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125 Comments
- Bulova, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19My air guitar tunes itself....
- bsears, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Jimmy Page has been promoting a similar setup since the late 1990s. http://www.cnet.com.au/hometheatre/audio/0,39025973,40059566,00.htm
- deepsub, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Agreed. Learn the hard way, appreciate something like this after.
I didn't RTFA, but I wonder if any 'serious' guitarist would have utility for something like this...
Personally, I use my tonal memory of the notes in 'All The Girls In France' (ABC & E) and Ministry's New World Order' (F & E) to tune my low E and then use 5/7 harmonics and 5th fret to tune the rest. - joker, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14If you can't tune your own guitar, you shouldn't be playing it.
- Omega697, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I think the main advantage here is not that it tunes itself from an untuned state, but that it maintains a tuned state. That means when you do your crazy tremolo effects or whatever on your strat, you won't throw things out of tune. Trying to fix your tuning while you're playing is very difficult.
- tazamore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Transperformance has been selling self-tuning guitars for quite some time:
http://transperformance.com/perform/index2.htm - n3tfury, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9neat idea, but unfortunate that this does nothing to train a person's ear. using a tuning fork (A440) is highly recommended if you want to develop your ear. It's amazing to hear how many guys are out of tune wailing away when i visited the local Guitar Center a couple of weeks ago - thanks to an underdeveloped sense of pitch.
- esangaline, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4When you are playing a harmonic on a string you are playing a note from the harmonic series. That means the frequency of the note is an integer multiple of the open string. If you play the 5th fret harmonic the frequency will be 4 times the frequency of the open string. This is exactly 2 octaves above the open string and we have no problems yet. Now if you play the 7th fret harmonic on the next string up you get a frequency 3 times higher. This is where the problem comes up.
Say you're tuning the A string to the E string for example. You play the fifth fret harmonic on the E and then the 7th fret harmonic on the A and tune the string. These two notes may be in tune but your A and E strings are actually out of tune. If you play the E string open and then the 7th fret on the A the notes should be an octave but you will see that they are actually clearly out of tune even if you tuned your harmonics perfectly. This goes back to the fact that the 7th fret harmonic is 3 times (or 3/2 in the same octave range) the pitch of the open A string. 3/2 is the ratio for a perfect fifth and the cents equivalent is about 702. The problem is you don't want your guitar to be tuned to a 702 cent perfect fifth you want it tuned to a 700 cent perfect fifth (look up equal temperament on wikipedia). This discrepancy between a 12 tone equal temperament perfect fifth and a just intonation one will result in your A string being about 2 cents flat. Then tune the D and then the G using the same method and you will find your G being 6 cents flat!
Sorry if this is a little bit jumbled, I tried to explain it carefully. - Ultim8Fury, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Expensive but a nice idea. I like the fact you can quickly switch to an alternate tuning and that it's a non destructive mod.
I agree that the lighting is a bit cheesy. - xaph, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Great. Just what we need. More things to make it easier for idiots to get by.
I'm of the school of thought that you *should* make difficult things simple, but when something is already simple enough and just requires some degree of learning to get by, then you shouldn't make the task any more simple. Furthermore, tuning is an important aspect of music playing, and one can sharpen one's ears by learning how to tune one's instrument. If this part of learning is also simplified, then beginner musicians will lose out.
Guitarists nowadays are already complete dumbasses; you know, the likes of Good Charlotte and Simple Plan. We're just going to make it easier for more musical dumbasses to board the boat with this. And create another generation of MTV non-musician posers. - Apricot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Most of the posts here are completely missing the point. OF COURSE you should know how to tune your own guitar. Especially if you are goofing with friends on the living room couch.
HOWEVER.
If you are playing on stage, it is incredibly difficult to tune quickly and accurately by ear. First, it takes forever. Second, there is so much buzz and noise that it's hard to hear the beats from near frequencies. Third, you've got other things on your mind.
THEREFORE, practically any playing rock musician either has an inline electric tuner anyway or (nice if you can get it...) a roadie to tune your guitar while you play another one.
I can imagine this invention being a cool alternative to an electric tuner. I wouldn't rely on it myself, being paranoid about the thing going haywire and snapping your strings.
But PLEASE stop with the "Real men tune by ear" crap. - readme, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4For $800 you can get a really good Epiphone or even an entry-level Les Paul or Fender :)
- MilitantQueer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Here is a video of the system.
http://www.sonicstate.com/mirror/asx/wnamm06_tronical_powertune.asx - C00001, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3if your guitar is set up properly, you can tune well with harmonics. actually, one quick check for your setup is to test your harmonics--if they're off, your guitar needs some tweaking.
