The new Gibson Robot guitar

DOSW

Pretty nifty!

http://www.gibson.com/robotguitar/

Discuss.

MichaelMcKevin

Interesting. The intonation thing almost seems harder than doing it the standard way.

Anon

it does looks purdy interesting concept...

so if it's a cool as they are saying, it would be wicked cool to be able to go to an alternate tuning in the middle of a song.

Jimmy Page had a red Les Paul that he had fitted with an automatic tuning system. so yeah.

the only thing i have a bit of an issue with is that the main attraction is the self tuning. tuning a guitar should be one of the first things you learn, If you can't tune your own guitar,with a tuner or not, you shouldnt be playing one, but then i guess first time players won't be picking up one of them any time soon.

DOSW

The one thing that they're not accounting for though is the warpage of the neck... the intonation thing is pretty cool but you won't really be fixing the source of the problem if you don't address the neck curvature.

kigcat

amazing feat of engineering! but.... if you ask me its a very pricey gimmick........ how long before we dont actually even have to play anymore?? that said though some of the videos are quite ammusing and im really not at all surprised that matt bellamy of muse has had the system installed into one of his guitars. (bet its in one of his mansons those guitars of his are virtually space shuttles anyway!)

Jooooosh

When I read the words "Neck CPU and Bridge PCB" I died a little inside.



The neck curvature would most likely create a problem. Unless the only tuning you were switching to is drop D or D standard from E standard, I don't think switching tunings mid-song would be very useful.



As already mentioned, the concept of a self-tuning guitar would not be a good idea for a beginner -- but what kind of beginner could afford one of these?
With that being said, who is this guitar supposed to be for? I can't imagine many experienced players with that type of budget paying for a self tuning guitar. Anyone who's played a year should be able to tune by ear moderately well. And all the electronics sound like a problem waiting to happen.
It reminds me of modern cars. As I get newer cars I seem to get more and more features I don't want or need. These features constantly go wrong and are incredibly expensive to get fixed. Sure that digital compass was nice when it worked but now it's telling me North is Southwest just before going to an error message. Those 15 buttons controlling my seat were nice but now half of them don't work -- I would've preferred a few levers that would actually be able to last the entire lifetime of the damn car...

lucylespian

I'm generally pretty disintersted in this kind of technology, mainly because I expect to fail and either need reopair or just not work any more.

But, I'm always fascinated by the idea that tuning a guitar by ear should be an essential or expected skill.
There are very few instruments which are tuned by teh user. The only ones I can think of are the violin family and the guitar family. TYpically, kids learnign violin will have their teacher tune their instruments for them for months or eyars before they tune their own, and being fretless, tehy can adjust the "tuning" every time they fret a note. Woodwind, pianos, harps etc, all tuned by design or a professional tuner.
For those blessed with perfect pitch, sure, it's a doddle, but everyonoe else will only ever do it passably well, as it is very difficult to be precise.
I'm always intruiged when I hand a perfectly tuned guitar to somebody, and the first thing they do is adjust the tuning.
his happened recently, and it was interesting to see the results when I ran it against a strobe tuner shortly after.
I have no shame in always using a tuner to get my guitars in tune, and according help my cloth ears get in tune.

Few things hold back your progress in guitar like poor tuning.

Jooooosh

lucylespian wrote:

I'm generally pretty disintersted in this kind of technology, mainly because I expect to fail and either need reopair or just not work any more.

But, I'm always fascinated by the idea that tuning a guitar by ear should be an essential or expected skill.
There are very few instruments which are tuned by teh user. The only ones I can think of are the violin family and the guitar family. TYpically, kids learnign violin will have their teacher tune their instruments for them for months or eyars before they tune their own, and being fretless, tehy can adjust the "tuning" every time they fret a note. Woodwind, pianos, harps etc, all tuned by design or a professional tuner.
For those blessed with perfect pitch, sure, it's a doddle, but everyonoe else will only ever do it passably well, as it is very difficult to be precise.
I'm always intruiged when I hand a perfectly tuned guitar to somebody, and the first thing they do is adjust the tuning.
his happened recently, and it was interesting to see the results when I ran it against a strobe tuner shortly after.
I have no shame in always using a tuner to get my guitars in tune, and according help my cloth ears get in tune.

Few things hold back your progress in guitar like poor tuning.

Well said!

lucylespian

Jooooosh wrote:

Well said!

You know, I really fucking hate being partially quoted to take things out of context and change meaning.

I interpret it as being aggressive and malicious.
I champion your right to disagree with me, but don't piss me off by doing what you just did and not expect me to take offence.

Jooooosh

lucylespian wrote:

You know, I really fucking hate being partially quoted to take things out of context and change meaning.

I interpret it as being aggressive and malicious.
I champion your right to disagree with me, but don't piss me off by doing what you just did and not expect me to take offence.

What? I bolded the points I most agreed with.. I wasn't being sarcastic.
I think you're referring to the "I expect to fail..." part? That's what you said, I assumed everyone who read that would know you just accidentally left out the word "it".

If you read my post you'd see I said I also thought it would probably break and be expensive to fix, as well as the idea of a self-tuning guitar wouldn't be a good idea for beginners.

lucylespian

Jooooosh wrote:

What? I bolded the points I most agreed with.. I wasn't being sarcastic.
I think you're referring to the "I expect to fail..." part? That's what you said, I assumed everyone who read that would know you just accidentally left out the word "it".

If you read my post you'd see I said I also thought it would probably break and be expensive to fix, as well as the idea of a self-tuning guitar wouldn't be a good idea for beginners.

NO, I'm noffended that you bolded part of a sentence about tuning being non-essential, and making it look at a glance as though I said it was essential.

