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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."
I wonder how many guitarists will take to this since to them it is such and art and about what they hear. Can a computer really tune to the level that they can hear it needs to be tuned to for them?
Evolution or ID?
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.
Well, perhaps as the strings age the guitar can compensate for that I suppose...but I use Elixers on my Martin and they last a good month before they need changing.
Ah, also forgot, if you're into alternate tunings this would be a quick way to switch them around without having 5 different guitars all tuned differently.
Also, in case you haven't check it out yet, go buy the Led Zeppelin DVD that was released last year. You'll see why Zeppelin ruled the stage in their day. Much better than the lack-luster "Song Remains the Same" performance we were stuck with for so long. I actually saw them in concert in May of 1977 in Maryland, and they were MUCH better than that movie. This new DVD shows this, and without all the silly acting parts (remember Jimmy Page's eyes glowing red?).
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Hello, don't hate me for it, but I followed the link and read the story. Seems like the bridge is replaced by motors that tune the guitar by moving the bridge slightly, thus increasing or lowering the string tension. I can't speak for everyone, but I for one like my strings in a fixed position from the frets. I want the distance between the strings and the frets as small as possible. Does anyone else see a problem with that, since moving the bridge alters that distance? Or do you think those movements would be so subtle that one could hardly tell there was a movement at all?
This seems like a cool thing, but all it all I doubt seriously it'll catch on. Plus, I can't can't see anyone who can afford a $2k(US)+ guitar taking a chance at killing its resale value by doing this mod.
From their FAQ: Some wood is removed and replaced with the computer and mechanical device.
geeky stuff I'm proud to have been a part of: linux.com / themes.org / sourceforge.net / sicnus.com
...the locking nut whammy bar. The best invention since the electromagnetic pickup! Floyd Rose is a genius!
Most professionals (who make any sort of real income playing) have roadies who tune their guitars for them. That way they can have the roadie tune an extra guitar between songs and they can switch for the next song without delaying the show.
I think a lot of guitarists think of tuning as an annoyance, much like setting up amps and monitors. That being said, it's still cheaper and more efficient to buy 4 guitars for a thousand dollars each and have them tuned up for different songs than to spend 4000 on retrofitting a one thousand dollar guitar unless you change tunings during the song.
As anyone who has seen Jimmy Page live in the last 8 years or so can tell you, he uses the auto-tuner to change tunings in the middle of the song and even uses contant tuning changing as an "effect". Some of his effects would be otherwise impossible to create live.
Uninnovate - Only the finest in engineering.
Actually, the human ear has no problem with "B". The problem is that the 12 frets, or the 12 steps of the chromatic scale, stand for multiple notes. Bb is not the same as A#, and even any one of those notes actually stands for several other slightly different notes that fit with different chords in different keys.
It's all about equal temperament not matching the notes one really wants to use. Good guitarrists compensate slightly by stretching strings just a bit, but it still can't match the flexibility of a well-played fretless instrument. The 12 chromatic steps are just a convenient lie to prevent the necessity of over 30 notes per octave.
It makes sense, but who wants an expensive guitar with vegematic buttons?
Well I play bass and the best lesson I ever learned was to tune my Bass without any reference tone at all (think the tone in your head, then tune to it. To master this skill you constantly check it later to see how close you were). Practicing this exercise over and over forces you to learn the "notes" and not the positions.
Now when I hear pop songs I can determine every bass note played without having to have a bass in my hands. I can then go and play the song (not perfectly, practice is _always_ necessary) reasonably close. I cna listen to other musicians play and jump in with the my Bass without having to hunt around for the positions to match the notes I "hear" in my head. It makes me a better bass player overall.
If you let your students get away with tuning with digital tuners you are doing them no good. You should take the bass out of their hands, manually de-tune it and force them to tune it by ear before every lesson you give. See how dependant they are on the digital tuner after 5 lessons.
In the long run you will make them better bass players for it.
-- Mean People Suck
Drummer friend of mine worked on an auto-tympani tuner as his final-year student project, I think. Part of the problem was recognising the really low frequencies you get from tympani.
:)
I'm not sure how far he got with the project.
Actually, I should probably call him a percussionist
so that you can get effects and changes in sound that are impossible on a normal guitar tuning headstock
It's not impossible, just really really hard. I saw Adrian Legg open for 3G, he would hit a note and while it's ringing, change the tuning of his guitar. The result is what sounds like an impossible bend on an acoustic guitar.
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.
Looks like someone needs to check the action on their B string...
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?
Locking nuts and big ass whammy bars are still important to some... Steve Vai's and Joe Satriani's signature guitars still have those. Sweeeeeeet...
Karma: Bad (mostly due to all those "In Soviet Russia" jokes)
I know more modern guitarists are into locking nuts and whatnot. I believe Ibanez even designed and manufactured locking tuning pegs at one point. What most of the people who use these implements don't realize is that they don't need them. A properly strung guitar can hold its tune just as good as a guitar with a locking nut(and is a hell of a lot more convenient for that matter). Look at Malmsteen as an example. His guitars are a testament to that(those familiar with his music know how much he over-uses his bar, yet he never slips out of tune).