- moltek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3yeah.. isn't this really meant for people who play 'live' ? like pro-musicians ?
you know.. stage.. clubs.. festivals.... guitars are not just for beginners, and for stage usage this is very useful... just shows how many bedroom guitarrists we have here...
obviously a good guitarrist is able to tune his instrument... geessh... - tobsterius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I don't think $800 is expensive considering how it might come in handy for a professional musican. There is another system, called TransPerformance(http://transperformance.com/index2.htm) that does the same thing. It's more complete however, where it's actually a whole guitar instead of just an add on.
- UprightJoe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_tempered
Based on your post, I think you need to read a little about Equal temperment. Actually, I think most guitarists could benefit from a better understanding of it.
The most important concept is this:
"Twelve tone equal temperament was introduced in the West to permit the playing of music in all keys with an equal amount of mis-tuning in each"
A properly tuned guitar or piano is equally out of tune in every key. Tune your guitar with a tuner and play 6 different chords. If your intonation is good, the guitar should sound equally out of tune on every chord that you play.
Now take a G chord and tune the guitar by ear so that it sounds absolutely perfect. Play 5 other chords. Some of them will sound ok and some will sound truly horrible. None will sound as good as the G.
No matter how good your ear is, It's probably best to use an electronic tuner to tune guitars - especially when playing with other fretted instruments or keyboards. - readme, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6I have to agree. If you're pushing a button to tune the instrument, you might as well just push a button to play it for you. If you rely on technology like that you will never develop the ear to tune the guitar without a tuner.
When I showed my dad my electric tuner he was pretty amazed. In his day the needed a tuning fork. I laughed at him until one day I was at someones house and had to tune their new guitar. I didn't have my tuner on me so I was screwed.
From that experience, I trained myself to be able to pick up a guitar, tune the low E string by ear (I have semi-perfect pitch) then tune the rest relatively. I feel I learned a lot developing this technique. - VegaObscura3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It specifically states it doesn't "wreck" your guitar in any way. No holes to drill or anything, it appears to have a slide-on kind of thing goin on. But I don't see how the knob can do that without drilling holes.... glue maybe? lol
- dirtyword, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i wonder how many people who played acoustic guitars thought that making an electric guitar that played through an amplifier was blasphemy. keep an open mind
- darkvad0r, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Well, I guess I was not the only one who came up with the idea :(
I'll still try and make my own automatic guitar tuner (hopefully way less expensive) - dirtyword, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2dude, this makes sense. it is not for beginners it is for professionals. people who know how to tune a guitar and have done it thousands of times (look at the price) no more wasting time trying to get everything perfect. and.. if you break a string, the others fix themselves immediately so you can finish the song youre playing.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"but I wonder if any 'serious' guitarist would have utility for something like this..."
Actually if they could get it to tune while mid play this would be an awesome sell, considering sure I agree that people should learn how to tune the hard way but when does most instruments, string anyways, go out of tune? during play, or during extrme weather fluxuations. I can remeber countless shows where mid play id strum a string so hard that it would go out of tune and would struggle to get to a part of the song that didnt require me to pick as much then try to tune manually while playing at the same time. If they could implement this I'd be sold. - jpdoane, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It would also be incredibly convenient use alternate tunings quickly and easily
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+41) As a few people have already mentioned, self-tuning guitars have been around for years. This system may be cheaper, or less invasive than older systems, but the concept isn't new.
2) Learning to tune is a big part of learning to play well. It's one thing to shred away on a guitar someone/something else tuned for you, and quite another to learn how to hear subtle differences in tone. A trained ear is the difference between a decent guitar player and a great one.
3) This is what guitar techs are for. Except they don't just tune your guitars; they'll replace pickups, adjust truss rods, replace strings... - UprightJoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Cool article - but it's odd timing. I have a hard time believing it was written in January of this year. I was attending Roberto Venn when William Eaton brought that thing back to put into his harp guitar. That was 1994. I'd hope he's finished it by now. If not, I imagine he never will be.
The bad part about the Jimmy Page model is that it's big, heavy, and expensive. You have to rout out a huge cavity for it and installation is non-trivial to say the least. This new system looks super-slick by comparison. I especially like the fact that the controller sends tuning information to the peg heads over the strings. Very clever. I bet I could install one of these puppies in less than an hour.
That being said, I don't think I'd want one on my guitar. If you're having problem with your guitar staying in tune, it's probably a result of cheap hardware or improper stringing. It's also possible that the guitar was never in tune to begin with. When dealing with an instrument using equal tempered tuning such as a guitar or piano, you never want to tune to a chord because when that chord is perfectly in tune, everything else will be out to varying degrees. The equal tempered scale depends on EVERY note being slightly out of tune. Occasionally, I'll see somebody tune their guitar to one chord, they'll make it through one song ok but then they try to play something in a different key and it appears that their guitar has gone out of tune. The guitar didn't change, they just never tuned it properly to begin with.
