As an electrical engineering student with a minor in music, I really like the idea of the accessibility guitar. However, I believe the implementation wasn't as optimal as it could have been.
I would love to see Ben redo the inputs that actually control the guitar. (All of the mechanical features placed on the guitar could remain the same.)
In the episode the guitar was played by moving the foot backwards and forwards (toe then heal) to simulate up and down strokes. The problem with this is that its not an easy way to actually play. When a drummer is going really fast with the bass drum, he only uses his toes and never his heals. This is because the calves dont wear out as fast as the muscles on the shins wear out (wikipedia says this muscle is called the tibialis). This implementation makes it hard to keep a steady pulses so its easy to slow down and speed up (which makes music sound bad).
At the end of the episode when the guitar was put in use it proved how hard the original implementation was to control.
A better way to implement the design:
Automation
If you were to look at how a person might use the music program Ableton for dj-ing you would see that they actually do very little and let the program do the heavy lifting. This is the basis for my idea.
1) The person would tap on some kind of pad to simulate how many beats per minute for the guitar to run at. (Most likely with their left hand, because it wouldn't actually start until step 3)
2) The guitar automatically sweeps the pick down and up based on (left) foot pedal: A)Default: Heal: eighth notes (Down and up beats) B) Middle: quarter notes (just downbeats) C)Toe:16th notes.(4x as fast as B).
3) Right foot pedal determines if the sweeping pick is raised or lowered: strumming the string or just sweeping back and forth above the string.
Optional:
4: Another button that would repeat the last X number of beats when activated, depending on another control pedal. (This is because generally in music the same 16 bars may be repeated for more than 50% of the song.)
The pedals needed for the right foot would be much closer to the plastic Rockband video game drum pedals, that only register on and off. The left foot could use either the original forward and back pedal, something that clicks between positions, or buttons activated by foot. A visual blinker representing the pulse will also need to be implemented, so the person can have more feedback as to when to press "on" after it has been "off" for a while (such as the first time they press "on").
The only potential problem that would need to be solved is that a person will want to press the "on" button directly on the beat and at that point the pick probably has already begun to sweep across the strings. Potential solution: when off the system wont sweep until slightly after the beat allowing for the "on" button to determine a different place for the first stroke, even if it isn't exactly on the beat. Then the rest of the strokes when "on" will be still in time with the metronome.
This setup would make it easier because the foot would just say when program is playing, and not actually activate every note individually. A person could also (for example) have it set on 8th note mode and still play the downbeats as downstrokes (since the original implementation meant that every other note was an upstroke even if it was on a down beat, and normal music isn't played this way).
I do like the manual modes that were put in. They should remain in 2.0, even if they are inefficient. There is no need for starting from scratch either. I merely suggest that a new mode is added. Also more technical thought must be put in to the actual design than what I mention.
Thank you