Fretlight FG-421 Traditional Electric Guitar

I'm not a guitarist. I took lessons when my age was in the single digits, but for the majority of my life I've been utterly bereft of rhythm or tone. Then the Fretlight FG-421?came along ($429.99 direct). Instead of playing blind, this clever electric guitar actually flashes lights on the frets that correspond to where your fingers should go. Now, I still can't play, but if you hum a few bars (and give me some tablature) I can wing it at half-speed.

While it's a fully functional electric guitar in its own right, the Fretlight is mainly a teaching guitar. (The?lighted fret system is mostly used to teach the user how to play songs.) When plugged in to a computer through a 9-pin-to-USB cable, you can use the included Fretlight software to play tablature directly on the guitar's neck. The lights alone make it a valuable learning tool, but thanks to the software's tempo control, it becomes even more powerful. You can turn down the song's regular speed to as slow as 10 percent crank it up as fast as 120 percent, controlling the speed so you can get used to the melody.

Design
All Fretlight guitars are full-size electric guitars, capable of playing music without plugging into a computer or using the lighted neck. Fretlight offers a wide range of guitar models, from the inexpensive FG-411 Standard Electric ($329.99) with a single humbucker pickup, a fixed bridge, and a single volume knob to the FG-451 Pro ($729.99 direct), with a pair of humbuckers, a single-coil pickup, and an adjustable bridge. The model I reviewed, the FG-421 Traditional, has two single-coil pickups, a humbucker, a fixed bridge, two tone knobs alongside the volume knob, and a pickup selector switch. For just $430, that's a pretty full list of features (as long as you don't need a whammy bar).

To play songs with the light-up neck, you need to connect the guitar to your computer through the included 10-foot USB cable. The Fretlight software can play back any MIDI file, but only certain, Fretlight-specific formats can activate the frets. While there are a few hacks that can convert regular MIDIs into Fretlight MIDIs, the most direct, powerful, and legitimate way is to use the optional Guitar Pro 6 Fretlight Ready software ($79.99 direct), a Fretlight-customized version of the powerful Guitar Pro 6 software that offers a ton of tools and options for sequencing and creating tablature. A wireless connection to the computer would have been vastly preferable to a 10-foot-long tether that sticks out of the butt of the guitar, but currently a USB cable connection is the only way to play with the guitar's light-up frets. It can function as a standard, unlit guitar without the USB connection.

The Fretlight comes with software that can play specially encoded MIDI files and instructional videos offered by the company that work in tandem with the lighted neck. Unfortunately, while Fretlight offers song packs at eight tracks for $11.99 each and educational video packs for $59.99 each, if you want individual songs you're going to need extra software. Several sites offer tabs for download, but you can't play them with the included software. Instead, you need a special version of the Guitar Pro 6 tabulature software called Guitar Pro 6 Fretlight Ready ($80). There are a few MIDI file hacks that can allegedly trigger the lights on the guitar through the Fretlight software, but Guitar Pro 6 is the most direct and legitimate way to use your tabs with the guitar.

Performance
While I have little frame of reference for guitar quality, according to several musically inclined members of the PCMag staff the Fretlight feels and sounds very good. It's sturdy, responsive, and sounds good for a relatively inexpensive guitar. The Fretlight neck feels just like a wooden guitar neck, and the electronic features don't alter the guitar's sound or playability at all. They're a bonus that further justifies an already reasonable price.

Did I learn how to play guitar on the Fretlight? No, but that's not the guitar's fault. I simply have a complete lack of rhythm. And tone. And coordination. Beyond being a general teaching tool, the Fretlight lets you (with the help of additional software) learn and play along with your favorite songs without constantly checking tabs or sheet music. I can play the Super Mario Bros. theme in time with the light-up frets, though, and isn't that what matters?

If you want to learn how to play guitar, the Fretlight FG-421, or even a lower-end model like the $330 FG-411, is a great choice. It's a fully functional, solidly built guitar that happens to feature a great light-up neck as a teaching aid. It's pricier than some entry-level guitars, which you can pick up for around $200, but it's built very well, and the neck might just be worth the extra cost if you want a little something more to help you learn how to play your favorite songs.

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