If your guitar stays in tune but you just don't want to tune it in the first place, well, that's just pure laziness. Remember, "We tune because we care." - UprightJoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've actually handled the page model. What you can't tell from pictures of it installed is how huge and heavy it is. It's truly massive. The part that you see from the front of the guitar is just the tip of the iceberg.
Changing the mass of the bridge will effect the tone as much as or more than changing the mass of the headstock. That being said, electric guitars get 80% of their tone from which pickups are installed and where they're placed. I highly doubt you'd be able to hear the difference in tone after installing either system. - devwal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2And this is what I was looking for... Certainly not a revolutionary idea...
- JustMatt, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4This is pretty cool tech-wise, but as a musician I have to say I would never use this. The one place that I can see this useful is in recording sessions. It would ensure that you are always in tune. But I agree with those who said it before, you definitely need to learn to tune your ears. I rarely even use my cheap $10 tuner. If you know how to tune by ear, you don't need to rely on these things. Also, there's something to be said about playing an instrument that just isn't "pure." There's just something wrong with the idea of electronics controlling the inside of your guitar (other than standard electric guitar components of course). Any who, this really is pretty cool, I just wouldn't use it, or give it to learning musicians.
dugg - Brennan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Exactly.
These things have been around for a while, it's definitely a gimmick. No one is saying everyone should only use one of these to tune... - frogman54, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Umm...my electronic tuner tunes my guitar just fine. I'm not sure what your definition of "horribly out of tune" is...but you seem like you are probably one of those guitar dorks that spends 10 minutes tuning...and then tunes every 5 minutes after that. 10 times out ot 10...my guitar sounds just fine after being electronically tuned.
- Rhine23, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I use to have this problem with my violin my A would slip horribley and thats what most people tune from so i depended on a tuner to much and learned nothing till this yea i finally got the A stuck in my head and can tune fine without a fancy tuner!
- Bluezdood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Geez, did anybody watch that video? In the demo at NAMM after using the device the G string is horribly out of tune!
- minor3rd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2i like the page rig a lot better. it does somthing like 50 different tunings and can change them in under 1/2 a second. of course it's serveral thou + the cost of a good les paul (3k)...
i think i'll stick to my 200$ tuner thank you :)
the other issue is how heavy is the motor on the headstock? probably make the guitar want to neck dive. and it will certianly change the tone due to the new mass up there. - Bluezdood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Dang it, didn't get to finish, sorry. Anyway I'd like to try and understand what you are saying. I was always taught by my music professors that an instrument should be tuned to itself after using a tuning fork. Perhaps they were wrong. Sorry if my first response was rude, I unfortunately took my anger at other less cordial posters out on you. The thing that gets me is in that demo video, you can clearly hear the third (G#) in the E major triad (which is what he plays) is flat. Wavelength wise it's probably right on, but isn't it assumed that the third and minor seventh are manually adjusted in order to compensate for the way we hear things, regardless of what the tuner says? Maybe I'm wrong, but I am willing to learn.
- whiskeyclone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Its a cool toy, but not exactly practical. Could be handy if you don't have a locking top nut and F.Rose type tremolo system and find yourself going out of tune between songs from whammy bar abuse - but then, if you can afford this fancy bit of kit, you probably already have a guitar with a locking trem.
Also, what about songs that tune to micro-tones between #/b's and actual notes? (Beck's ePro springs to mind).
The only real application for this is to use during performance. Perfect pitch is worthless unless the people you are playing with have the same; sure with this I change from EADGBE to DADGAD or DGDGDB quickly mid-set...but I'd still have to wait for the rhythm guitar and bassist to get to where they are going.
This is why if you really need speed in tuning mid-set you have another pre-tuned guitar waiting in the wings. Failing that, you have a front man who can entertain the crowd for the 30 seconds it takes you all to check your tuning using a gauge.
The price limits this product to the more serious player - probably gigging; Its cool, but this isn't going to replace the tuner on your pedal-board that cost 1/5th the price and can be used with ever guitar you own just by jacking in.
Tech wise, its very cool. Guitars of the future could be very hi-tech if people are ready to accept the move.
Something like the Line6 Variax that has different effects and preamps built into the body of the guitar itself and models everything on-board, where you can modify the bank of effects with a USB cable and a laptop at home to get the sounds you want is very cool tech. pair that with this tuner, true acoustic simulation or piezo pickups, and a locking trem and you've got a very versatile and easy to use piece of kit. Digital effects have come a long way in the past 6 years and I can see them becoming far more common place in the future - especially with people feeling better about using tech like this tuner on a day-to-day basis, and people like the makers of this piece of kit to push the standard of design and technology in guitar gear. - ksgant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yes he has, though the solution he's promoting is a tad more expensive, but it can be built into just about any electric guitar.
He loves it because now he can play all his alternate tunings within the same song...for instance "Ten Years Gone" uses more than one tuning to play...and he could never really play it live the way he recorded it. But with this new system he can.
