The Robot Guitar

It really is cool, but I won't be buying one.

You can bet your life I would not but One of these thing's even if I did have the money.
I am against this new "hit a buttin a your done" crap there's hardly anyone nowaday's that can tune a guitar by ear.

I agree

But this could be interesting for beginner who can't tune their guitar by ear... But the fact is that, as a beginner, you don't want to spend 2000$ on a guitar... :roll:

at NAMM this year both Fender and Gibson came out with guitars with built in modelling. just a twist of a pot and the Fender Twin kicks in or a Marshall stack. I am not surprised by the self tuning guitar.
what I do finding interesting is that no one has really made much change to the basic guitar. a guitar is a guitar....

now if they had a roll of strings inside so when you broke one all you had to do is unroll one from a compartment..not unlike T.P. and it coils around the tuning peg by itself like a snake. that would be something.

dogbite wrote:
now if they had a roll of strings inside so when you broke one all you had to do is unroll one from a compartment..not unlike T.P. and it coils around the tuning peg by itself like a snake. that would be something.

That would be nice, if ya ask me! I'm still afraid to change my own strings. :oops: I don't know what I think might happen, but I have very little confidence in that area.

However...the day I need my guitar to tune itself is the day I hang up the hobby of playing. Without an ear, I lose most of my guitar playing abilities. For once, I can intro my hubby to a guitar that I have no desire to own!!! :D Thank you, Gibson! :!:

I understand about the purists, but not needed different guitars for different tuning would be great for many reasons. And how about not having to tune after every wild solo? Or when you take your acoustic from the frigid outdoors to under the hot stage lights?

But I think the real value would be for the 12-strings!

The thing is, if I tune my guitar to an electronic tuner, there's quite a range (to my ear at least) from where the tuner stops saying too flat to where it starts saying too sharp. If I get them all perfectly in tune according to the tuner, when I strum I can still hear the slight imperfections. I use a tuner to set my A string and do the rest by ear, and it comes out a lot better. I've found this with every tuner I've come across but maybe they've all been too cheap and nasty - I've certainly never paid very much for one :) There's also the issue of temperament, but still, I can do a better job than my tuner once I've got a reference. I'd be worried that this thing would be the same.

I agree misanthrope. after I tune electronically I always go back and relative tune.
in fact, with my lap steels I need to tune the third string 4 cents flat or it sounds sour.

I'd bet you're tuning away from equal temperament toward a just or Pythagorean temperament. Equal-tempered tuning doesn't sound right, every interval except the octave is off a bit and the major third is the worst. I've never seen an ear-tuned guitar check out right on a tuner. It's not that tuners are all bad, it's that nobody ear-tunes to equal temperament.

nobodys ever accused me of having an equal temperament, now i understand why my tuners never seem to be right. :lol:

I'd bet you're tuning away from equal temperament toward a just or Pythagorean temperament. Equal-tempered tuning doesn't sound right, every interval except the octave is off a bit and the major third is the worst. I've never seen an ear-tuned guitar check out right on a tuner. It's not that tuners are all bad, it's that nobody ear-tunes to equal temperament.
I expect that's a big part of it, probably most of it, but it's not the entire story as I find the same when only considering the top and bottom E strings - as you say, there's no temperament issues with octaves. Come to think of it, it is much less pronounced on just those strings.

The robot Guitar tunes very precisely to the frequency. If you have a problem with being in perfect tune you can preset your own tuning by manually tuning it and then saving it.

Hello Mr Robot Guitar representative! Why yes, I would be delighted to test a complementary model ;)

In all seriousness, I'm not saying that it couldn't - just that I'd need to be convinced it could before I'd want one more than I want a non-robot model.

Another issue with tuning: After you tune all 6 strings, you've got to go back and check each one you already tuned. Usually they'll need a bit of tweaking, because the change in tension on the neck as other strings are tuned causes the neck to flex and change the tuning of the ones already tuned. With a floating bridge Strat or a resonator guitar with springy cone(s), it often takes 3 passes across the strings to get them all in tune together.