They're calling it the biggest advance in the electronic guitar in 70 years. But some musicians are calling it something else - cheating. What's causing all these sour notes? The world's first "robot guitar," an instrument designed to tune itself to not only be on key but also to play almost impossible to set off-standard sounds that are highly distinctive.
It took 15 years of research for the music maker, from legendary Gibson Guitar, to reach the market. And next month, a limited edition version will be going on sale. For many would be axe-men, it's a big deal. It seems some of the world's most famous rock tunes used non-standard settings to achieve their famous effects, leaving frustrated amateurs stymied in their efforts to recreate them.
Songs like the Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Woman," Jimi Hendrix's classic "Voodoo Child," Led Zeppelin's "Going To California" and Joni Mitchell's "Circle Game" used the odd configurations, and all of them will be available instantly on the instrument.
"It will not make you a better guitar player but it will allow the average player to access some very sophisticated tunings," explains Gibson Guitar Chief Executive Henry Juszkiewicz. "Professional guitar players use a lot of different tuning and people who listen to the stars wonder why they can't reproduce the same sound themselves." Now they'll be able to, as well as perfectly retune the high tech wonder once they're done.
But the announcement has already created a backlash among some, who call it "lazy" and predict the fine art of guitar tuning by trained ears could be lost if the technology spreads.
None of which concerns Gibson in any real way. The company plans to sell just 4,000 of the blue silverburst models worldwide starting December 7th. The price for perfection: US$2,500. Can't get one then? A more general edition will be coming to a guitar store in January 2008. The company is betting its detractors will change their tune when they see and hear it. But then, that's exactly what it was built for in the first place.
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