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The Self-Tuning Guitar
CowboyRobot writes "With the TransPerformance Performer you push a button to activate a mechanical re-tensioning of the strings to any of a few hundred tunings, 'accurate to within 2 cents over the entire tuning range', in a couple of seconds. They can even refit your existing guitar. There's a long audio interview with Jimmy Page on the site. It's funny to hear him speak."
It's being done with pianos:
See this New Scientist article
-- jaf
For those who don't know, Jimmy Page was the guitarist for Led Zeppelin. While he doesn't have the best technique when it comes to playing the guitar, he really really does have a grasp of melodies. He's a genius, you'd better listen to that guy. :)
Some friends of mine made one of these for a project in college. Check it out here.
1 /r t_egaft/
http://www.ce.rit.edu/projects/srprojects/2003.
But they are..
Check it out: ATI Overdrive
100 cents = 1 half-step = the smallest pitch distance on a piano
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Each guitar has it's quirks. Depending on the intonation the "b" string on a guitar needs to be tuned manytimes slightly flat to allow chords to ring true.
The human ear has a problem with "b". Even though the tuner may say it is perfectly in tune a simple "D" chord will sound awful.
Compensating bridges make up for this intonation problem but it is still not exact.
Automatic tuners may look cool but will go the way of locking nuts. Remember those locking nuts and big ass whammy bars forced on us by Eddie VanHalen in the 80's?
We've been using chromatic tuners for a long time--- much more accurate than 2 cents. This would have been good during the hair band era, when those guys were using wammy bars like they were going out of style...
[FromTheMorning]
These have been around since the 80's... The only difference is that now they can be lifted by a 'normal' man now that electronics have become so much smaller...
Believe it or not, Autotune already exists! This product is the sole reason people like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake can be called "singers"
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Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
Nearly as good is the tech support on Nissan Skylines... connect your phone to the car, call Nissan in Japan, and they'll take the timings from your engine, and re-send new ones direct to the chip in the engine. 10 minutes, and you're done!
I can understand maybe with people just starting out in learning the guitar, but with someone that knows how to tune a guitar, and having a guitar that stays in tune (ie, don't buy cheap crap), is important. But learning to tune the guitar by ear is part of the learning process.
The tuning of your guitar depends on many factors, and only one of them is the quality of the guitar. For example:
- How often and how hard you bend
- How hard you bang your guitar while you play (blues vs. punk)
- The gauge of the strings
- How fresh/old the strings are
- Use a tremolo/whammy bar? Things go way out of tune with those.
- Retune your guitar often for alternate tunings? This can also affect the stability of the strings
- Alternative playing methods, a la Sonic Youth (playing with drumsticks etc)
For some people, it is easy to stay in tune. For others, tuning between each song is a must, even with really good equipment.
Antares makes some wonderful technology. I use their Kantos synth all the time (uses the same pitch controller than autotune does, but the output drives a synth).
Unfortunately, in the case of autotune, it's a case of good technology that is mostly used for evil. And by "evil" I mean "crappy boy/girl bands."
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
no. watch the video - the bridge is not affected. the action and the intonation is dictated by the bridge, which stays put. the motors act on where the strings are fixed in the back, pretty much like on a Floyd Rose-type locking whammy bar bridge...
I can see the effect on tension, all right, but wouldn't this also throw the intonation out?
OTOH, it'd be nice to be able to flip between different tunings I use (EADGBE, DADGBE, DADGAD, FACGCE) easily and quickly...
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
"In his spare time, billionaire Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) co-founder Paul G. Allen plays the guitar in a rock band called Grown Men." - BusinessWeek
Uh, cars are self tuning now.
"Tuning" on a car, as in a "tune up," refers to the adjustment of the fuel and ignition systems to provide maximum efficiency. On mechanical cars, this meant adjusting the carburetor, adjusting the timing, adjusting the ignition points and condensor, etc.
