What you see above is the gTar, an upcoming electronic musical instrument from Bay Area-based startup, Incident Technologies. It's got what appears to be an iPhone docked in the pick-guard and it looks pretty cool lit up in the teaser video after the break. Beyond that, there's not a ton of information about the thing available online, but we did some digging and have pieced together a pretty good idea about the thing. The device made an appearance at South by Southwest earlier this month, and bits and pieces have made their way into the web by way of startup site AngelList and social networks like Facebook, Twitter and, of course, YouTube. A posting on the former describes it as "a consumer electronics device that enables an interactive music entertainment experience to anyone without any kind of previous musical knowledge."



From the looks of it, the thing is a little bit Guitar Apprentice and a little bit Tabber. Unlike the plasticky Guitar Apprentice, however, this device looks like a genuine guitar (strings and all), albeit one with a light up fretboard for Tabber-like educational purposes and a "docked mobile device." The guitar also makes it possible to share music socially, though it's not entirely clear whether this is accomplished via the docked smartphone or an external output like a PC, though given the company's connections to the developer community, we suspect that both will be options, be it through built-in functionality or available APIs. The gTar is also being positioned as a music creation device, rather than simply an educational tool (à la Tabber) or a simple overblown Guitar Hero-style controller.

via [ engadget ]

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