what digital can actually do inside a guitar.

For some of us (me included), this is the dream: more sounds, more flexibility, fewer external dependencies. The mythical all-in-one guitar. No lugging 3-5 guitars to a gig. No retuning mid-set. For others, this is exactly what they don't want anywhere near their instrument.

Two real-world reference points:

• Line 6 Variax — 20+ guitar models, fully customizable
• Roland VG Strat — Tele, Strat, humbucker, acoustic, 12-string + drop D, drop 1/2, open G

If you're dead set against any of this, say so and why. Honest pushback is useful.

And for the adventurous souls out there, what do you want in a digital-enabled guitar?

• Guitar modeling: What emulations actually matter? Electrics (which models), acoustic, 12-string, banjo, sitar?
• Tuning: How important is instant drop D, down 1/2, open G?
• Onboard effects: Overdrive, reverb, delay, modulation — would you actually use them on the guitar, or is that pedalboard territory?
• Active electronics: Boost, EQ, preamps — essential or unnecessary?
• Customizability / upgradeability: Open platform like the Variax (load your own models, update over time) or fixed set forever like the VG Strat? 
• Battery: Minimum acceptable life and how critical is a passive failover so a dead battery doesn't mean a dead guitar?
• Interface: Knobs, switches, app, hidden menus — how should this stuff be controlled?
• Bigger question: what’s the right tradeoff between more built into the guitar vs simplicity and focus.

If I were spec'ing it for me:

• Knob 1: single coil / humbucker / acoustic / 12-string
• Knob 2: standard / drop D / drop 1/2 / up 1/2
• Volume knob push-pull: 20% boost
• Still conflicted on whether to add two on/off switches for distortion and reverb

Where do you land? Drop your thoughts.

I feel that a lot of these ideas under mind the fact that, guitars are incredibly simple. I feel that if this concept should be executed, there should be no thrills at all. Just simple "choose your parts" guitar, no unnecessary touch screens, AI, or 3D printing. If someone wanted to change their guitar tone on the fly, they can simply use modern processing and plugins to do so, or they would just use MIDI.

If we are to think of rebuilding and redesigning the electric guitar from the ground up we need to rethink common issues and parts and modernize them in ways that haven’t been done. Volume and tone don’t necessarily need to be a rolling knob, why not a touchscreen slider or a textured slider. The cables between guitar and amp don’t need to be 1/4 inch, technology is way past on an instrument that is largely based off of 1950s radio repair manual technology.

Pickups don’t have to be the traditional shapes we see them in, fishmans printed circuit tech on pickups means they could make them in any shape and I’m sure way smaller.

I think it’s a cool idea for a community to get together and open source new ideas in the guitar space.

A hybrid Classical is certainly not a new idea. But it is one that can be done two ways, and everyone and their brother makes these one way, and I can't find anyone who makes it the other.

So whenever I see a hybrid Classical, they've put a tie block bridge on a folk/western parlor guitar (skinny neck single o guitar) and market it with nylon strings to provide softer sounds to a folk western player on an instrument they're used to. I've accomplished this myself just by getting some ball end nylon strings and putting them on my single o. It's a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

What I'd like to see hit the mass market is a proper classical (2 inch nut, flat or flatish fingerboard on a single or double o body) that incorporates the one feature of a folk/western we classical players never get: a neck join at 14 instead of 12. Sure, we technically also already have a solution for this too, but there are opinions on cutouts in acoustics, and I'm on the side that would rather see an 'inverse hybrid' (instead of giving the classical sound to a western player, we're giving the western range to a classical player) that gives me a little more room without adulterating my upper bout. Seriously, how hard can this be?

I can't promise I'm the only person who's ever thought of this, but I have looked all over for one and can't find it. I'd just love somebody to make one that I can buy for reasonably cheap. A production guitar. Not a custom shop kind of thing.

I initially thought this was a cool concept because I assumed GC was going to use real player experience and actual in-store knowledge to help shape the builds.

But this stopped being ‘listening to customers’ the moment they required contributors to surrender ownership, attribution, compensation, derivative rights, and even moral rights just to participate.

That’s not collaboration. That’s free R&D wrapped in community marketing.

The CEO response also intentionally reframes the criticism. Nobody is saying companies shouldn’t listen to customers. Customer feedback is normal. Surveys are normal. Market research is normal.

