Self-Tuning Electric Guitar 389
avirrey writes "The Technology Review has an interesting article on a Gibson Self-Tuning Guitar. Purist argue that you shouldn't need a guitar that self-tunes. Others argue that this will allow an artist to change tuning with one 'favorite' guitar, instead of having to swap out between songs." Ok I know what I think- freakin' sweet. Only technology will guarantee my sucking on the electric will at least be reasonably in-tune suckiness. Dear Gibson, Slashdot really needs to review your guitar. We'll need several review units and we lost your return address.
I bet this will be a tough sell (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I guess.... (Score:3, Insightful)
It has a knob that you pull out to turn the tuning mechanism on, then you turn it off while you are playing so it's not trying to adjust.
I found this part of the technology to be especially clever:
As the strings are played, the Powertune processor compares their actual frequencies with the desired notes and sends instructions--tighten the string this much, loosen the string by that much--to tuning pegs equipped with strong, tiny servo motors mounted on the back of the guitar's head. Because onstage interference could potentially degrade a wireless signal, the system uses the strings themselves to send the signal.
Re:determinism finally! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Silly technological overkill (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed, but there are five situations where it could be useful, IMHO:
NO CAR ANALOGY HERE! (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know about you, but the minute "out-of-tune-ness" and things of that nature is what makes a musical performance sound more human. Similar analogy: quantizing [wikipedia.org] and how that makes things so.. robotic..
Re:Technical review... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:determinism finally! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:determinism finally! (Score:2, Insightful)
An electric guitar is not a digital, nor even an electonically-controlled, instrument. There are guitar synths, and electonically-controlled things like the Line6 Variax. But those aren't really "electric guitars".
A solid-body electric guitar has magnetic coil transducers that generate an electrical signal as the metal strings vibrate in a magnetic field. That's pretty much it: no chips, not even transistors. It's a simple tool, rather in line with the Unix philosophy [wikipedia.org].
You can then take that signal and pipe through whatever processing you want - off board, in your stomp boxes or rack effect units. But don't mess with the guitar, any more than you'd mess with grep by trying to make it include awk.
This, though, is a mechanical thing, that just automates what the guitarist does when he looks at a tuner and frobs the tuning knobs until the needle hits center or the green light lights or whatever. It's a just a convenience, not a true alteration of function.
Re:Technical review... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Technical review... (Score:3, Insightful)
Would be awesome - how many times has your guitar gone out of tune while playing with brand skankin' new strings? I know you're supposed to stretch 'em out, but we're talking about a labor-saver here.
Though, like I said, it'd probably be a lot more difficult; baseline tension would change the moment a bend was made (stretching of the strings).
I wonder if resistance can be checked to put up a 'string needs replaced' idiot light? Ooh, how about a capacitance array just under the fretboard so that you can train your fretting tension to an ideal level?
Hehe. Borg Guitar.
Re:Technical review... (Score:2, Insightful)
The Who.