Hey guys! I thought I would let you know about a cool project I came across: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1955788462/performaxe-the-first-ever-leg-rest-for-any-electri
Haven’t tried it but looks promising. I pledged one and hope it doesn’t end like the Magnet!
3 Likes
It looks very interesting. I wonder if it’s compatible with some wild guitar shapes… I would be interested in one if it comes at a reasonable price. I usually play with the strap even when seated and that helps me get closer to my optimal position. This device seems to be designed just for that.
Cool! Pledged 
It seems to me the only case where this is better than a footstool is for the guys who insist on resting the guitar on their right leg.
I wear the guitar higher than most, and on the rare occasions that I practice seated, it’s on a low couch that forces my knees to bend slightly, and that alone is enough to get my left leg high enough to do a nice classical legrest posture. If I were forced to sit on a higher chair, I’d much rather keep a footrest around (or grab a stack of books) than dick around with latching something onto my guitar. And even seated, the only time I’m without a strap is when I do casual guitar browsing at a store and pull a random guitar off the wall.
A footrest is probably also more portable than that thing, if you think you really need some source of extra elevation.
Personally, I also find my posture goes to shit if I practice sitting for a long time, so to me standing is a no-brainer. And as I argue above, even when you sit, the cheaper and more ubiquitous solutions are better unless you insist on resting the guitar on your right leg. And upper fret access seated with a right leg rest still sucks even when the neck is elevated, because the fretting forearm has to reach across the player’s body, and the ergonomics of the wrist get compromised.
I guess everybody needs to make a buck, but this looks to me like a solution in search of a problem.
Well, I haven’t tried one (the cons of Kickstarter) but I think it’s more ergonomic to have both of your legs parallel to the floor. Also, it will help with some shapes (Flying V, Rhoads, etc) that are otherwise almost impossible to play sitting.
Why would that be? This gadget is smaller than a footstool.
P.S. I don’t wanna sound like an advocate - I have no personal interest in the project besides the obvious reason that I want it funded so I get to own one of those
Even if there’s a kernel of truth to that, I wouldn’t be surprised if the flat and regular shape of a collapsed footstool is simpler to pack/stow than the irregular shape of this thing. And a footstool that lives permanently in a practice room naturally lives on the floor and is easy to slide under another piece of furniture, or over by the wall, and can be repositioned in just a few seconds. And if it’s kept in the same position near a chair, you don’t have to do any adjusting at all to use it with virtually any guitar without making any changes. If someone has scenarios for themselves where they think this thing is genuinely a step up from the existing solutions, then I won’t begrudge them that, but my intuition is that this is like the exercise devices that used to be advertised on late-night TV, promising to give you a washboard stomach, when the fine-print always specified (“to get the results shown, you also need to follow a low calorie diet”), and in fact, the device itself was redundant, and the diet is what actually gives the results. To me, this just looks like it’s preying on guys playing strat-shaped guitars who are too stubborn to put the guitar on their left leg or practice standing up.
It’s like the viral story a little while back where a highschooler invented a device that uses the heat from a cup of coffee to add charge to a cellphone. Kudos to the kid for coming up with the idea and executing it, but the energy it takes to heat a cup of coffee in the first place isn’t “free”, and the mechanism for converting the heat in the coffee into electricity is incredibly inefficient. So interesting as a novelty and evidence of the kid’s initiative and creativity, but not really a practical solution to a problem.
I started using the Dynarette cushion for Classical guitar and now I use it for electric too. I find it very helpful.
https://www.stringsbymail.com/dynarette-guitar-support-cushion-s-4-inches-1807.html