Something I'd really like (that's not guitar amp specific) is a better solution for live sound in the small DIY venues where I play and see most shows. The standard setup hasn't changed since I started going to see live music 30 years ago - unmiked acoustic drums, half stacks, whatever the bassist has, and a small PA for vocals only. I'm used to it and it has its charms, but it seems like today's power amp, mixer, and speaker technology should make it easier to get a good consistent live mix even in those humble situations.
This is actually doable, relatively inexpensive and its theoretical an extremely large market... But I think it's not sexy enough for the average guitarist and amp companies don't do a great job of figuring out what we need... It's more of "here's some more stuff that incrementally moves forward."
What you're talking about is room analysis and it's ridiculously cheap and simple these days. A good front of house engineer "rings out a room" so that he knows where dead and feedback spots are in the room and by frequency.
There have been auto systems out there for ages, literally 20 plus years but they are limited to front of house.. kind of making it easy for an engineer with very little experience to avoid feedback and to get a good EQ curve for the room.
All of that would be completely available if you want to build it into your gear. The way it works, is a built in computer takes over your piece of gear... anything from a PA to an amp...and it generates extremely low to high notes going up and down over and over.
And then you set a reference mic out in the room. Reference mics are nearly flat microphone and in theory you could sample multiple places. In fact after a couple of sweeps, the algorithm should understand quite a bit about the size and the reverberation and dead spots in the room so the app could direct you around the room... now go closer to the back... now come closer to the front go to the right go to the left.
Of course with non-directional speakers it can't maximize every single position but it could do a good average that means you sound good and have low opportunities for feedback and dead spots.
It could also ask you to play that instrument at performance settings and let the reference mic record that as well.. this is exactly the type of adjustments that front of house engineers do in practically every engagement.
Of course your PA will be set in a completely different place and different amps will be in different spots so they will need to do their own sweeps regarding their own speakers.
Downside is musicians have got to be there early and get everybody in the room to be quiet but that's something I like to do anyway..
Once the room fills up with warm bodies, the curve can change considerably.. but an intelligent algorithm, working with that reference mic, could make onstage adjustments in real time.... Ie "I know what the frequency response of this room is like I understand the damping and hot spots and I even know what this particular guitar sounded like through this amp earlier... It doesn't sound that anyway anymore so I'm going to make some adjustments." Again professional front of house engineers do this constantly through an entire performance.
This isn't rocket science at all. All of the technology is available. But there's no demand because the average band doesn't think about this stuff.. they don't have a front of house engineer to teach them how important these steps are.
So I would say something like 70 or 80% of the bands in the world, who do not have front of house engineers, would greatly benefit from something like this. And if it was ubiquitous the cost would be negligible.. You're talking about an algorithm that's already been developed, a ridiculously cheap synthesizer chip and a wireless reference mic. Reference mics are cheap, so the whole thing wouldn't cost a manufacturer 100 bucks.
On the other hand I do not expect this to happen anytime soon. Again the average user doesn't understand any of this and frankly may not be performing to the level where it really matters.
And it would be very unlikely for manufacturers to try to take the lead on this. Although the market is extremely large, it's simply isn't sexy... It'd be very difficult to get any professional endorsements because professionals have pro audio engineers.
But one day, somehow, sometime technology is going to get so ridiculously cheap that this is the last great opportunity.. and then you'll find it in everything,vand at the same time, we will be buying the greatest guitars ever built for $499
