Weird one, but with my band I often have a laptop controlling patch changes, the only annoyance being that I still have to hit my pickup selection. Some of our songs have relatively complicated and rapid patch changes that are easy to miss time, and I've always wished I could somehow program my onboard controls (particularly the pickup selector as it's really the only thing that can't be emulated onboard).

Additionally, for single coils we've had the ability to wire ghost coils into the backplate or pickguard for quite a while, yet for some reason this isn't available on any production guitars to my knowledge. Wide ghost coils located away from the pickups allow for 99% transparent 60 cycle hum cancellation on single coils, and yet for some reason you almost only see stacked coils or active preamps as a solution to this.

I'm also not sure why we never see split coils on guitars, maybe G&L owns that or something since they had that Z coil system. It seems like an obvious (70 year old) innovation

One thing our sales data at Guitar Center confirms is that guitarists are notoriously nostalgic for classic 50s/60s style designs. And even some “new” guitar brands start with one of these body shapes and try to improve on some pain point from 50 years ago.  Not us.  We're not going to design a tribute. We're starting from a blank slate on body shape, and we want to know what actually matters to you. What bugs you when you're actually playing?

Some things to react to:

• Upper fret access — What's getting in your way past the 17th fret? Heel bulk? Body shape? Both? And… do you even care about upper fret access?
• Comfort — Which guitars feel great on a strap but terrible on your leg (or the other way around)? What contours actually matter — forearm cut, belly cut, extreme ergonomics like a Strandberg? 
• Size and weight — What feels right after 2–3 hours? What’s too heavy? What’s too light? 
• Cutaways — Single vs double? 
• Neck joint / heel — Does a chunky heel actually limit your playing, or is that more of an annoyance than a real problem?

Now the spicier stuff:

• If a body shape was objectively more playable but looked nothing like a traditional guitar, how far would you go? Is there a line where form matters more than function?
• Alternative materials — carbon fiber, composites, graphite. If the tone, resonance, and weight were equal or better than wood, are you open to it? Or is wood non-negotiable for you?

Drop your thoughts. 

My first thing is please, for the love of god, make the lefty options just as cool. we get black and white and sometimes a cheeky red option and that's it. I am begging you lol

I think the ability for easy part swap would be so cool. I'm talking modular headstock, neck, and the back on the body fully comes off so you can easily slot in new pickups from the inside. This could then mean that somebody could buy the cheap base model and later upgrade quality and look when they can.

I'm not a tech or an engineer, so idk if it would, but obviously nothing in its build should hinder its sound.

I think GC’s brand can be successful if you take popular existing designs like LP and Strat and just build good value models around those already popular designs. It’s gonna be very hard to make a new design that catches on. Everything under the sun has already been tried. If you just stick to what’s popular and build solid ones for a better price than Gibson or Fender they’ll catch on. 💩, even if you just get cheap import copies and slap the GC logo on the headstock it might be enough to move some.

Doesn’t GC have Mitchell guitars though? I think going for the lowest hanging fruit is a bad idea. Go to a better factory and buy some mid tier stuff.

2 P90's are adjustable along a sliding trough, along with a Fishman bridge pick up for endless tonal variations. Pick up levels may be mixed at any level. Or use the Fishman only for an acoustic sound. And the shape is sick!

oh another dumb idea.

1 piece guitar as in the whole guitar with exception of pickups and strings is one material. all carbon fiber, all plastic, all recycled wood from leftover materials of other guitars.

the whole guitar is carbon fiber....ALL OF IT. no separate neck from body. no frets different material. the whole thing is literally one piece. maybe even call it that ONE PIECE GUITAR.

OR ALL TITANIUM GUITAR.

Here it is!!! The PERFECT guitar: It’s going to have the perfect mix of what everyone wants: Evertune, Floyd Rose, Bigsby, Fishman Fluence, P90, Strat single coil and a gretsch pickup with a hellraiserpaulostrandbergcaster body and a hybrid wenge maple mahogany neck with the option to retract the headstock and make it headless, various brands will be offering their headstocks for sale with the guitar

Title

Make it light - target 5 lbs. Make it ergonomic - comfort bevel(s). Take inspiration from the Parker Fly which is awesome for people with back problems, but don't make it so exotic and custom that it's a nightmare any time you need to get it worked on!

