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."

Comments

Even more fabulous

[jaf]

It's being done with pianos:
See this New Scientist article

Re:Even more fabulous

[micromoog]

This isn't just for correcting tuning. The real boon for guitarists is not the ability to correct tuning quickly (that's actually really easy), but to change to alternate tunings quickly. There are many alternate tunings that take advantage of resonance between different open strings for very interesting sounds, but are not suitable for general-purpose use like the "standard" tuning because the intervals are too awkward.

Alternate tunings are not very widely used today, mainly because it's such a pain in the ass to retune a whole guitar. Some company back in the 80s made a guitar bridge where you could flip switches at the base of each string to change its tuning . . . I think it worked fairly well, but was not widely used. There's also a tuning key that just drops the low E down to D with the flip of a switch . . . that one got used a fair bit.

Re:tuning

[NorthWoodsman]

100 cents = 1 half-step = the smallest pitch distance on a piano

Re:vocalists

[Bohnanza]

Believe it or not, Autotune already exists! This product is the sole reason people like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake can be called "singers"

Re:I can't wait...

[dasmegabyte]

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.

Re:Alternate Tunings

[selfsimilar]

AHEM. Your "tempered" scale is the "equally tempered" scale and it's actually only recently (in the history of music) come into vogue. There's a great book called "Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization" by Stuart Isacoff. Basically Bach's Well Tempered Klavier is written for "well" tempered pianos, not "equal" (aka modern) temperament. And there are a ton of great keyboard works from that era which call for specific differently tempered tunings.

That said, you're right, most modern music is written for equal temperament. But if pianos were easier to tune to alternate temperaments I'm sure many composers would take advantage of that. Sure some might use it as a gimmick, but most serious piano composers are above gimmicks. And while I like John Cage and other modern radicals, it's not his kind of music that I think would benefit most from a piano that could quickly switch to alternate tunings, but the less experimental modern composers. Keyboard music didn't end when Mozart died.