Technology is nice, but it is no substitute for learning how to restring and tune a guitar yourself(Hell, I know a few guitarists who don't know how to set intonation properly either). This auto-tuning technology will become as much of a crutch as the locking nut was for poor guitar craftsmanship(as you were saying, the nut) and people who cannot be bothered to learn how to string their instrument properly.
"People should be allowed to keep midgets as pets."
- Gov. Jesse Ventura
I don't know about you, but if I'm buying a REAL Les Paul for $3500 then I'm not modding it with anything. At all.
I'd rather manually tune it than ruin a fine piece of craftmanship with modern technology that isn't worth the bang for the buck.
I'd have trouble even changing the pickups on a Les Paul for fear of devaluing it....
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
This is a DSPless implimentation, but DSP (digital signal processing) works well.
For about 1.5k, you can buy a digital amp that does all of this, and more, with a pickup fitted to your guitar.
Roland makes it. Here we are Roland VGA-7 amp
I also pretty much agree w/you, and would posit this: I think most 'purists' have more an issue with lack of musicianship than with studio production. If great musicians used the studio to make a cool song, fine. The problem comes when artists essentially become popular because of their looks, the way they dance, and the songs they 'perform' [I won't say sing] - which are generally written by someone who is truly talented at writing a song.
I got into a huge argument recently with someone who hates the new Outkast song 'Hey Ya'. I admit it's a silly, fun song, but it's also catchy, and there are some [IMO] brilliant little hooks/time sigs in there that make it what it is. But at least they wrote and produced it themselves.
Who gets more fame, glory, and cash - Britney, or her songwriters, engineers, producers and choreographers who make her what she is? Shouldn't be that way, if we were rewarding the real artists instead of the art.
Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.
For almost anything baroque or later, you want to use a tempered scale, so 99.99999% of the pianos out there are tuned to a tempered scale and left there.
:)
Funny how the piano wasn't invented until about 1720, 120 years or so into the Baroque era. Equal temperament was showing up as early as the 1500s, by the way - they may not have known how to build pianos but they knew how to build organs.
Some modern works might call for alternate tuning, I'll leave it to music critics to argue over whether that's being done as a cheap gimmick or not
As a composer, I believe that people can tell the difference between tuning systems even if they don't know they are listening to a different tuning system. The brain responds different ways to different things -- if i write a piece for equal-tempered piano, and you tune that piano to mean-tone temperament (where the thirds are perfect) it will sound completely different. if you are an expressive composer, and want to use such things for the purposes of expression, "cheap gimmick" is about as far from the intent as you can get.
but otherwise just about all non-tempered keyboard music comes from an era before pianos. If you are enough of a purist to play a re-tuned piano when playing a pre-Bach work, you are probably enough of a purist to play it on a period instrument.
Yeah, like a harpsichord or organ. The instrument it's supposed to be played on - both of which probably would have been tuned to the same tuning system we use in pianos.
Besides, modern listeners have grown acustomed to the tempered scale. Playing in a "pure" tuning will only impress a handful of snobs.
Try playing 14th Century English music in our tuning system and it will sound like crap -- because they were using a different tuning system. As for today's audiences -- I think they appreciate accuracy and truth in performance, and creativity.
If you're going to poo-poo the classical and contemporary music scenes, you can stick to the commercialized, crappy pop music! And buy yourself one of these auto-guitar-tuners!
Wow this place makes me feel so old.
Back when I started playing in the '60s we used a piano harmonic to tune or a "pitch pipe". Chromatic tuners started to come in the REALLY high end dollar range and people said they'd ruin musicians ears, never tune right, yada, yada, yada. Nowdays you can get a great tuner for around $15 bucks discounted online and they're built into every digital pedal you get. Even acoustic guitars come with them built in in everything except the bottom of the line models (love the tuner in my new Ovation, the electronics beat the heck out of my first).
If you play ANY old rock you gotta get good at alternate tunings or the songs just DON'T sound right This is called "The Performer" for a reason, if you do anything nowdays you'll use at least 2-3 tunings to get the set right, so hitting a button to retune to Drop-D, Drop-C, DABGAD, or some of those really weird Led Zep or Blue Oyster Cult stuff this would be a blessing.
I expect in another 15-20 years every decent guitar will have this or something similar built in just like the chromatic tuners and stuffed shirts will be arguing about something else wrecking musicians ears. The price will drop, just like Seth Lovers' humbuckers and the Bigsby and Whammy tremelos.
Personally, as I get older, It'd be nice to not lug around a van load of gear, I'm REALLY looking hard at the Line 6 guitars, but just don't like the actions (personal preference, some love them).
It doesn't matter what you wrap your emotions around, Reality is a brick wall specifically designed to scramble eggs