Seriously, it is an excellent little training aid. The Squier has sensors in the fingerboard that can sense your finger position and aside from having incredibly well-formed lessons, it has helpful hints too. While playing around with it for a review for the local Base paper, I came away realy impressed. It had such little hints as when the lesson for the F-barre chord came up, "You appear to be straining to maintain equal pressure across al strings, try to brace your thumb against the very peak of the neck curvature for support" and such. It is leagues above any other electronic tutorial I've seen. No replacement for a live tutor, but a great option all the same. Much better than the Fretlite system or the other one I forget the name of that has different symbols for every fret and tries to teach Guitar Hero style.

My full review from the paper:

Available now in AAFES Exchanges and Navy Exchanges, available March 1 at Best Buy.

It's an Agathis body, maple neck C-shape neck, 9.5" radius with 22 medium jumbo frets. 25.5" scale, 1.65" at the nut. Comes strung with Fender .09 -.042 Strings. One Volume control. There are buttons where the Tones w
ould be. Also more buttons a bit higher on the pickguard for X-Box controls. Zinc hardtail bridge with the traditional strat individual saddles and normal crappy Squier Ping tuners. Has 1 bridge humbucker of unknown origin.

Setting up the guitar was as easy as with any strat, changed the strings to Ernie Ball .11s, tuned it, set the action and intonation how I wanted just like with any hardtail strat and retuned. Feels just like a low-end strat. Better than a bullet or knock-off but not the quality of a Squier Deluxe. Plugged it into my Fender Frontman 25g and the pup sounds really fat. Like a DiMarzio Pro Track minibucker. Not really my kind of thing, and you won't be gigging with it, but it gets the job done. Perfectly serviceable. Feels like a strat, plays like a strat, but sounds like any fat strat knockoff out there. However the MIDI out is super interesting, I might tinker with it down the line, see if I can swap the pup out as easy as a normal guitar.

Gameplay wise, this thing isn't wireless. You need the MIDI converter for the X-Box(or PS3 or Wii) to use it. And the buttons are laid out kind of crazy, but in-game in pro mode, it works fine. I don't know what magic they use to get this to work, but the fretboard sensors work perfectly. Calibrate it and you only have your own $@!&#* guitar playing to blame for failing. As I do frequently on Free Bird, Crazy Train and Walk of Life.

Is it worth $280? I don't know. For a beginner, maybe. Rock band 3 comes with an absolutely incredible tutorial that will take you through your baby steps for guitar playing. You could certainly learn how to play with this and the game. But as an experienced guitar player, this thing is an entry level guitar, it's a barebones Squier that I have long since grown out of. It absolutely does not meet my needs as a player and Pro mode requires so much time to learn songs, because you are actually learning songs, that I would rather be plugged into an amp and playing myself.

_________________

fender needs to stop playing with toys and get their noses to the grind stone and get their QC department in order, and get back to building quality gear at an affordable price.

_________________
63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

Eh, I actually applaud them for this. It's something innovative and a great way to get new players into real guitars.

But to be fair, Harmonix developed the tech, Fender just provided the hardware.

_________________

I dont know, It sounds worthy enough to drop coin on it- It would be great to teach my nieces the guitar in an interactive way that is very visual and hands on.. It sounds cool, and hey- bring that baby out during a few drinks with the lads and rest assured, us oddfellows will have the advantage upperhand

_________________

we didnt need toys when we were growing up to influence us to want to play guitar,
we just put on a sabbath record, or a kiss record, and mother nature did the rest.
its junk like this that will flood the "pre-owned" market with more starter guitars when the kids realize its a lot harder than a video game to play and get good, or when they see that their buddy down the street has just gotten into something else so now they want to do it too. yeah its a good idea and a nice concept but fender should have left it with mattel and stuck to what they have been doing all these yrs.

_________________
63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

Blertles-It would definitely be worth it as a learning tool. The tech behind this is amazing and Fender and Harmonix would do well in applying it elsewhere as learning aids.
I just didn't think it was worth the cash as a video game. Because since the game sits there and walks you through guitar lessons and to play the songs in the gsame, you have to learn them note for note it can be very time consuming. It would take an incredible investment for me to learn how to play that crazy Free Bird solo note for note and honestly as I said I would rather spend that time parked in front of an amp learning and playing something original. But YMMV. I did have a LOT of fun with it though in 7-player mode on Bohemian Rhapsody with 3 friends doing the harmonies, me on guitar, a second pro-bass player, pro keys and pro drums. But the thought occurred to me afterwards that for all intents and purposes, 7 people who onbly 3 of us have played together before in an actual band just #$@*&!% played Bohemian Rhapsody. I was awestruck at that notion.

WCJ- It's just another tool that can be used. Yes I learned by myself with books and tips from friends, but that doesn't mean this isn't a good way for someone to learn. I would not call this a toy either. The tech is way too impressive and thorough. And besides, it's not like they shut down the plant in Corona just for this. You do bring up a good point though. It is NOT easy. It is still learning how to play guitar. It still walks you slowly through all the basics, from a basic D chord all the way through some crazy $@! appreggio lessons. I was able to blaze through most of the lessons simply because I was already able to play. But a starter is going to get stuck on a lot of these steps for a very long time. Hell, I'm a #$@*&!% punk rock guitarist, the later lessons I just completley ignored because I honestly could give two shits about become a squeadler, it's not my thing, that's for the metalheads. I'd rather be Joe Strummer or Johnny Ramone than Yngwie Malmsteen.

_________________

ok i'll meet you half way, thinking on it a bit more. this would be a great learning tool for a teacher to use in a lessons enviroment. the kid leaves his/her axe at home and uses this. the teacher could give the lesson and the kid would have this as a classroom tool to work with. then the teacher prints out a copy lesson for the student to take home now that he/she has a better understanding of whats going on since they have already walked through it interactivly in the "classroom".

_________________
63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

I guess that although this looks fun and interactive, it doesnt detract from a first lesson learners perspective, learning guitar does take a bit of paitence and persistence... something kids can have a little trouble with- especially these days.

At least the older one was much easier for those who didnt want to learn guitar in the first place

_________________

one of my issues is that the kids these days dont really have to work for anything ya know.

_________________
63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

Sounds cool. I won't buy it but I'd be glad to play it if somebody else drops the coin ^^

_________________
I traded my car in for a microphone.

I think it's a really cool idea and that it'll encourage kids to start playing the real thing.

_________________
Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccalairdmusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beckslaird
Instagram: http://instagram.com/beckslaird

Kids can be weird soemtimes, all the video games and things in the world didn't interest my 7 year old in learning. But as soon as she saw Hello Kitty's face on a guitar when she accompanied me on a trip to get some strings, she wanted to play and hasn't put the HK Squier down since.

_________________

ok I am six months into playing on my Fender A/E so I got some basics down..

I wanted and electric and RB and fender came out with this...

Here's my issue.. it concerns playing not on RB but on an amp...

the intonation especially on the higher strings.. is Off.. Flat..

Sounds ok w no capo..

but as soon as I put the capo on.. it sounds like CRAP. and yes, the capo is on right. I took it to my guitar place who has an excellent semi professional musician ...

anyone else notice this...

Whether we like it or not I bet they sell a million of them.

_________________
08 Fender Highway One Tele-Sunburst
09 Squier Custom Tele II-Blonde
04 Squier Standard Strat Antiqueburst
07 Washburn D10SCE natural with Rosewood backing
Fender Mustang II amp


Experience is the best teacher

Agreed. Guitar Hero is finally over (YES!) and it appears Rock Band will be sticking around.

So wait, Rock Band can be played with a real guitar, now?