The You Rock Guitar goes beyond being a game controller.You Rock Digital

As my friend John pointed out, "Just because you can play 'Stairway to Heaven' on Guitar Hero doesn't mean you can play 'Stairway to Heaven.'

"You are learning bad habits with that thing," he said, glaring at the plastic, guitar-shaped video game controller that I held in my hands. I would be the first to admit that when the music rhythm video games Rock Band and Guitar Hero were all the rage, I was not a fan.

To master the games in the Rock Band and Guitar Hero series, a gamer has to commit a lot of time and effort developing skill with the controller. We're talking hundreds of hours here — serious time and effort, in other words. It took me around 100 hours to get fully competent on medium, and that only has four buttons!

What offended John was the fact that the controller simply looked like a guitar — but it wasn't. The wide flat buttons on the neck were not strings, you did not play cords, and the strum lever was a poor substitute for six strings that can make beautiful music. I pointed out that I don't play guitar — and this mollified him some.

When I was reviewing those games, I thought it would make a lot more sense — and be better — if these games used real guitars, so you learned to play a guitar. After all the time some gamers spend practicing with those faux guitars in order to get high scores in Expert mode, wouldn't it be great if they came away with a skill they could use outside of the game?

Cambridge-based Harmonix Music Systems thought so. And since they make the Rock Band game series, they added support for real instruments in the most recent version of their game, Rock Band 3. While it still has the standard four modes that use the guitar-like controller, it includes a Pro mode that supports guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums. In theory, you could sit your kids down in front of the video game and they could come out the other side an actual band, able to play music for real.

Well, that's the theory anyway.

Musical Serendipity

While I was covering the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in January, I found the exhibit of a company called You Rock Guitar (www.yourockguitar.com) — and I'd actually moved along before what I had seen with my eyes registered in my brain: There were two men sitting in front of TVs with what looked like real guitars in their hands, and they were playing Rock Band.

As I sat there fascinated, I watched one of the gamers disconnect his guitar-like game controller and plug it into a sound amp, much the way you would plug in a real guitar, and start playing it. I am pretty sure that my jaw hit the floor, because about then one of the blokes manning the exhibit, Chasey Elion, came over and asked if I wanted to check it out.

I demurred — not because I wasn't curious, but because I could easily picture how that would unfold, the words "epic fail" thundering through my head. I suspect she knew that, because she asked for my business card and told me she would send me one. And she did.

The You Rock Guitar is not exactly what you would call the classic guitar — it is made from plastic with some sort of space-age material for its strings rather than metal, and it has some beefy electronics built into it. Yet, when you pick it up and hold it, it feels like a guitar. That's because it is! Well, it's a guitar "» and a video game controller. Oh, and a Midi device as well. It is all those things, and after jumping through some hoops — I needed to buy a Midi adapter — I quickly discovered that as much as I would love to be one, I was no guitar player.

I went looking for a lab rat to test this thing out for me and tell me about it — and I found one in Devin, the son of a friend who's learning to play guitar. I dropped off the You Rock Guitar, the adapter, and a copy of Rock Band 3, with the request that he work with it for a month and let me know what he thought of it.

A Second Opinion

I had already spent some time with the device, using it as a game controller — it comes with a wireless adapter you slide into it, and a USB dongle you plug into your console — and as a guitar, using a borrowed amp. I found it to be very different, but a fun and interesting change from the button-based controllers. I should confess, though, that I did not get very far in the game with it in Pro mode. That's not the guitar's fault, it's mine. I just cannot get comfortable moving my hands to play the correct chords. Maybe I am getting old. Fortunately, the month went by quickly and it was time to hear from my lab rat.

"This is an amazing instrument," Devin declared. "The You Rock mode made learning the scales so much easier, but I really think that the best feature on it is that I can just use the earbuds from my iPod when I play it, instead of my amp, so when I want to practice and it's late I don't disturb anyone. I know my parents really appreciate that."

To hear Devin tell it, the You Rock is more guitar than game controller, and though he admitted to using it in the standard mode a few times, most of his game play in Rock Band was in Pro mode, using the instrument as an instrument. Devin's parents said he started choosing the You Rock over his acoustical guitar for practice because the You Rock doesn't make his fingers hurt. Its fret uses string-like buttons in place of strings, though the part you strum does have strings.

When he played for me, I learned that there was much more to this electronic guitar than I had realized. He started out by playing it as an electric guitar, and it sounded good. After a few button tweaks, it sounded like an acoustic guitar. Another change to the settings and it sounded like synthesizer. The Midi interface allows him to connect it directly to his computer, where he experiments with different sounds, creating his own music.

While the game can teach you how to play the songs it includes, playing it will not make you a skilled rocker — but, according to Devin, Pro mode in Rock Band 3 cut through the learning curve for him, quickening his comfort level and confidence with the instrument and strengthening his chording.

Playing the game with it in Pro mode is fun, but playing music when he is done gaming? Well, that's priceless.

C.M. Boots-Faubert is a freelance writer who lives in Falmouth. You can reach him at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .