Self Tuning Gibbo

[99_not_out]

Stumbled on this on Slashdot of all places:

http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19462/

Anyone ever used a self tuning guitar? Sounds kind of weird to me, but then if I'm honest I could probably do with one ... :)

The /. thread is actually quite amusing too: http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/07/10/03/2020254.shtml

I particulary like the post "Tuning a guitar is a ridiculous notion" about 3/4 of the way down the thread ...

[Bird]

Very cool. Transperformance were the first ones to do it. But tronical uses motors in the tuner to do it, it's pretty cool

[hamfist]

Cool idea. I like it. However, I suspect it'll be a few years until it's readily available at a reasonable price.

[Bird]

http://www.tronical.com/products

[Will]

I posted this in time out a wee bit back  :roll:

[Mr Ed]

I find it to be an utterly pathetic waste of money... so pretty much what you'd expect from Gibson.

[Bird]

I find it to be an utterly pathetic waste of money... so pretty much what you'd expect from Gibson.

The technology was designed by Gibson, they just bought the distribution for it (or some such thing). Page used the transperformance system on one of his LP for both Page & Plant tours. He used it a lot during the shows as well.  8)

[ailean]

My first thought was 'What a waste of time', but on seconds thoughts it's not that bad an idea.

Now every guitarist should be able to look after his or her gear, but if you're playing a gig I can see how a guitar could go slightly out of tune between the time it was set up and when it actually gets played, or if you've put on a new set of strings that haven't quite settled in yet. In a live situation I can see how this would be great to have.

I went to see Muse at Wembly this year (yes it was great) and I saw the number of guitars that were wheeled on stage before they started. It wouldn't surprise me that after half an hour under stage lighting that the tuning might shift a little on 1 or 2 of those, especially the ones that weren't used until the end of a 2 hour set.

[38thBeatle]

Just  buy a Fender-mine are very stable with tuning.

[hamfist]

http://www.tronical.com/products

Really very interesting reading. I still would not regard it as a "reasonable price" though.
   I also think they need to get those machineheads much smaller before the mainstream of guitarists would even consider them.
   Mainstream guitar design is VERY conservative and traditional - just look at the most popular design types, the strat, tele and LP, they're all decades old. We like tradition, history, heritage. Things have to look "right". It's all very different to most "Technology" products where "new" is considerd "good". The guitar world has a culture where "old" and "vintage" is considered good.
   It'll be interesting to see how these tuning products develop.

Alan

[JDC]

still have to unlock the nuts for my floyd

I suppose if your one of those big name guitarists it would be cheaper to buy the system and have less guitars and therefore less guitar techs to pay

waiting for bands to come on stage would be 30 seconds quicker, if only they could fix the hitting the drum a million times thing "is it working, i dunno, hit it harder?"

[Will]

The main thing I could find wrong with this would be getting the best set up...
as the string tension changes, will fret buzz not get worse, or the action feel of it lose the essential qualities of a well set up guitar.

Wouldn't mind one which brought it into standard tuning quickly, and had a quick Drop D option