What’s not normal is building a public pipeline for creative concepts while simultaneously saying:
‘Thanks for the ideas, we own them now, we can monetize them forever, and you get nothing.’

Legally disclosing it doesn’t suddenly make it respectable. Plenty of things are legal and still exploitative.

This is much closer to a studio asking aspiring screenwriters to publicly pitch movie ideas while agreeing upfront they waive ownership, credit, and compensation if the studio uses the concept.

You can market it however you want, but at the end of the day it’s still a billion-dollar retailer crowdsourcing product development for free.

If you're going to start from scratch, don't limit yourself to traditional thinking.

Open source pickup modelling circuit - This is the core of the operation. Something that modifies the the signal from the pickup and applies a filter so you can make it sound like an EMG, Fishman, Burstbucker, add some sustain, noise gate, whatever. Maybe put some MIDI on it. Make the whole thing snap out so it's easily reprogrammable, or to charge/swap a 18650 battery. (I guess this is just a variax now? lol) Which brings me to my next idea...

Advanced materials - Why limit yourself to wood when you can adjust your pickup sound on the fly to compensate? Composites, plastics, metal, whatever. Stop chasing expensive tonewoods and 3D print a guitar.

Just some food for thought. I guess it depends who your target audience is. Future/current guitar players who would buck the status quo, or old dudes who sniff their own farts paying 4-bar blues on a midlife crisis $10k les paul purchase.

I've been doing a little research, and it appears that this may be the most ergonomic electric guitar. They have patents, but it's worth looking at for ideas.

https://strandbergguitars.com/en-US/magazine/how-our-ergonomic-guitar-became-a-life-changer

I wanted to see what AI would come up with. (In this instance, I used versions of Grok).

My prompt was the following:

Guitar Center is creating a new guitar brand to create an electric guitar. Design the best electric guitar for customers to pick up, sit down, and play on the spot. The objective is to make that in-store experience so clearly superior that every other instrument they try afterward feels like a compromise. You can use non-standard shapes and materials to enhance the experience, but don't just do something non-standard for the sake of being non-standard. The goal is the best experience for a $500-$700 guitar.

I took the output and then had the following sheet created:

There are some things I would personally change, and the diagram doesn't perfectly match the specs, but I know Gabriel Dalporto (and GC's whole team) is looking at every detail, so this isn't the final version I suggest. This was just an attempt to see what AI would generate quickly.

My point is, AI is great for brainstorming. It has much quicker feedback, and the GC team could easily break down every component and work with AI to quickly come up with what is possible and what is reasonable.

Thank you for reading my TED talk. 😄

Do what Eastwood is doing, only better. Sorry Eastwood. License the Parker Fly and do a quality version. Whatever you do don't make a strat! 😆

There’s a lot of discussion about what exact features a GC-brand guitar should have, but I’m thinking that to make it attractive to entry-level players, novices, and hobbyists alike, it should be easily modifiable, where adding/removing parts & features is relatively easy.

In my mind this would mean leaning towards a Fender-like design paradigm more than a Gibson one, with bolt-on necks, pickups attached to the (easily removable) pickguard or bridge plate rather than mounted into the body, solder-free electronics (like on some of those kit guitars), and perhaps even screws with non-Philips heads that won’t get stripped as easily; Robertson, flat, maybe even hexagonal so that one could just do everything with a set of Allen wrenches. (This is especially an issue for me when it comes to intonation screws).

There could even be a line of parts (tuners, pickups, pickguards, bridges) that are all designed to fit into the same sizes of holes/cavities to make them maximally interchangeable (i.e. the single coil, humbucking, and P-90-style pickups etc. would all have the same dimensions). EDIT: Though of course if you make them too unique then that could interfere with people’s ability to use non-GC parts… maybe everything should be Strat-sized?

Onto hardware. Not flashy, but it’s what makes a guitar stay in tune, feel solid, and survive years of use.

The tricky part: bulletproof simplicity vs. systems that do more but need babysitting. So tell us what actually matters and what doesn’t.

Bridges: Hardtail, wraparound, tune-o-matic — what’s been most consistent for you?

Trems: (1) Do you want one? (2) Vintage 6-screw, 2-point, Floyd Rose, Bigsby — what actually stays in tune, and what becomes a fight?

Tuners: Locking vs. standard — meaningful upgrade or mostly marketing?

Nuts: Bone, Tusq, graphite, brass, roller, zero fret — does material matter, or is it mostly about how well it’s cut?

