This is super-cool. The lads at GameTank recently unveiled Guitar Rising, an upcoming game for Mac and PC that’s modeled on Guitar Hero’s gameplay, but which requires you to play actually guitar parts on a real guitar. You’ll be able to use the guitar of your choice, as long as it has a pickup or a microphone that can be plugged in to the audio inputs on your computer.

I’m frankly surprised that someone hasn’t done this for keyboards first, since the MIDI interface most modern keyboards use makes it easy to detect what notes people are actually playing. With guitars, one has to have the computer process the incoming audio signal and figure out what note is being played, a prospect made even dicier when one introduces polyphony and/or the sorts of effects that make a rock guitar sound like a rock guitar.

However, judging by the warm reception Guitar Rising has received, they’ve got a decent handle on the technical challenges, and are working on licensing a bunch of music to have available in the first release of the game later this year. Should be fun, and a great way to improve your guitar chops.