Instrument 2. Ideal features what do you think?

#1
  1. Interchangeable fretboard
    The standard fretboard feels like a nightmare on high frets using guitar mode when trying to play chords.
  2. Weight clip on body (that can unclip and re clip either end left or right hand layers)
    This would balance the guitar so the neck doesn’t fall into the wrong place while standing
  3. Harmonics that can be triggered on top of the frets
  4. Guitar strings that are different colour to the neck
  5. Pitch wheel for each string instead of rubber strings, so you can actually strum instead of loosing feel when you want to play funk style rythems
  6. Proper strap pins that can support normal guitar straps
  7. Bluetooth or better wireless adapter so you are not stuck with a USB cable

I really hope you might take on board the above, I feel like Instrument 1 falls short of these features

Many thanks!

#2

You might be interested in the Jamstik 12 or One Man Band, both of which address some of these in the quest for a more authentically guitar-like MIDI experience. I actually like the I1 the way it is and find it a few bends ahead of the curve; I’ve never myself found the Jamstik range terribly satisfactory or playable, though I admire what they’re trying to do and continue to support their new models. But one of the things I massively prefer about the I1 is that it’s not trying and failing to emulate a guitar, which invariably takes you over a cliff into a kind of musico-muscular uncanny valley; it’s building a new, radically customisable instrument around what guitarists and their fingers already know, but which expands and evolves your playing as you adapt. I think every guitarist has the initial reaction of “Whoa, this doesn’t feel like playing a guitar”, and then gradually your fingers start to feel at home in new ways that are often better than the old, and things like the equal-width frets and neck come to seem liberating rather than limiting, and you’re manipulating the bridge triggers in ways you could never play a string (tapping, holding, pick-style tremolo directly on the triggers, and probably loads more techniques that haven’t even occurred to me).

#3

My points raised are observations from someone who has played guitar over many years. If you purchased the Instrument 1 as a novice guitar player you probably wouldn’t care. It all depends if you want to take this instrument into the pro level in my view nothing to do with it being a jack of all trades instrument.

#4

Yes, sorry if that came over as in any way dismissive, and I agree with much more than I disagree with here – I always like these feature suggestions posts and comparing different users’ experience, and I’m actually coming from a similar place as a longstanding guitarist who’s been through many different guitar MIDI controllers over the years. They all have their distinctive sets of quirks and frustrations, but what I’ve found different about the I1 is that it takes the existing guitarist skillset and uses it to leverage entirely new ways of playing, particularly in tap and slide modes. The fret spacing you adjust to fairly rapidly, the bridge triggers never (if you’re a reasonably fluent pick or fingerstyle player), though I’ve never actually found anything that tracks fingerstyle very well and even the Jamstik is only really playable in tap mode, where the I1 completely leaves it in the dust anyway.

That said, the Jamstik 12 actually addresses everything on your list but your no. 3 (which I can’t actually see any physical way to implement, though you may have better ideas) – with how much success remains to be seen, but it means there’d be no point Artiphon starting from scratch (which your nos. 1 & 5 would require) merely to imitate an existing and in crucial ways lesser product. But I do agree on straps &c.; holding the I1 in strum mode is something I’ve never mastered, despite studying videos of I1 virtuoso Will Podolak who can somehow play the triggers fluently without any kind of support just by holding the base of the instrument against his body with his right wrist.