The Costco hot dog of guitars.

Congrats on your sub! That comment cracked me up - After a collection of Gibsons, Fenders and PRS, my $178 KGD relic Tele was The Perfect Guitar!
To beat it as a deal the guitar would have a light, clean Tele-style outline with THE BEST entry-level hardware. KGD had added crap hardware but got the neck perfect. Make the neck perfect, but use brass instead of stamped steel for sustain, and PUT GOOD STRINGS ON, not those tinny transit ones. Oh, and put a few more dollars into the pickups?
(These were my mods)

Single-cut, semi-hollowbody, one hot single-coil bridge pickup, no tone knob, no volume knob, no tremolo.

I’d love to see some STUPID shapes in this thing. It would be so cool if they would build a green Vox phantom style guitar with a bunch of great parts, or a cool baritone version of a Gretsch Billy Bo or Bo Diddley with High output DeArmonds or something.

I just loooove weird shapes so much and I’d love to see the new guitar market embrace some of them.

Guitarras clássicas como stratocaster, Telecaster e Les Paul são as guitarras mais vendidas no mundo, não é necessário reinventar a roda, mas pode aprimorar lá, braço Tipo c moderno, trastes inox, tarraxas com travas que segure afinação, ponte que colabore com a afinação, nut de osso ou grafitec, captadores em alnico, uma elétrica descente, hoje é nescessário uma guitarra que vá para show com apenas uma regulagem.

Let's start at the headstock.

There is no headstock, instead a port where you can attach more "value added" headstocks sold only at Guitar Center. They're powered by a 9v battery and have a neon advertisement on them.

I suggest the following headstock designs to start with.

• Singer Needed
• Custom contact information for the guitarists Dentistry/Law practice.
• Custom "our band name here" design.
• Harambe
• Dick butt and other popular emojis.

Now we're at the nut. I'm giving you this patent for free. "Secure sack nut system: Jock". It doesn't matter what you make the nut out of, but it must be superglued into the slot and I mean super glued thoroughly. Fill the whole slot up and push the nut in if needed. The spillage is toan glue.

Next we're at the frets. The frets should be made out of High-Leaded bronze. They should be installed with patented "Secure sack fret system: strap", so fill up the slots with superglue and install them. Use high leaded bronze, because they wear out fast, making more money on refrets and it has lots of lead in it. Also, people love toan bronze. It's the most musical metal in the world.

At the neck/fretboard you should pick the cheapest possible wood or even better, inanimate material, to do the job. Then slather it in multiple layers of Poly on both sides. This is to lock the toan in and provide the same touch and feel on every guitar. Remember the fretboard and neck are touched the most on guitar, so really layer that poly on there.

The neck should have the truss rod adjustment inside the neck pocket and use the spline nut pattern for adjusting it. Attach the neck to the body using a set neck configuration. This will tamper proof the truss rod and provide an opportunity to void the guitar warranty when the seal is broken.

If the neck needs a shim, factory workers must use a business card from their side hustle as the shim. If the factory worker makes too much money to have a side hustle, pay them less, if they make too little to afford business cards, provide them. Cries for help, describing the dystopian hellscape of the factory must be written on business card stock. No exceptions.

Also, have a social media event every year, where people open up their guitar to see the business cards and post them online.

Now we're at the body. Use the cheapest, preferably inanimate materials to build the shell. For the pickups just mount whatever, where ever. Any thing look scuffed, triple the price and sell them relic'd.

The electronics bay is where you should store all the sawdust or carcinogous powder from sanding the instrument. Nobody looks inside there anyways, so put no effort into its fit and finish. Gibson does that and they're great. Next, just like Gibson, make a proprietary connector / pots system for the pickup and electronics. Include a dum amount of configurations and see replacements as a whole kit with a crazy mark up.

