Powered tuners (reprise)

Guildmark

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Sorry, I couldn't readily find the original thread on this topic.
This was in today's Yahoo News:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071203/ap_on_hi_te/self_tuning_guitar

Here's my concern about these things:
- extra weight added to the head of the guitar
- no value to acoustic purists who don't want anything electric on their instrument
- doubt about how well they work because it's believed they tune each string to the exact vibration of the note of the open string. This wouldn't allow for a tempered tuning necessary to play in different keys.

Open to correction, of course, but those are my concerns.
 

Maxer

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Personally, dubbing it a "robot guitar" is what makes me laugh. Brain-dead marketing at its best.

I will probably buy into this tech once it becomes mainstream and cheap. I can see how useful it might (will?) be.

Meanwhile I guess I'll have to suck it up and make do with my perfectly useless old school guitars.
 

krysh

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in fact, some guys from hamburg http://www.tronical.com developed these tuners for the last 5 years.
the use 2 proceccors and a special piezo bridge to tune the guitar.
you can save 6 different tunings, and can save your own tunings, can also tune to any tone, works fine.

but +1 on weight and purist accoustics.
wouln't build it into my sf4 either :)
 

fronobulax

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Guildmark said:
- doubt about how well they work because it's believed they tune each string to the exact vibration of the note of the open string. This wouldn't allow for a tempered tuning necessary to play in different keys.

I wonder about this one. By definition a guitar is an even tempered instrument. In practice that means that it will never be in tune for all keys. It will always be out of tune in some key and the hope is that your ear can live with that. Fret position, fret height and action are all going to effect intonation.

If RoboGuitar was constantly trying to tune the strings I can imagine a problem, but the way I read things at the Gibson site you got to tell it when it could mess with the tuning and when it should leave things alone.

Thus, it seems to me that once tuned, say to an open 440 A the temperament is as good or as bad as it is going to get and it makes no difference whether you and your tools or RoboGuitar tuned to 440.

If RoboGuitar is trying to adjust while you are playing then all bets are off but otherwise I see no reason why letting RoboGuitar tune is any worse than using a strobe tuner or any other way of tuning based upon a measurement and not your ear.

If electronic tuners don't work for you and if you have several guitars each tuned slightly differently for a particular key then RoboGuitar is not for you. But it doesn't make things worse for anyone else and may make it better.

YMMV :)
 

krysh

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fronobulax said:
Guildmark said:
- doubt about how well they work because it's believed they tune each string to the exact vibration of the note of the open string. This wouldn't allow for a tempered tuning necessary to play in different keys.

I wonder about this one. By definition a guitar is an even tempered instrument. In practice that means that it will never be in tune for all keys. It will always be out of tune in some key and the hope is that your ear can live with that. Fret position, fret height and action are all going to effect intonation.

If RoboGuitar was constantly trying to tune the strings I can imagine a problem, but the way I read things at the Gibson site you got to tell it when it could mess with the tuning and when it should leave things alone.

Thus, it seems to me that once tuned, say to an open 440 A the temperament is as good or as bad as it is going to get and it makes no difference whether you and your tools or RoboGuitar tuned to 440.

If RoboGuitar is trying to adjust while you are playing then all bets are off but otherwise I see no reason why letting RoboGuitar tune is any worse than using a strobe tuner or any other way of tuning based upon a measurement and not your ear.

If electronic tuners don't work for you and if you have several guitars each tuned slightly differently for a particular key then RoboGuitar is not for you. But it doesn't make things worse for anyone else and may make it better.

YMMV :)

hey frono,
the guitar doesn't always tune itself, you have to activate it (push/pull- pot with 6 presets). it works as fine as every other quality tuner + plus you can choose your reference tone whenever needed.
 

fronobulax

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krysh said:
fronobulax said:
but the way I read things at the Gibson site you got to tell it when it could mess with the tuning and when it should leave things alone.

hey frono,
the guitar doesn't always tune itself, you have to activate it (push/pull- pot with 6 presets). it works as fine as every other quality tuner + plus you can choose your reference tone whenever needed.

That's what I had assumed from the web site, but I figured I might be wrong because people seem to be concerned about tuning temperament. I can understand the concern if they thought the guitar was constantly adjusting the tuning but otherwise I'm waiting to understand why it is a concern.

But everyone knows bassists don't bother about tuning. We just dial down all the treble and no one can tell whether we're in tune or not. :wink:
 

krysh

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fronobulax said:
...But everyone knows bassists don't bother about tuning. We just dial down all the treble and no one can tell whether we're in tune or not. :wink:

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

right, thats what we do. :D
 

fronobulax

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krysh said:
fronobulax said:
...But everyone knows bassists don't bother about tuning. We just dial down all the treble and no one can tell whether we're in tune or not. :wink:

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

right, thats what we do. :D

Theres a joke about classical/orchestral musicians. One day a string bassist was observed sitting next to his bass and crying. He was asked "why?". He responded. "The percussionist moved one of my tuning pegs,






and he won't tell me which one!"
 

BluesDan

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For the extra 900 bucks they are asking, and having what looks like a bunch of wind-up toys on the headstock of my guitar.........I'll pass........old school is just fine with me. :wink:

And with my luck.........I'll pass......they will discontinue them after a very limited production run..........and three years from now they'll be worth 12K....... :lol:
 

krysh

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fronobulax said:
krysh said:
fronobulax said:
...But everyone knows bassists don't bother about tuning. We just dial down all the treble and no one can tell whether we're in tune or not. :wink:

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

right, thats what we do. :D

Theres a joke about classical/orchestral musicians. One day a string bassist was observed sitting next to his bass and crying. He was asked "why?". He responded. "The percussionist moved one of my tuning pegs...

...and he won't tell me which one!"

well, the classical bassplayers are really different..... 8)
 

Jeff

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Here's the first guitar with automatic tuners listed on our local Craigslist.

If it was close I'd be tempted to go take a look just so's I could see it work.

http://seattle.craigslist.org/est/msg/511083566.html

Gotta say the tuners better be good on this guitar cuz the Baby Bleu Sunburst is borderline hedious.

Apology in advance to the bleu lovers.

and!! here is "Robo Guitar" instruction video from Gibson's site. Yeow, it's alive.

http://www.gibson.com/robotguitar/robot ... o=training

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