All of these parts are computer controlled, and have been since fuel injection became popular around, well, some time between 1980 and 1990. It's even more efficient that way. And the computer is auto-adjusting -- it senses microscopic knocks and adjusts the mix on the fly. When a computer part fails, it fails obviously, unlike the gradual loss of power you face with a carburetor. I had my Ignition Control Module go on me two weeks ago and it was OBVIOUS...one cylinder just stopped firing (ouch).
So yeah, cars are self tuning. In fact, anybody in the past 10 years who's sold you a "tune up" either did nothing at all to your car, or checked a lot of other things that had nothing to do with what we called a "tune up" before the 80s.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Paul Allen's band, Grown Men, have a website with mp3 (interestingly, not WMA) samples and lyrics, from their debut CD.
The device adjusts tension, not length.
Ydco co
The frontman for the tea party has had this for a while (dunno if it's exactly the same.. I was under the assumption that his was a custom job...)
Check out this, from the Discovery Channel (.ca) ("Jeff Martin on 'smart guitars'").
S
It was also used by Pink in the song "Get the party started". If you listen to the track, the metallicy bit was produced using Autotune.
(fact courtsey of the Science Museum, London)
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Before you say tuning is a science you need to learn something about tuning. The correct tuning is NOT based on math, where you have A at 440 double it for the next A, and then divide that interval into 12 and put each note in its place based on the division. Well it is, we call it standard temperment (or even temperment), and it is the most common temperment in use today. However Standard temperment is always wrong. We use it because it sounds okay everywhere and we have trained our ears to accept it. True musicians (of which I am not) play with temperment, which allows them to play one chord that is perfect, but it comes at the expensive of some other chord being so wrong even a tone deaf person won't like it. There are many other temperments, with various advantages and disadvantages.
Bach's well tempered organ was written to show off how a chord sounds different in different keys, and doesn't sound the same on with standard temperment.
This is far more complex than a simple science. Stick with standard temperments and your right, it is a science, but are true artist knows and [sometimes] uses other temperments when they are better. That is art.
It's not just Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. It's damn near every so-called "singer" in the top 40 these days. Real talent is seconday to image in this industry. The only reason that we don't see bands like Milli Vanilli these days is because studios can use technologies like autotune and Pro Tools to make any nice set of breasts sound like a pro.
Pragmatically speaking, there are (as far as I'm aware) alternate tunings for pianos, organs, and harpichords which relate to specific musical periods, such as the baroque. Thus, for truly faithful reproduction, you may want to tune to the Werckmeister III scale for performing some baroque pieces. Not to mention the different "pure" tunings for all the major and minor keys.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
Guitar tuning has a lot to do with the nut (save the jokes...). This is the piece of plastic, bone or graphite on the end of the fretboard that holds the strings in place before they hit the tuning machines. Most guitars that won't tune aren't so bad because of the tuning keys, it's that the nut is not cut properly for the size strings you're using. If they don't sit right, they won't stay in tune, simple as that. Oh, and STRETCH those strings when they're new! Search google, its very simple and your new strings will behave very nicely after a stretch, because you get the kinks out.
Also, there's a handheld tuner that you can buy that physically turns the peg for you, all you do is pluck the string. I'm surprised no one's mentioned it yet, it's been around for over 10 years. The difference is that it only does one string at a time, and you hve to physically hold it in place while you tune.
In the long run, tuning a guitar is not rocket science and keeping your nut in good shape and having a decent set of tuners (even ones on a cheap Fender Squire are pretty good nowadays) will keep you playing alright. This invention is pretty cool for a wow value, but it's like using an Abrahms tank to kill a mosquito. I play several guitars with old-school Bigsby tremolos and I don't have any tuning problems.
I'm not sure that's how it works - moving the bridge would be a Bad Thing, as it would screw up intonation or action (or both - eww).
Now I'm guessing a bit here, as the site is a bit light on actual details (I'd wanna know more before sending them my $4k AND my beloved guitar), but it seems to me like an extra set of string tensioners are installed behind the bridge - like the fine tuners in a Floyd Rose bridge. Floyd Rose bridges generally work well - this should too.