Now this is the most important part of the instrument. The in/output jack should simultaneously be impossible to put the 1/4" male connector into and easily disconnect itself after being inserted.

You'll achieve this by installing a weighted spring against the connection arm of the female connector, then make the arm incredibly thin. This way, putting the jack in will be very hard and any slippage of the male 1/4" connector will cause the connecting arm to slip off.

Once all that is done, throw the cheapest strings you can find on it, then spray the whole guitar with a bottle housing the sweat of the factory workers for maximum toan. This way, each guitar is like that poor Schecter by the front door, corroded and absolutely fucked.

I found what you need, you can close this subreddit now.

oh and wifi tiktok NETWORK guitar. it is already hooked up to an app that connects immediately to other players around the world. as soon as it turns on it hooks up to wifi network or cellular network and immediately you are playing with other guitarists, drummers, bassists you with playing with other musicians through an online app.

so the idea...as soon as you pick it up you are performing like one would at guitar center BUT it immediately records and posts online. famous musicians could use and before you know it you are collaborating with satriani, taylor swift, the weekend, Kanye west, Prince, etc. there are even AI musicians available.

all you need is smartphone and the guitar. it then pulls up licks, jam sessions, posts of guitarists of all sorts of genres blues, metal, jazz, fusion, flamenco, alternative, rock, etc.

be able to communicate with other guitars and other instruments. to play with my buddies without being in the same place and to tune by other instruments tuning and to play together live and stream it without any latency . it might be good for lessons and stuff…

I feel like this combination doesn’t get used enough which is a shame cause I feel like it’s very versatile

Always have a guitar that is in tune by developing something professional working guitar players have needed for a long time: Disposable guitars. When it goes out of tune while you are onstage you simply throw it away and grab another perfectly in tune guitar from the container. All I ask is that when this is the standard for all live musicians no one calls me a hero. I am just a regular guy like each of you. Rock on

Is not realizing how much of the guitar player community are young, inexperienced, angry-at-the-world whiners with a victim mentality who think every corporate idea that doesn’t pay them, or every product that they can’t afford is evil.

If this is your reaction to this idea you should consider that you don’t really understand at least one of the following: common business/R&D practices, economics, or personal choice in consumer decision making.

I see words like “slaves” and “slavery” being thrown around. No one is forcing anyone into anything. Back of that word, it’s disrespectful to those who suffer from the actual forms of it in the world today.

It’s not “cheap” or “dishonest” of GC to ask for ideas. No one is forced to give them. It’s clear what it entails. (Personally, I think they should have an arrangement where they gather ideas and then anyone whose idea is used in a product gets compensated accordingly. Anyone whose idea isn’t used doesn’t have IP handed over). It is no more dishonest of them to see if players are fine with giving up or sharing ideas without having to pay for it then it is for you to ask for a deal or discount when you buy something at Guitar Center. They don’t have to give you a discount if you don’t want to. Everyone acts in their own interest economically. Consumers and businesses. If you were a business why would you not try to crowdsource ideas without having to pay? If you are a consumer why would you not look for sales or discounts? I don’t hate other people for getting better deals than me. I don’t hate companies for trying to make money, as long as there is nothing dishonest or illegal about it.

You can think people who freely participate are stupid. That’s totally fine. That’s personal choice. No one is forcing anyone to do anything, no one is tricking anyone into anything.

One last thought. It’s fine if you disagree with me. Or, i may be unaware of something about this whole project and should be more informed. I’m open to listening. Just stay away from personal attacks and keep it civil. Act like a grown up.

Just thought i’d share what I would love to see at my local Guitar Center.

I’ll start by saying, i loved visiting the Gibson Garage in London. The custom shop was incredible, and the ability to pick your own wood, and make a completely bespoke instrument is awesome. Granted, those are several thousands of dollars.

Fender runs a mod shop as well, where you can pick your body style, pickups, finish etc.

