If you live somewhere where noise is a premium (like an apartment, for example, or with cranky roomates) and you have the need to rock out - or if you've got a child who wants to learn to play and you want to save your ears the screech of untutored fingers - you might want to check out the JamMate UG-1, just released at NAMM by ESI Professional. The idea is simple: put a USB port into the body of a guitar, include a copy of the amp-modeling software Amplitube for the computer, plug and play. No sound cards, no extra cabling, no amplifiers, no unwanted noise. The UG-1 guitar also includes a headphone jack (although you apparently still need the computer to play), so you can use headphones to keep critics away from your door and has a line-level output so you can plug into a normal amp.

All of this retails for about $250, which means you can get into playing on the cheap - but given how expensive guitars normally run, don't expect the UG-1 to be a particularly well-made instrument. And if you have a guitar right now, you can get the exact same effect by plugging into any soundcard with an 1/8" TRS jack and using any amp-modeling software. Still, hats off to ESI Professional for trying to reduce the clutter in a guitarist's life.

Via Synthtopia