$4k is a lot of money though... That buys an awful lot of guitar. With change left over for a roadie's pay for a few years ;-)
tuning, as it turns out, is inherently flawed. This occurs because of the "Pythagorean comma": essentially, the combination of a perfect fifth + a perfect fourth leads to an imperfect octave. Hence, there are actually multiple different ways to tune instruments, each of which makes sense in its own way. One example is "Well-Tempering" (as in Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier), which places priority on tuning keys near C. Chords like C, G, etc. played on a Well-Tempered scale sound particularly in tune, whereas chords like F# sound less well-tuned.
The most common scheme today is "Equal Tempering", in which every half-step is a multiple of 2^(1/12) above its neighbor. In this scheme, C# and Db (for example) are considered the same note, whereas in other schemes, they are not. The upside of this is that all keys sound equally "in tune"; the downside is that no key sounds perfectly in tune.
Historical note: some early Klaviers had seperate keys for sharps and flats, since those notes were not considered to be the same.
So, the "science" part of tuning is what you see in the autotuner. The "art" part is tuning the instrument to make the music sound like you hear it in your head.
Bottom line: if a guitarist tunes all of its open strings to a piano, it will not sound "in tune" to the guitarist. Of course, an autotuner can presumably be customized to taste.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
IMHO the posts about "ruining the musicians ear" are bogus. If you RTFA you'll see that this gizmo allows the scales to be tempered to suit the musicians taste. You want to modulate the B-string a few hertz flat -- go ahead, that's what a tempered scale is. Besides, you develop a good ear by playing a well-tuned instrument, not by compensating mentally for a discordant mess.
I have a reasonably good ear, and use harmonics when "ear tuning" because they're more accurate than the fret placement (and less subject to the rising tone problems caused by fretting the previous string, which raises it's tone slightly). I'm at least as good as the cheap electronic tuners, but not as good as the higher-end needle-guage based units. Based on the price of this unit, I'm betting it uses a pretty high quality tuner - far better than most guitarists ear! Having strings 1 hertz off doesn't make much difference on a six-string played with high distortion at a rock concert. But on a twelve string, even a small difference between paired strings leads to an unpleasant audible "beating". The same thing happens with classical guitars, where it becomes annoying (usually when lower strings are fretted above the twelvth fret, and sound out of sync with a supposedly identical note played on a higher string).
So, this unit is faster than a human, more accurate than a human, allows complete control over scale tempering, and stores a couple of hundred alternate tunings. It's got me beat hands down, and I suspect that's why professionals are paying nearly 4g to get one!
No, the intonation is controlled by the length of the string, the action by the height of the bridge. This thing alters neither of these but works by altering the tension in the string. Since the frequency of oscillation is determined by string length and tension you can change the note without effecting intonation. In fact, this is exactly how standard tuning pegs work.
IAAGT (I am a guitar tech). It is not the strings. It is most likely the bridge on your acoustic is worn down and needs to be replaced. Take it to a repairman and get it fixed. Bridges are not designed so your strings are sharp or flat. Saddles get worn, and they need to be replaced. The sharp/flat thing is more likely than not just you running across the fact that guitars are NEVER correctly in tune. I suggest you check out this article by Jack Endino and read up on it: http://endino.com/archive/tuningnightmares.html
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
I'm associated with TransPerformance, so I guess I'm one of the lucky bastards that gets to play all those artists guitars when they come in for the retro-fit of our tuning system.
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Really a great system. I can't say it enough. Like page says, "...it makes your eyes pop out!", you've got to see, hold and play a guitar with this system in it to truely appreciate it.
We're also up to ver.7.xx of the software in the workshop, so no more -2/+2 cents of target. Now it's dead-on. Battery meter, on-screen tuner, less power consumption...
I've sent the inventor a link to this article and think he just might drop by and read up soon.
I've got a few pics on my site. Go ahead, slashdot the sucker:
www.geocities.com/cakman1967/cakSelfTuningGuita
-C. Kessel