Dec 6 2007'Robot Guitar' Doesn't Need You To Tune It

But can it get a perfect on Cowboys from Hell?

It's $2,500. Laziness has a price tag.

I saw about this a couple weeks ago. The thing is, how does it sound when played? As for the price, for a nice Gibson, that's a fantastic price, seeing as how the Les Paul is about $3,400

Why not just pick up a digital SLR camera to go with it and forget all about film in the process...

#4, that almost made sense...I agree with the writer, if one can't really work on their own things (computers = techs, cars = mechanics, bikes = cyclists, etc.), then there's obviously something wrong, and that thing shouldn't be done by the person. I work on my own photography equipment, my pictures, my car, my computer, carpentry, turtle/fish tank, scale modeling, and other gadgets/hobbies that I have, and I've learned to excel in what I do as best as I can.

I think this is more for people who play at shows and need to tune differently on stage. And there are some tunings that are just annoying to have to tune to and this would help make things a little easier. No doubt that a lot of lazy people will pick this up though.

The music shop where my boyfriend works is selling theirs for $2199 I think.

.99

That's an amazing price for a les paul! Especially with the "feature." And for the self absorbed purists out there, it is for live performances. Of course no one sitting in their mom's basement is going to use this thing unless they're a super douche.

This would be awesome for small to medium-sized gigs so you didn't have to watch some douche tune his fucking guitar for 15 minutes between each song. I know everyone loves guitar techs and/or wants to be one but they suck and they're annoying.

who need this piece of shit?

That thing won't balance worth a piss with all that extra weight at the peg head.

Also, painted necks suck.

From what I have read the tuners weigh less than typical pegs. This is no more top heavy than any other Les Paul.

I wonder if it is Guitar Hero Compatible

Okay, first of all, trying to portray tuning as some mystic rite you perform is ridiculous unless you think using a tuner is somehow heretical. Turn the knob till you see the pretty green lights is about the extent of the relationship.

Second, I think the value here is not in the initial tuning, but in the fact that it will STAY tuned while you play. If you play any kind of aggressive music, your guitar will be out of tune halfway through song 2, so a guitar that constantly monitors and adjusts while you play to stay in tune would be the definition of awesome on stage.

@14:

The guitar doesn't 'constantly monitor and adjust' tuning while you are playing. While it is tuning, sound is 100% muted. You have to pull up one of the volume knobs to put it in tuning mode. It will resume delivering sound once the knob is pushed back down and the tuning mechanism has stopped. Read the manual, it says exactly that.

If it were designed to just keep it in tune, it would be the equivelent of using a crane to kill a fly because we have had the very old technology of floyd rose bridges for quite some time.

It's kinda cheap, you can find some non-selftuning guitars over 3000$, like the Tom DeLonge Gibson ES333 Signature :S

Y'all have pretty much said everything that can be said about this already, but I just thought I'd throw my two cents in. I watched a whole bunch of videos about this guitar (floating around youtube or on gibson's site), and I had the same "how f***ing lazy are we getting?!" thought about the thing at first, but the thing is really quite impressive. I definitely agree that if you're a serious (or even only mildly serious) guitar player, you have GOT to know how to (and be willing to) do all these things on your own, but the way you can so quickly and easily switch between tunings, replace strings, and more would be a huge advantage for live performances. Plus, at 2,500 dollars, that's relatively cheap enough to be affordable to guitarists who want to use it for those exact reasons, but also expensive enough to keep away (most of) the idiots who don't know how/want to do these things on their own and really ARE just that lazy.

Now, I have no idea how the thing sounds, but it's a Les Paul. It's gotta be pretty good, right?

Well hey, you call yourself a mathematician and you use a calculator? This allows a guitarist to get on with playing. How does this imply laziness? Musicians and audiences alike will benefit. Uh, doesn't the article say it's a Gibson not a Les Paul?

@18, the website seems to be strictly referring to it as the "Gibson Robot Guitar", but it is in the shape of the classic single cutaway Les Paul. I'm not sure why, the company has never released a guitar that looked like a Les Paul without the Les Paul name on it.

I would love to have this if they would combine it with the Digital Les Paul that they released recently. It would be a bit more pricey, but worth it.

I wouldn't want one, but I don't see why so many people are getting their fucking panties in a twist about laziness and how you must know everything about a hobby that you're going to get into. Fucking self-righteous nerds. If some random dude wants to shell out a few grand for a Les Paul that tunes itself then more power. This is a fucking website dedicated to all things geeky, what the fuck did you expect, a guitar that can't tune itself without the user knowing how to read a fucking slide ruler?

As for the rest of us who play guitar and will stick to tuning it ourselves, at least we won't have to be seen with this ugly thing.

#20... hm... I thought that a place called "geekologie" would be a perfect place for "nerd" to come look at things... but maybe that's just me. :) (Really not trying to be a bitch here, honestly). But the violinist in me just cries to see something like this. I understand its intention, but let's not destroy the potential development of musical ears across the nation with self-tuning instruments. Get a piano or a pitch pipe or something and do it yourself. That's my music geek two cents. :)

#21, being able to hear microtonal differences in pitch is important for violinists, not so much for guitarists. Besides, every single note we play is affected by the initial tuning, not just the open strings, and when you're playing chords, the pitch accuracy of each individual string is all that much more important. Consequently, most of us wouldn't get onstage without first using an electronic tuner. So this self-tuning invention isn't really a substitution for developing a musical ear. It's a substitution for hands.

#22- I play the guitar as well and I understand the incredible differences in tuning between the various types of stringed instruments. I was trying to refer more to the potential onslaught of copycats in other instruments, like violins, that could come from this invention, that's all. :)

Anyone who would chastise a guitarist for not wanting or knowing how to tune his or her own guitar, should equally criticize pianists, who rarely, if ever tune thier own pianos (an entire profession is devoted to the task).

#24 - Amen!

What will the roadies do if they aren't switching out guitars at concerts for retuning? I'm guessing eating waffles.

I don't know of ONE serious guitar player that can't tune his/her own instrument. They're going to market this goofy idea like it's as groundbreaking and innovative as some of Gibson's past achievements, but it's just foolish. Who is this $2500 guitar marketed to? Beginners? Has tuning your guitar always been a dreaded task? Doesn't a $25 digital tuner work just as well? Gibson, PLEASE put your R&D cash into new guitar models, affordable amp lines and such. Learning to tune a guitar is part of learning to PLAY a guitar. In other words, you can't PLAY a guitar unless you know how to TUNE a guitar. What's next? A self-PLAYING guitar?