Gibson Guitars and Ethernet

Gordon_Cabaniss writes "Gibson, the country's second largest guitar manufacturer, teamed up with twelve Silicon Valley engineers and modified the ethernet protocol to link audio between instruments and the mixer. Gibson is calling the technology MAGIC and they are boasting 'both a cleaner sound and a simpler setup.' 'Gibson's Magic carries up to 64 signals per cable, thus saving space and time.' The technology is licensed royalty free and tech giants Sony, Phillips, and Cisco are already showing interest. Gibson also says to not be surprised to see Ethernet ports on guitars within the next 12 to 18 months." I love the idea of my SG having 100mb/s ethernet on it. I'm sure all 3 of my chords would sound ... well, just as bad, but digital.

Comments

Very useful...

[BMonger]

I run a 16 and 32 channel mixing board myself and just figuring out which channel goes to which instrument/mic is a pain sometimes. According to the article when the item is plugged in it would show up on the mixing board as "Whomever's Guitar" or whatever it was set to. This would be very very handy I think for the people behind the scenes. Not only will it be beneficial to the quality of the sound but beneficial to people like me. Hopefully this technology will be implemented in more things that guitars, which I'm certain it will.

It'd make life easier if you could upload effects straight to the guitar/mic instead of having to run it through an effects box too.

Technically superior?

[Frank Sullivan]

It seems to me (as a guitarist, computer programmer, and amp builder) that part of the purpose, if not the MAIN purpose, of the guitar amp is to color the sound of the guitar in pleasing ways. So if tubes produce better colorations than "technically-superior digital solid state amps", then the tubes are technically superior, n'est pas?

The only thing "technically superior" about digital amps is that they are cheaper to manufacture.

And no, i won't be putting ethernet on my Gibson. Experience and simple physics dictates that the cord itself from the high-impedance guitar electronics to the amplifier input also colors the tone, and i'm not going to give up that coloration. Digitizing at 16bit/44.1khz "CD quality" commits absolute horrors on the subtleties of good tone (this can be mostly defeated with sufficient bandwidth, ie 24bit/96khz, but the Philips/Sony "Perfect Sound Forever" format is a crime against music).

Then again, my main guitar is an acoustic with no electronics at all, so i suppose it won't be needing ethernet. :}

Re:Snakeoil

[rho]

Fair comments. But, before you disparage it, take into account the next bunch of teenagers saving their lawnmowing money for this "digital crap" may be the ones who will push music creation and/or delivery towards a brand new direction.

Your complaints are similar to the first guy who complained about electrifying the guitar: "Just put a mic on a plain old' accoustic--that's the best sound you can get!"

Here's a from-the-ass example: a bunch of guitar players get together in a club, connect all together through a switch, and run the signals through a processor that converts all the sounds to the same key. Which key is controlled by another device that reads motion patterns of the people on the dance floor. The combined sound is then piped into the club's speakers. Evolutionary music!

Just keep an open mind about it. Sure, Gibson developed it to sell more stuff, but that's what they're there for. Unless you think that music stopped in the 1970's with guitar rock...