Patent This!
So I had a random series of mini-epiphanies this morning in the shower. It started off with the random thought popping into my head about an article I read with George Harrison's son saying he's helping with Rock Band Three "making the controllers more real so people can actually learn how to play music while playing the game."
How can they do that though? Then in a series of leaps I brought this all together. Are you ready Dhani/Harmonix?
OK - let’s go crazy. What is the most realistic Guitar/Bass controller possible? Duh. a guitar or bass. So let's hook that to the system. I'm not an engineer, but it's seems plausible that I should be able to hook up my REAL Stratocaster to a converter with a 1/4" input that converts the signal to a digital stream readable via a USB input by the game. (You of course would probably have to tune the guitar each time to maximize recognition). I mean, we all know they can do this already with microphones to detect volume, pitch etc. Heck - let's even make it cool looking and making it look like a traditional guitar pedal/stomp box.
Next hurdle - how do we convey the cascading notes that need played for a controller with theoretically hundreds of "buttons". My brain whirled around considering various ways of representing strings using fancy color schemes (partly inspired by the seeming complexity of DJ Hero). Then it hit me. How have people done this with instruments for CENTURIES? Duh, sheet music. So let's dumb it down (especially for the bass players). We can use guitar tab for people not fluent with reading sheet music. Just make the sheet music/guitar tab float by left to right like they already do with vocals.
Keep old fashioned support for the plastic instruments for those want to keep it old-school (or simple). Add some mini-games and learner modes to get the users used to reading tab and sheet music. Beginner mode would either be all on one or two strings or would involve no hand movement on the neck. Medium would introduce power chords. Hard--> real chords. Voila. Problem solved. I'll take my million dollar check now, Harmonix.