The truth is, we have a ways to go, and those saying this, are missing the point of innovation, or how it comes about, entirely. To add to it, there HAS been innovation, it's just not paid as much attention to anymore. Seriously, get out of your little Led Zeppelin/SRV/Hendrix/Clapton/Beck/Page bubbles boomers...and Zoomers, get off your damn phones and open your ear holes for a minute.

I mean, your average Strat - it's a guitar designed in 1954, and at the most high tech, it has a whammy system from 1981, a 5-way switch from 1979, and a pickup from 1958 in the bridge (humbucker) - which means this sort of thing was entirely possibe for over 40 years. And since then, nobody has made anything better, or as revolutionary. Seriously, guitar has been stunted - by the public - in the 1980's for about 40 years now, at least on the guitar side. Could probably pull a Valley Arts Superstrat, unused, from a case in Steve Farris's (Mr. Mister) garage, and sell it as a 2023 model, and nobody would be the wiser it's a N.O.S. 1985.

Outside of that Strat, Steinberger created a transposing tremolo, there are now 4 sustainer system makers on the planet, you can get a bluetooth MIDI Pickup that you can use with software synths on your cell phone, or polyphonic Boss pedals you can use with a regular guitar without special hardware. There is a digital bluetooth whammy bar you can attach to your guitar, as well as a kaos pads, and other wild shit out there. It's just nobody is using it, and why?

Well, the first part of this saying comes from the fact that the music industry is a fucking disaster - and yes, the F-bomb is warranted! As one famous guy said, we're basically glorified T-shirt salesmen now. The record companies are suffering while their higher ups are probably prepping their golden parachutes to jump ship once it finally sinks to an un-sustainable state. The classic drivers of guitar sales are no longer popular, because of the fact that the music industry is not siloed into a single path like it used to be - so the taste and personal liking is scattered and disconnected - and rock is a nearly 80 year old music genre now - it's not young anymore. And youth culture + parenting culture has made the classic swagger more accessible, and less of a possiblity. You were supposed to come wandering in with a disused Stratocaster and a Fender Champ, and make so much racket your parents ran upstairs and yelled "TURN THAT DAMN THING DOWN!!!!". Now mom and dad buy little Johnny a brand new Ibanez and Amp modeler with headphones for xmas so they can "bond" and spin yarns about the "band" they were in back in high school - and then the kid finds out it takes more effort than Facebook, so they pawn it for a brand new iPhone. There's no more teen rebellion anymore - on either side. So that killed it. What's there to rebel against when everything you rebel against will just turn it into some kind of "influencer cash-cow".

So when kids get into this - the future guitarists - it's not out of rebellion, nor out of the need to fit a special social circle. It's because they like the music - like truly, honestly, like the music - like I did (that got me bullied ad nauseum as a teenager). And how can anyone innovate when the local scene is a bunch of cover bands and nostalgia copycats, and no guitarist is willing to think outside the box enough. I'm not even sure if anyone really has a "sound in their head" anymore - they all want to copy XX celebrity 100%. I know that sounds funny coming from a guy who owns TWO basically "signature" guitars as his mains, but a signature model is perfectly fine if you innovate - if you're going to take that model somewhere past it's source material.

The innovation that is there is generally ignored due to poor execution. You either have something like Radiohead where it's such a complex signal chain mixing MIDI, Audio, and a thousands in outboard rack gear, that no regular person at home can replicate it, or stuff that ruins the INTERFACE of the guitar. IE, that new bluetooth whammy bar thing - one of the most important parts missing from such an innovation is the direct-interaction with the hardware that results in the resulting sound. Sure, you could use that instead of a Steinberger Trans Trem, but it just does not "feel right" because it's an electronic deviation, and basically a whammy pedal, which has a very very specific purpose that something like a Trans Trem can't have.

The problem with whammy pedals and pitch shifters, is that they need a lot of processing power to achieve, but they're cheaper and easier to get than a Trans-Trem. Why the hell nobody is trying to recreate, or compete with Ned Steinberger's invention is beyond me? The best interface for transposition with the most natural sound, is a vibrato bar that can do it - ie the TransTrem. Problem is, you need to BUY an entire Steinberger guitar to use one, and then once you buy an entire Steinberger guitar with the trem, you have to learn to set it up right, buy special double ball ended strings - and it becomes this whole ordeal that ost guitarists won't want to live with.

The problem with guitar synthesis is that we have not worked out a way to get it to work in the modern guitar rig without either problems mixing the signals, or problems with the interface itself.