Then he can switch it to the "Rain Song" tuning that he himself came up with. In that tuning, "The Rain Song" practically plays itself. It's pretty amazing. - Bluezdood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"What about the psychoacoustical properties of our current system of tuning, equal temperment? The major 3rd is pretty far off... and the minor 7th? Way out of the ball park, harmonically speaking."
Yes that is true, but it is what the Western ear is used to hearing, so as far as equal temperment goes it breaks the rules. BUT, the only way to get that 3rd and 7th properly in tune "for our ears" is to do it by ear. A tuner will not do this. - Bluezdood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Oh good gosh man. Get your head out of the math books, stop seeing the world as ones and zeroes and use your ears. Have you ever seen a piano tuned? They don't use electronic tuners. They use a fork, and then do the rest by ear. Know why? Because intstruments need to be tuned to themselves, not some 12 tone garbage. Yes this means according to your tuner, each string would register out of tune. Yet, when you played various chords, they would be in tune. Go ahead and try to pull of your method at an orchestra, it will sound like crap. And as for esangaline, the grown ups are trying to have a converstaion. When you have learned something and can have a meaningful converstaion you may join in. Until then shut up you ignorant bastard.
- majorbabu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://www.sonicftp.com/vids/wmv/wnamm06_tronical_powertune.wmv
direct link to video - Bluezdood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thanks. No wonder so many guitar players suck. Equal temperment my ass, if it sounds like crap, it sounds like crap.
- Bluezdood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Indeed
- n3tfury, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1not only that, but he capped the wrong word :/
- spingk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1they need a model for basses and it should be less expensive.
I'll digg it - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Just so you know, you're not the only one. Gad, some of these guy's ears here must be clogged full of wax to not hear that.
- MiamiGuy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is pretty interesting, being a guitar player myself, but I have learned to tune my guitar by ear, and I don't have to spend $800-$900 to do it...
- achoi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2esangaline -
Can you explain what you mean by that? My experience was that because since harmonics produce a much higher frequency, the human ear is able to hear dissonance much more easily and give the tuner a much finer grained ability to adjust accurately than with frequencies that are 1/2 or 1/4 the speed. For example: it's much easier to hear the pitch difference between two piccolos than with two tubas.
On a different route, if you plan on tuning strings by going high up the fret (instead of harmonics), since the action is significantly higher than normal, you would be pressing much more and therefore causing more tension that could change the pitch than if you were pressing closer to the head. But, that's all dependent on the design of the guitar more than the tuning of the strings, no?
But anyways back to harmonics: For all intents and purposes, I tune with harmonics and it's been *good enough* for me when I play. Obviously, if I was to play in front of people, I use an electronic tuner (since I don't trust my own ears, but I still think my tuning is pretty good :-P). BTW, I don't have much experience with tuning an electronic guitar, since all I play is accoustic. But from what little experience I have with an electric guitar, it's been much more of a pain to *keep* in tune than my accoustic - but then again most electric guitars I've tinkered around with were the lower end kind, so I can't really say anything about them in general.
Also, most serious bands I've seen live seem to have a set of guitars that are specific for each song style. My guess is it is to compensate for finer grained tuning that is specified for playing higher up the frets, or down closer to the head, all done beforehand so they don't have to tinker around with the guitar during the show. (other than to have a different guitar sound that is. :-p) - I don't mean alternative tuning like dadgad, just tweaking pitch to compensate for the guitar itself.
I don't have perfect pitch, so when I tune for solo play, I just tune relatively since there is no other instrument to be concerned with pitch against it doesn't really matter. If I was tuning for a band, I just use electric so I can do absolute tuning since it matters more that I keep in tune with other instruments. - n3tfury, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1so if one of your strings goes out of tune in the middle of a song when you're playing live, you're going to bust out your digital/analog tuner? please.
"...never even seen a stage let alone played on one..."
l.o.l. you're not the only person that's been in a band, my friend. - anonymousabe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1that is awesome. id like one.
- craigeth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i think alot of people are missing the point. its not about making it easier for 'idiots' to play guitar. there are already idiots who play guitar.
i was in a band for a few years and one problem i faced constantly was trying to stay in tune on stage or having to switch tunings between songs. this makes it alot easier and shortens the waiting time between songs. right now if i want to change the tuning to C# standard from E standard, i have to use the tuner on my pedal. Its relatively easy but it still takes time. if you're at a gig and you've got your audience fired up, you dont want to say, hang on guys just wait a few seconds while i tune my guitar. 10seconds is a long time when you're on stage. timing is everything.
to be able to say, ok i want drop B or C# standard within seconds just by turning a dial is a huge time saver. i dont know about the rest of you, but being exactly in tune on stage means alot. just practicing its ok to be out a bit, but you want to be precise when you're on stage. -
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