Tech Review: Optek Fretlight Guitar

**[MyIS]Tim** · 03-10-2010, 07:10 PM

This just in from the G4:

You may have earned bragging rights by playing expert on Rock Band, but can you pick up an actual guitar? Fret not, because Chris Hardwick and Kevin Pereira take a look at the Optek Fretlight Guitar, a full size six string guitar that teaches users how to play the guitar through LED lights along the neck, all for $300.

Find the full review from Attack of the Show after the cut.

What You Need to Know

Just plug the guitar into your computer through USB and download the software.
From there, you can watch a video lesson or just go at your own pace through the text lessons.
At the beginning, it slowly walks you through easy stuff like playing open strings, simple rhythms, and different notes.
The frets light up according to when you should play them, and they're easy to see and follow along with, but only during these simple lessons.
It's when you combine rhythm and melody that the lessons become too difficult.
The frets light up at the exact time you should be playing the note, making it hard to play along because you don't really know what's coming next.
They should have had the frets light up before you play the note so you have some notice.
You can slow down how fast the notes light up.
You basically have to memorize what to play, but any book or video lesson can teach you that.
They have tools for you to play along with songs or improvise a solo.
All the lights mean that you can play any of these notes and it should sound pretty good.
The $300 guitar is more of a "starter", but you can spend more on a better one.
This is kind of a fun feature if you don't want to memorize scales or chord progressions in songs.
On the one hand, it doesn't necessarily make it easier to learn basic guitar since there are lots of lessons out there that require you to read tabs.
On the other, it's fun to have an interactive instrument that tells you what to play.
Whether it’s worth buying is up to the potential buyer.

Price

$300

Overall Rating

3 Seals of Approval Out of 5 (How do we rate gadgets?)

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