February Songs for You Rock Guitar

“So take no broken strings” by Mister Sister
After 9 million impressions testing our right hand string mechanisms, there have been no breaks. These tempered steel strings might last forever. mmm

Of course we weren’t so sure of that when we did an engineering change to the string couplings the month before that. People said they should be easy to replace. But when we received this last batch of units the sensitivity was affected. We had to change them and we lost time again on this last bunch of units. We are sorry to all of you who have been patiently awaiting for your orders to arrive. Soon. We’ll know about when the next batch arriving.

“We’re so sorry, Uncle Quality” – Paul McCartney
We’d like to say we’re really sorry about the delays and we should be sorry, but we never want to regret the attention we are giving to quality.

“Money” – by Pink Floyd
We must however apologize for the PayPal payment issue. When we set up the credit card system it said no one would be charged until we shipped to them. That way you can easily get on the pre-sale list and voila, we only charge when we ship. We found out PayPal was immediately deducting from your accounts. If you would like off the pre-sale list and an immediate refund, please let us know at: info@inspired.com

“Glory Days” – Bruce Springsteen
As I draft this post, Cliff is on his way to China. Glory Days of full production ahead. The bump in the road that is Chinese New Year is over and everyone is anxious to get these babies out the door. Everything is final testing and changes.

“Hit me with your best shot” – Pat Benetar
We are in a very limited supply of units that are trickling out from February’s shipment. Many have to go to Reps for sales samples and product placements, so I know everyone wants to know the exact date their order will be shipping. give us another week to see when the next batch arrive. OK?

“American Midiots” – Green Daze
Guitarists, teachers, MIDI guys, rockin’ gamers who might want to help us in the testing and/or SDK dev side of things, we need you. Obviously, if you are on the pre-sale list, you’ll move to the head of the class. just let us know if you would be interested, we need about 10 more people: info@inspired.com

Digital Kodachrome momets – check out some shots from last weeks photoshoot, new guitars, new accessories, new models. P.S. Were looking for 18-27 year olds in Orange County or LA who play guitar and can model with the You Rock Guitar.

Back From MacWorld – Guitars in Customs

Hi You Rockers! We’ve been trying to get situated to receive the first batch of Guitars from China. It’s Chinese New Year’s for the next couple of weeks. Happy New Years! It means that there’s not much coming and going as far as product or information though. We do have confirmation that the first batch of production You Rock Guitar’s are now residing in customs in California.

We understand that everyone is anxious to see where they are on the back-order list. Give us a couple of days to get it sorted out from the original pre-sale list on the www.YouRockGuitar.com site and also on the www.InspiredInstrumentsinc.com e-commerce site. We have many more orders than we have guitars for this month and the next.

That being said, the release must be approved by the Chief Technology Officer and the President of our company, so we await his keen eye, ears and scrutiny. He aims high, you’ll be glad for that.

I can’t tell you how much we appreciate all of comments from those on the pre-sale list. We are rocking as fast as we can. All of the delays over the last few months have been due to us making both hardware and software improvements. Even though the You Rock Guitar is an amazing value at $199 retail, we’re treating it like it’s 10X that. When you get your guitar and you start going through all of the features and the sounds, we can only hope that the delays of a week here or even a month there will soon be forgotten with years of enjoyment.

Thanks again for your kind support. We’ll send some pictures, hopefully tomorrow… if we didn’t lose another day due to President’s Day.

P.S. We are still looking for some smart MIDI musicians who might help provide real input on the SDK were developing for the guitar and bass. If you have a technical, programming or development background and don’t mind flexing some brain cells, please feel free to contact me directly. It will in fact help your place in line.

Kevin Kent
info@inspired.com

Seeking Guitar Teachers

We realize with a high speed affordable MIDI guitar like ours it opens up a whole new world with your budding guitarists. We want everyone to play numerous guitars and enjoy acoustics and electrics galore. We also understand that new guitarists are often coming from gaming and to them just having to tune a $150 guitar can be a lesson in patience like no other.  We want to help. (Our guitar never needs tuning)  Please let us know about yourself and how we can help you.  info@inspired.com

Also see what Berklee performance grad, author, teacher Karl Aranjo has to say.

Go to the e-commerce site to open an affiliate account.

You Rock Mode – Sound Loops & Theory

Did you ever just want to pick up a guitar and rock out and always sound like you knew what you were doing? Or did you want to go straight from Guitar Hero to playing a real guitar without having to tune the dang thang or practicing over and over… well were not saying you still don’t need to practice, but were going to make learning guitar more fun that anyone ever thought possible. You see we have some of the greatest rock and roll chord progressions ever built right into the guitar. (and you can download more) and with each progression comes a type of digital fretboard overlay. It allows you to only play the right notes for those chords. That is the You Rock Mode. You push the You Rock button on the guitar and voila, never make a mistake, and if you do? The guitar sounds more like a video game with a little scratch sound, but not a wrong note.