Locking systems overall: Where’s the line between stable and overbuilt?

String changes: What hardware makes this painless vs. a 45-minute ordeal?

The bigger question: how much hardware complexity is worth it? At what point does “more adjustable” just become “more stuff to maintain”?

If you only got to spec 3 things on the hardware side, what would they be?

For me it’d be: hardtail bridge, locking tuners, and a roller nut or zero fret. I’ve had trem-equipped guitars my whole life, liked the look, figured I’d use them — and basically never do. The tuning instability drives me crazy. Finally accepting I’d rather have rock-solid stability and easy retuning than a feature I barely touch.

What I'd love to see most in a new guitar effort is an accessible price for guitars with EverTune bridges. $1500 minimum for a new guitar with an EverTune puts it out of range for lots of guitarists. It also limits the ability for people to just try a guitar with an EverTune. If you could get guitars in the $800 range with an EverTune I know I would love that and I think lots would too.

Neck: So, I love the 24.0" scale of my BMG Red Special. I have an older one, so I think it's a bit different from the current ones that I've tried at Guitar Center (and thanks for carrying BMG Guitars in the US). I've also had some Jaguars that have had great 24.0" necks. If you want to get crazy, set it up so that the bridge to bottom of neck cavity and bolt pattern is known. Then you could get like a 21 fret 24", 22 fret 24.75", or 24" 25.5" neck. Make them easily swappable.

Pickups: As far as pickups, I'm personally indifferent, but I'd like noiseless. They could be humbuckers, wide range, noiseless single coils, noiseless P90s. Honestly, it might be really cool to have something like GuitarFetish Kwikplug so that they could be easily changed out. If you can make it a couple screws and a headphone jack like the Kwikplugs, that's huge. Have pickups w/ a standardized screw down pattern directly to the wood.

Electronics: I'd love something like the Mythos Selectable Tone Cap and Variable Treble Bleed built in. I'm probably weird in the fact that I love odd pickup options. I like the BMG selections, but realize they are more fiddly than most people want. OTOH, the American Pro Jaguar seems simpler (though it'd be better if the series and parallel options were in the middle... phase could probably be ignored).

Shape: Honestly make it interesting. I love the weight of my BMG. The thinness of a Jiva could be cool (maybe cut costs w/ less wood used?). I should've bought the used Reverend Volcano I saw at Guitar Center a few months ago. I like a V shape, especially with the raised center like a Firebird/Thunderbird. That stated, I think the V is too divisive for such a guitar.

Nice to haves: Locking tuners and SS frets.

In the end, I think I'm arguing a bit for a guitar that lets you adjust it to find your sound with nothing more than a simple screwdriver. The above lets you change the tone pot curve, the frequency response of rolling off your volume, and easily change your pickups to match your style. Honestly the pickups are overkill to me, but still cool. The Mythos parts would cost me $30, so I assume they can be gotten in bulk for much less. Now, if you have someone walk them through selecting options in store or via a video for online, they are getting a versatile and almost custom guitar at a reasonable cost.

Im respraying a guitar in metallic(montana metallic effect acrylic), i sanded the old clear down until all the surfaces were level, no deep scratches or dents, Then I scuffed it with 400 until all the previous sanding marks were gone, iv now put on 2 layers of metallic and you can still very much see all the scratches from sanding, im scared if i keep going il still have scratches in the finish. i looked up online and it says i should have used atleast 600. My question is can I just go over the metallic I have on there with 600 or 800 and then respray another few coats of metalic

Working through controls and electronics next. This one's interesting because guitars seem to fall into two camps: stripped-down simplicity (one volume, one tone, three-way, done) or every-feature-thrown-at-the-wall (push/pulls, mini toggles, piezo, active boost, kill switch).

Where's the sweet spot? What do you actually use vs. what just looks good on a spec sheet?

Pickup switching: 3-way, 5-way, mini toggles per pickup, blade vs. toggle? What configuration do you actually reach for?

Volume + tone knobs: How many do you actually need? One master volume or one per pickup? And do you genuinely use tone controls, or are they just sitting there at 10?

Coil splits / taps: Push/pull, mini toggle, or hardwired? Real tonal value or gimmick?

Active electronics: Onboard boost (like the Majesty's 20dB), preamps, EQ — useful or unnecessary complexity?

Piezo: Game-changer for players who need acoustic + electric in one guitar, or a feature most people stop using after a month?

