Wonder if this is possible...

[Nadz1lla]

What with all the technology out there these days, people making cab impulses, amp modellers, Variax-type guitar modellers, do you guys think it's possible to set up a kind of online custom guitar building application that lets you put something together and listen to a modelled, clean "sample"?

It would need someone to sit there with a tonne of different types of guitar / build / woods etc, but surely this is doable? It would make buying a custom guitar online a lot easier and less risky.

I just got to thinking about this today, as my hope for a comparatively cheap custom went out of the window. Kurt from Rondo Music sent me a reply to an email I sent him yesterday about how to get talking about a custom order, and he relayed that when they start taking custom orders again, there are going to be more limits as to what they can make now. So my hopes of a Korina bodied 27" scale guitar done to my own build specs have disappeared in a flash of misery.

So now that my only option is in the region of £1500 - £2000, it's something I really want to be as risk-free as possible.

If the idea mentioned above has already been tried on a site and I've just not heard about it, please do let me know!

[Dmoney]

I don't think it would give you an accurate idea digitally of an end product.
modelling the woods is one thing but there must be tonal variation within chunks of the same type of materials? it would only ever be an average representation, and how many guitars would you have to play to get those averages?
its a cool idea but unless I'm missing something the amount of work it take might just be too much, especially considering that two 2 guitars of the same woods and construction can still sound different?

[ras]

Someone at my alma mater is working on something like that.  Talked to him a bit about it and it uses dsp to change the sounds  of everything.  Very very interesting stuff.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/chameleon-guitar-0203.html

[Transcend]

This would take an immense amount of time, money & work to get into a fully working product and even then i doubt it would be close tonally.

Excellent idea though

[blue]

i think it could only ever give a general idea of how it would sound.  an example of what Dmoney was talking about, when i bought my Les Paul we had narrowed it down to two, both almost identical honeyburst standards.  we got mixed up with which was which visually a few times, but give it a strum and we knew straight away! despite identical construction, from identical materials with the same sort of pickups, the two guitars sounded quite different.