Is Henry listening to Gibson fans?

Pilgrim · July 16, 2015, 02:11:12 PM

People are just as picky about tuners as they are anything else. I think it makes more sense to let the user choose the one he/she favors. Building one in is one more thing to break, and one more thing to dislike if it's not your style.

westen44 · July 16, 2015, 03:29:29 PM

I also believe something like this is very much an individual matter. Out of all the things I can think of that seem important, a self-tuning instrument seems to be toward the bottom of the list. But maybe this is because before the days of electronic tuners especially, I was kind of looked at as a human turning fork by others. Even people who might be better musicians would trust me on tuning, what was getting out of tune, etc. It's a pity my playing skills are probably not as great as my tuning skills. The bottom line, obviously, is that even a self-tuning bass would be of little interest to me. It might be nice, but basically, who cares? Whatever the mindset that Gibson has to place so much emphasis on self-tuning is something I definitely do not identify with.

Pilgrim · July 16, 2015, 06:03:57 PM

If someone can't tune an instrument, their chances of being able to play it with any degree of success are highly in question.

drbassman · July 16, 2015, 07:44:35 PM

Quote from: Pilgrim on July 16, 2015, 06:03:57 PM
If someone can't tune an instrument, their chances of being able to play it with any degree of success are highly in question.

Amen Al!

westen44 · July 16, 2015, 07:54:06 PM

Anybody who has issues with pitch or timing is just wasting everybody's time.

chromium · July 16, 2015, 07:54:17 PM

Quote from: Pilgrim on July 16, 2015, 06:03:57 PM
If someone can't tune an instrument, their chances of being able to play it with any degree of success are highly in question.

I'd think that those robot tuners might make better sense in the Epi lineup - targeting kids short on cash and attention spans who just want to get up and running without being hassled with tuning. A springboard to help get kids transitioned from GuitarHero/RockSmith to their future Gibsons...

Probably would blow the Epi price point out of the water, though... so what do I know.

Dave W · July 16, 2015, 08:37:58 PM

Another problem with these is that some guitarists will tune one string a few cents sharp or flat for chording in a particular key. Can't do that with these.

clankenstein · July 16, 2015, 10:38:07 PM

Maybe next years exciting innovation will be robot frets.

westen44 · July 16, 2015, 11:18:51 PM

Self-playing guitars could be next. A person could become a rock star with one of those things.

Highlander · July 17, 2015, 12:02:40 AM

Maybe they could replace Henry with an upgraded Asimo...

Might be a waste of AI though...

slinkp · July 17, 2015, 09:01:59 AM

Also, if the intonation on the guitar is less than perfect, sometimes you have to tweak the tuning slightly to find the best compromise. Especially with fixed-bridge acoustic guitars, or quasi-adjustable bridges like on my Danelectro reissue. I really don't think a built-in tuner is going to do that better than I can.

As one example, I often tune the low E a tiny bit flat since it tends to suffer a bit more from going sharp when played hard.

Bass is relatively easy. Much less finicky than six short skinny strings....

uwe · July 17, 2015, 10:00:12 AM

A good automatic tuning system could handle all those tuning nuances and even detect when something needs to be tuned a little flat or sharp. You guys argue a bit like people used to argue against safety belts: "And what if the car catches fire?"

You have to yet convince me, my luddite friends, that this will not be a lot more commonplace in the future. A future tuning system would even be able to detect from the chord fretted what tuning is the optimal well-tempered one and make micro-adjustments on the spot. You just wait!

westen44 · July 17, 2015, 10:20:18 AM

Here we go.

drbassman · July 17, 2015, 10:51:45 AM

Ho hum, it still should be consumer choice. I'd love to see how popular self-tuning violins, cellos and violas would be in the future. Those crazy classical musicians, luddites in the first degree, I'm sure!

westen44 · July 17, 2015, 10:57:07 AM

Seriously, though, I hope Gibson finds a way to get through what is probably a big mistake. I used to have a Telecaster (guitar) which got stolen at a battle of the bands. I also used to have a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Jr. which had belonged to my father. I was well acquainted with both. Although there was nothing wrong with the Tele, the Gibson was far superior. In my opinion, there is no better sounding guitar than a Gibson.