It’s Show Time – CES & NAMM 2010

“Inspired Instruments, Inc. (LV Hilton suite 2549; LVCC, North Hall booth #5627; www.yourockguitar.com) introduces the You Rock Guitar, which lets anyone rock right out of the box. It works seamlessly with Guitar Hero and Rock Band on Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360 gaming platforms, but can also can be plugged into a standard guitar amplifier or headphones and played like a conventional guitar using any of 100 pre-set guitar and synth sounds. Incorporating a super touch-sensitive neck and real strings for fast, accurate picking, the You Rock Guitar effectively delivers the performance and feeling of a real six-string instrument.”

http://www.youtube.com/user/YouRockGuitar

Production Update

We’ve had some major decisions to make. We heard, “you get one chance to make a first impression” so we changed the string triggering mechanism for maximum sensitivity. (Cost 4 weeks) We were told “if the ’strings’ on the fret board were softer, it would feel so much better”… that cost us over a month… but that is what we will be showing up at CES and NAMM with

Then there was going to 10 to 25+ guitars, 50 synth sounds, 10 to 50 Open guitar tunings, 5 to 15 Capo settings, 25 on-board songs (Custom jam-friendly Wav loops to jam within the You Rock mode), The You Rock programming and testing, then it has to work together, tack on another few months. We missed the year 2009, and that is very painful, but in fact you do only get one chance to make a first impression and we knew we could do better. And we have.

We made some tough choices. We apologize for the delays, and we will start delivering to the pre-order lists, friends, family, reps and the press in January after CES and NAMM.

So now we focus our attention on the CES, final coding, some big surprises at CES and our ability to re-invent what was often considered to be just a hybrid game controller or a digital guitar… the You Rock Guitar is much more than that. It is a game changer, it is a guitar that every guitar player will want to have for so many reasons. You’ll still want your Strat, your big body acoustic, your nylon, maybe even Les, but you’ll also want a You Rock Guitar, and for reasons you don’t even know yet.

The response to the $179 high-speed MIDI guitar has been outrageous. The sheer joy of going from mere buttons and a paddle to strings and frets for the gamers is a leap toward real music. (BTW, don’t buttons and a paddle sound like something you get when you’ve been bad?)

Ultimately we apologize for not being able to be under the tree for Timmy this year for the holidays. It pains no one more than us!!! We made some major improvements for the long term viability and flexibility of the You Rock Guitar and it cost in time and money, but we believe it was well spent. And as tough as the decisions were, we made them in the best interest of the gamers the rockers, the mom’s and dads and those who want to rock… anywhere, anytime.

Thanks for your patience and support,

Kevin Kent
CEO

P.S. Its my birthday so please don’t bash me for being honest!

Get on the Pre-Order List to Secure Your Guitar

OK, we understand it’s time to get rockin’.  We’ve got a list and were checkin it twice. If you name is on it when the You Rock Guitars start arriving, you get one. If not, good luck.  We’re definitely going to be in short supply. But there’s some other great benefits in Pre-Ordering:

FREE SHIPPING
REFERRAL DISCOUNTS (Get $10 off every person you refer to pre-order who actually orders)
BECOME OUR ROCK AND ROLL FRIEND FOREVER as an early adopter

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE PRE-ORDER PAGE

GameFlex™ Update – Video in Español

We’ve been making a lot of progress and having some real fun. For fall we are testing and completing code on the GameFlex cartridges for the Wii for both RockBand and Guitar Hero. Then we will finish the one for the PS3. BTW the new PS3 looks quite cool. We had tremendous response to the GameFlex this last week at Danny Johnsons, Orange County fan party. Here is a shot of EXPERT mode player Omar Ramirez rocking out with the You Rock Guitar and the Wii on RockBand. For fun we even had Omar put up a little video on our YouTube channel en Español about the guitar. All the folks were a lot of fun at this event and we had never been surrounded by so many guys who could play all the songs and freaking expert mode!

Check out the video with Omar in Spanish

Danny Johnson, “GHP” Experiences the You Rock Guitar

We had quite a weekend playing with the You Rock Guitar. Scott Johnson, Danny’s dad, Scott invited us over to a big party they were having in the OC for gamers. We brought the You Rock Guitar, an amp, a Wii and a willingness to listen to what gamers at the top of their game had to say about the You Rock Guitar. Some big surprises? You bet. The first was the love of the frets and strings verses the paddles and buttons. Evidently the buttons fail these experts all the time. (Who knew?) OK, so we have a lot of new video to show you of Danny Johnson being interviewed, plus our pals Omar and Doug, both Guitar Hero experts.

Click HERE to see the video interview with Danny Johnson and JR DeSouza

The You Rock Guitar – Incredible

The You Rock Guitar answers the call of the millions of music gamers out there looking for the next big thing in gaming and music.  “The You Rock Guitar is the next big thing”.  It’s a hybrid digital guitar. Strings to pluck and strum, but it never needs tuning. It bridges the gap between music games and real music playing, because it eliminates the limitations of existing video game controllers with a real musical instrument feel and technique. In Game mode, people pick it up and instantly start playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band with strings, frets and a pick. Take ti to expert, the tracking is there…In guitar mode, you just plug it into an amp or into a program like Garage Band and start jamming. It is affordable, and it looks and sounds incredible.

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