Schmitt Trigger configuration for enabling power from guitar pickup
Does anyone know of a better way to accomplish this?


The signal level from a guitar can be quite low so I would be thinking of a circuit like this one (much more sensitive and can be adjusted by altering R3): -



Replace the microphone with the guitar and it should detect strings being strummed and rapidly charge up capacitor C2. C2 in the circuit above was intended to be low because I left the circuit as an answer to another question on activating a LED BUT, C2 can be increased to hundreds of uF to extend the delay to many seconds.