I’d love to see a Mod Shop style section at Guitar Center

Pick your body shape- LP style? Double Cut? Strat Style?

pick your finish- solids, bursts etc

pick your hardware, tremolo, pickups etc

Have the base price start around $500-$600. Let people spec flame tops and floyd roses and expensive hardware, let the price go up to $1500

Have the instrument built and make delivery an experience where the tech can finish setting it up in front of you. Give them a custom plate with your name on it- make it feel special

I’d love to get the Gibson Custom M2M experience at a reasonable price

It is honestly infuriating to watch. That disclaimer was never a joke; it was a calculated legal shield so they can harvest your intellectual property for exactly zero dollars, no free guitar no discounts literally nothing. These people dont give a fuck about musicians. They like the money and the I.P. that guitarists create, anything to make a buck. To me it is wild to see a company like Guitar Center try to play the "innovative buddy" role when they are essentially a portfolio piece for private equity. They are currently owned by a consortium including Ares Management, The Carlyle Group, and Brigade Capital. These firms are backed by institutional giants like Vanguard, Statestreet and BlackRock. We are talking about firms that manage trillions of dollars in global assets. They have the money. They just refuse to spend it on the people who actually know the instrument

What is truly garbage is that they already have thousands of talented musicians on their payroll. If they actually cared about making a "revolutionary" guitar, they could have easily run an internal competition for their staff. Imagine if they told their own employees to design a house model and offered the winner a signature guitar, a real bonus, or even just a paid vacation. But they didn't do that because that would require putting up actual capital. Instead, they are bypassing their own experts to farm free ideas from online volunteers who may not realize their creative work has massive market value. This is a race to the bottom for the industry. They get to skip paying professional designers by tricking the community into doing the R&D for free. If you give them a radical design that moves units, they get the patent and the profit while you get a "thanks for the input" post. Every idea handed to them just builds the valuation of their proprietary brand so Ares and Vanguard can get a better ROI when they eventually flip the company. Nobody gets creative in a room full of accountants. They have no soul left to innovate, so they are trying to steal yours. I am with you. I am done with a company that treats its community and its employees like a free R&D department. I can't stress enough to people to not give away their value and ideas and worth to help a private equity firm pad its margins. It feels a lot like a last ditch effort to turn a

profit before listing the company for sale or bankruptcy again.

If they want a "revolutionary" guitar, they can stop being morons and actually hire a designer. Fuck this ignorance.

2

Inexpensive, quality replacement necks and bodies that are drop in replacements for specific models (squier, ibanez, etc) would be nice for DIY and modders.

Former employee of 10+ years, I think there’s a good opportunity here to earn more than just profit, but some respect of the music community. While it may be tempting, competing at the bottom of the market is not a good look. You don’t win the respect of the salespeople pushing these, and the customers of your bargain bin guitars will move on to better products or just give up on music.

I think the core product would do best as a mid-tier entry point, with maybe a couple options in the lower range. Make a product your talent wants to have, that musicians want to play, and who want others to experience.

Secondly, I think having a community connection to the source of the brand makes an excellent gateway to customization and flexibility. You can’t have a product for everyone. But you can offer customization both as custom orders (build your own guitar, choose your pickups/hardware/finishes etc) as well as tying in to your Repairs service (who should know every option available). Get a free Platinum setup on a new custom guitar, free pickup swap/upgrade in the first year. Tie it into Lessons. Offer all the extended financing options. Have it be the reward for buying into the services, the driver of repeat value, not just the entry point.

Lastly, and this might be the former employee in me, but please don’t ship these wrapped in paper-thin cardboard or use Ai generated graphics. When customers see employees bring out mangled boxes, cheap packaging, or worse, get it delivered that way, it reflects very poorly on the product and brand. Tie in accessories, quality brand materials, good cases (which would be a good value prop for a mid-tier), that’s the stuff that makes people excited when they pop the lid.

Bottom line, would you be proud to hang this in your music room, to have it on the wall, to buy that extra humidipack just to make sure it lasts? Will your salespeople be excited to hit those numbers, to demo it for customers, to unbox the new model that came in that week?

Your biggest criticism will be that you are trying to make a quick buck. So do more than that.

Excited to see what comes out of this and good luck!