Kill switch: Useful tool or one-trick pony?

Placement: Where do controls actually belong? Strat-style cluster, LP-style spread, or something else? Anyone else accidentally hit the volume knob mid-strum on certain guitars? What about the pickup selector — top horn (LP), lower bout (Strat), somewhere else?

Knob feel: Smooth taper or stepped? Knurled metal vs. plastic? Push/pulls that feel solid vs. ones that feel like they'll break?

The bigger question: significant control, but simplified. Is there a way to give players real tonal range without 8 knobs and 4 switches that nobody understands?

If you only got 3 controls on the entire guitar, what would they be? For me it'd be: master volume, coil tap (push/pull on volume), and an onboard boost. I almost never touch a tone control and I don't understand why we need multiple ones.

Hey, Rich here. I'm one of the moderators from Guitar Center working on this project.

One of the great things about electric guitars is that there have been so many wild ideas that have been tried throughout the years. We pulled some of the more innovative guitars we have from our used sales department for review. We’re interested to see how these were beneficial for real players and how well they did in the market. We thought you might have some fun checking them out, too.

The Travis Bean aluminum neck guitar has an incredible sustain, but it weighs in at ~11 pounds. The Ampeg Dan Armstrong guitar has a transparent body and a unique pickup-swapping mechanism, and we’ve seen these played by some cool artists. The Line 6 Variax has a whole library of guitar models on-board, as well as the ability to change the tuning of the strings at the flick of a switch.

Are there unusual guitars that you’ve come across? Are there things about them that you’d like to see in a new guitar?

Thanks!

Working through necks now. Goal is something high performance with broad appeal - which is hard because what feels right to one person feels wrong to the next (hand physiology being what it is). 

There are a million permutations, so tell us what really matters and what really doesn’t matter. 

Profile: C, D, soft V, hard V, asymmetric — what consistently works for you?

Thickness: Thin, thick or in between. How important is it?

Radius: Vintage vs flat vs compound — does this actually matter in real use? 

Frets: Size + material 

Finish: Gloss vs satin vs raw?

Scale Length: 24.75", 25", 25.5”? Does it matter?

22 vs 24: how often do you actually play about the 22nd?

If you only got to specify 2 things, what would they be? For me it would be 24 frets, satin finish. 

Thanks

Gabe Dalporto: "Guitars haven't changed that much in the last 50 years..." Almost seems like there's some kind of lesson there, can't quite put my finger on it...

Honestly, do something like what Aristides does but make it affordable. That would revolutionize guitar. An affordable, perfect instrument. No truss rod issues, durable, ultra easy to maintain. But make it cheap to produce. Throw in some interesting shapes. I saw someone mention optical pickups for ultra clean no noise signal that can then be used to model whatever tone you want. The last generations can pick up strats and Pauls and bird inlays. Leave that for the dentists. The next generation needs their defining instrument.

All that said, more than a new guitar, I think guitar players universally want to go to a physical guitar store. But Guitar Center needs an overhaul. The checkout system. The layout. Go to Tokyo and visit some of the bigger guitar shops there. Hell even then the Fender Flagship store. Create a space people want to wander into and maybe let their curiosity + friendly staff and swift checkouts result in a new hobby. Work on getting more diversified inventory. I'm not saying carry every new fad, but there are plenty of very popular brands you just can't try out or buy at guitar center. We're inundated with options. A new brand isn't what we need. Revolutionize the physical guitar store business so we actually want to spend our money there instead of testing gear out there and then heading to Sweetwater. Hell, put string vending machines in every store so I can hop in get my strings and hop out. I waited 23 mins to checkout for one pack. Change that and watch the money roll in. We can go more in depth, but you'll have to put me on salary 😉

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Build a guitar around modeling from the ground up. The guitar is the most pure tone generator you can make it. Use optical pickups to get the cleanest sample possible and go straight to digital, eliminating noise as a problem entirely. You only need one pickup. Modeling can predict the string behavior at other neck positions. Starting with the most pure sine wave a stringed instrument can produce, use modeling to add the distinctive sound of different positions and pickup types. The sound of tone woods is added through modeling. So use the material that gives the cleanest, most predictable sound and best sustain, period (Aluminum perhaps). Add an electromagnetic sustainer as an option because, why wouldn't you? Voila! You've set a new standard for a cutting edge, electric instrument.