You were not agreeing with me on that point, you were disagreeing with me, but making it look like I was agreeing with you.
Disagree all you like, but don't fuck with my meaning.

Jooooosh

lucylespian wrote:

NO, I'm noffended that you bolded part of a sentence about tuning being non-essential, and making it look at a glance as though I said it was essential.

You were not agreeing with me on that point, you were disagreeing with me, but making it look like I was agreeing with you.
Disagree all you like, but don't fuck with my meaning.

Oh, I missed the "I'm always fascinated by the idea that" and misunderstood you. I thought you did mean tuning should be an essential skill.. my bad, we are in disagreement with that then.

exhausted

[popcorn smilie][/popcorn smilie]

MLC2006

so the whole selling point is that it makes intonation and tuning easier?? I find the tune-o-matic bridge to be quite simple to get good intonation and Grover tuners will keep my LP in tune for weeks at a time.

a company that could've actually benefitted from this technology would've been Fender or any other company that uses floating bridges that are pains in the ass to get intonated right.

as a side note, I find the blue/silverburst color to be quite ugly.

Novawind

I think this is a really cool idea. Even if you are a professional guitarist, this thing makes it so easy and FAST that all you do is press the button, bam you're tuned up in about 10 seconds between songs, better than checking all 6 strings on your pedal tuner. And, if you're a newer guitar player, having your guitar in tune all the time will probably train your ear quicker. You'll probably be just as able to tune the guitar by ear anyway.

I'd buy one if I had enough money. If I saw this on an SG I'd be sold sold sold.

MichaelMcKevin

Does anyone know how much this will cost? I can't find the price.

Anon

GivenToCarve wrote:

Does anyone know how much this will cost? I can't find the price.

i tried to look earlier to find out and there is no price listed anywhere. the only thing i did find was this this numberwhere it said to contact them for a price.

Guitarhero27

what about the Fender VG has anyone heard any reviews on this guitar?

ianvomsaal

Ehh, why not just learn to tune and set up the guitar yourself - it looks like another fancy gadget for
the affluent player that already has everything . . . and just has nothing better to spend his $$$ on.

Anon

what really, really irks me about the advertising and hype behind this is, that gibson are talking about this being a 'limited edition first run that will surely go on to become a highly sought-after Gibson instrument', and then saying it will soon join the ranks of models such as the 59 Les Paul Standard which sell for between $100,000-$500,000.

it might be highly sought after, but it will never ever join the ranks of the 59 standard.

if any one believes that, then they are an idiot.

Mike_Muse_Rage

Hmm, good idea, not too sure about the name though. It's interesting that I saw those self-tuning tuners 2 years ago at the London Guitar Show. Surprised no one used them until now.

DeLukin

Now if it could just play 'Sweet Child 'O Mine" by itself I'd REALLY be impressed.

EvilTB

A company called Transperformance was retrofitting guitars with this feature for about 18 years. I remember watching an interview with Jeff Martin formerly of the Tea Party explaining that he used it to change tunings on the fly, up to three times in a single song! Jimmy Page uses it too, I think. That is primarily what it is meant for.

Transperformance's patent must have expired, allowing Gibson to make their own version. If I could afford it, I'd buy it. Playing lead in alternate tunings is rather difficult.

journeyman

I saw that interview with Jeff Martin, kinda cool.

Did anyone see the picture of the inventor of the Robot Guitar. Haha.

MLC2006

I'm not saying it's not a cool invention. but I'm pretty well certain it's not worth what Gibson is going to charge for it.

hell, I'd pay $100 for it. I MIGHT even go so far as to pay $200. but you know that's probably going to be a $2000+ guitar (and probably a lot more than that) and I just don't see it being worth it because like I said, the tune-o-matic bridge is pretty simple to work with already. but it WOULD be great if it would work on floating bridges.

also, that looks like a Les Paul guitar. so why is his name not on the headstock? think he's against it?

ianvomsaal

it's callled the click here: Gibson "PowerTune" System and costs $899.
Here it is at Musicians Friend

- Ian

Anon

Not digging the purple one at all. Maybe it will look better up close.

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/Robot%20Les%20Paul%20Studio%20and%20Robo/

Pacomc79

ianvomsaal wrote:

it's callled the click here: Gibson "PowerTune" System and costs $899.
Here it is at Musicians Friend

- Ian

DAMN!!! Mighty proud of it.

For 900 bucks, I think I'll just get some nice tuning machines a great strobe tuner and give Buzz Feiten a call Hell for that change you could probably just buy another guitar and splitter box to keep an alternately tuned option on stage.

I'm all about technology and I'm jonesing for one of those new great logitech remotes I can rig all my home theatre stuff up with and not have to teach each button what to do but outside of the general coolness factor of automatic tuning, for 900 bucks, I just don't think it's all that practical.

ianvomsaal

Pacomc79 wrote:

DAMN!!! Mighty proud of it.

For 900 bucks, I think I'll just get some nice tuning machines a great strobe tuner and give Buzz Feiten a call Hell for that change you could probably just buy another guitar and splitter box to keep an alternately tuned option on stage.

I'm all about technology and I'm jonesing for one of those new great logitech remotes I can rig all my home theatre stuff up with and not have to teach each button what to do but outside of the general coolness factor of automatic tuning, for 900 bucks, I just don't think it's all that practical.

yup, totally agree, that's why I said . . .

ianvomsaal wrote:

Ehh, why not just learn to tune and set up the guitar yourself - it looks like another fancy gadget for
the affluent player that already has everything . . . and just has nothing better to spend his $$$ on.

Gossard_Is_God

I wouldnt trust the mechanics to hold out

jmccue7

there is a similar tuning system used by sonny landreth (slide guitarist)

its been around for a few years now and is even cooler than the gibson thing

http://transperformance.com/perform/index2.htm