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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.
you may have Ethernet on your Gibson, but I have NetBSD on my Fender.
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
Yamaha developed a similar technology that could transport audio and midi-signals, going over firewire.
m la n.htm
:) and 16x256 channels of MIDI data. Throughput is up to 200Mbps, so you don't have to worry about MIDI latency again :)
http://www.yamaha.com/proaudio/products/system_
It's an interesting way to hook up sequencers, samplers, synthesizers and sound cards to each other without having to plug in audio and midi wires, and worry about magnetic interference.
mLan can do about 100 separate channels of music (good enough for a Dolby 5.1 system?
Bruce :-)
Bruce Perens.
The actual MaGIC spec is available from Gibson's site.
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.
MIDI is not what they are talking about here. They are talking about audio. MIDI is not audio, but rather 'piano roll'. The only data being sent to the sequencer/keyboard is which notes to play, and when. Conversely, audio is the actual audio signal generated by the instrument, whether it be a keyboard or a guitar.
The true value of audio over ethernet is the existing infrastructure (hubs, switchers, etc), coupled with being able to identify 'devices' hooked up to your setup. Mixers, be them software or hardware mixers, that are 'ethernet aware' would be able to auto-assign the devices name that an instrument reports itself as to the network to faders and knobs in your setup. Currently, you have to know which wires are going from which instruments into what audio-ins on your hardware/software mixer/multitrak; in order to fade a guitar line, for instance, you need to be physically aware of which audio-in the guitar is connected to. This amounts to a huge amount of organizational work for producers/techs, as they must use project software or notebooks to keep track of how various projects are wired up. Some technologies are alleviating these troubles, but from what I understand, its still a pain in many setups to keep track of which songs and projects are wired up which way.
Hopefully, this Gibson technology would allow producers and sound guys to forget those details, and just assign 'network instruments' to which ever faders they please, without ever having to verify that the guitar was plugged into the correct audio-in, corresponding to the controls (faders, knobs) you wish you use to do your production and mixdowns.
At least, thats what I get out of it.
BTW, I am a d'n'b producer with a fairly functional grasp of lo-pro to mid-pro MIDI and audio gear, so while I'm not privvy to the nitty gritty of doing sound for live shows or full rack mixers in-studio, I think I can glean what the true pay off is here, for the sound guys and musicians alike.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Yeah, and a lot of those same musicians want a volume knob they can turn up to eleven.
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.
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
But this one goes to 802.11!
-Does anyone know where I can download Gibson-Linux?
-"Yeah dude, we were like ROCKING wembley stadium... But then we got slashdotted"
-Cant play tonight.... guitar got a virus.
-This Guitar has caused an illegal operation and will be restarted.
-"Hi, looks like your trying to play Johnny B. Goode. Would you like me to help you with that?"
-This guitar sucks. It only has two notes: 1 and 0
-Hey, I cant get broadband. Do you think they will release a modem version?
-Token ring on the guitar string?
-Packet loss during the thrash-metal guitar solo?
Was the big bang louder than drum & bass?
"These go to 802.11!"
I dunno. I still think the best sound is a mic in front of the amp. Line-out's on amps just don't sound right. I seriously doubt that ethernet out would sound any better.
Now...if you could place an ethernet mic in front of the amp with the syncing on it, that'd be cool - at least until:
"Illegal Operation: device eth0 detected "Stairway to Heaven". Port disconnected.
No Stairway - denied!
circa 1983: "check check 1 2 check check 1 2"
circa 2005: "traceroute traceroute"
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...
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.