Gibson has decided to employ the Tronical Powertune automatic tuning system in a new line of guitars. Although it isn’t the first, and maybe not the best, Powertune gives a guitar player some appealing options. Guitarists who’ve been playing for any length of time at all should be able to tune their own instrument, but consider the advantages of a self-tuning system.

In performance, any downtime can be bad. The audience isn’t particularly interested in hearing the band tune when they walk on stage, yet a lot of groups do that. Even using a digital tuner in your line will still take a bit of time that would better be filled with something else. Enter self-tuning. Pop the tuning knob and strum the guitar, wait until the light flashes blue and pop it back in. The audience missed it.

The coolest feature of the system is the ability to change the tuning of the guitar from standard E to something else. Several popular preprogrammed options are included, but the device also allows the guitarist to enter custom tunings. Of course you could still lug around your Drop D and your Standard tuned guitars, but with a self tuner you don’t have the downtime and you don’t have to plan the set around a good time to switch guitars. This system has received a lot of flack from guitarists who think its a lazy way out, but the ability to switch tunings even during a song will have appeal for players that really want to mix it up.

As for the Gibson line with this technology, so what? A guitar with a trem system would get far more use from a self-tuning system than the Gibson release. If a player really wants this capability I’m sure installing the system in one of their existing guitars would be more appealing, since Powertune requires no drilling or permanent alteration of any kind and can be removed leaving no trace. My noise guitar would love me for it. Gibson makes good guitars but this seems much more like a gimmick release aimed at new guitarists. All the hype about Gibson being innovative with this technology is of course, nonsense and at an additional cost for just the system of around $1270, it just doesn’t seem worth buying this guitar but I’m sure they’ll unload more than a few before people start realizing they could have got the guitar of their dreams for the price of the Gibson and installed Powertune later if they really wanted to. Still, pretty cool gadget. The guitar gets a C- the self-tuning gadget a solid B.

Thanks for the tip Jeff (and Richard).

via Engadget