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 guitars in the 21st century
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| Forums Archive -> The Vault: 2002-2003 | Message format | |
alpep |
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Joined: December 2001 Posts: 10581 Location: NJ | well it finally happened I am watching tech tv and there is a blurb about guitars. I wait and watch the segment. Apparently Gibson has designed a guitar with some sort of ethernet connector that they say will revolutionize the way gutiars are played live. It will hold all your settings etc on the board and you will be able to acess whatever you want for each song. the drawback is you canot be any more than 50 feet from the board to use this technology. the spokesman for gibson said that it will be available in ALL their guitars within a year. I dunno about you but I think this is the biggest pile of crap you can claim. Now a guitar maker is using tactics like the computer industry. We will introduce a product it may have some poblems and limitations but we will iron them out later. How many of you have bought a computer product that you could not run because it did not have drivers that jived with your machine I know I HAVE. I have a ton of software sitting around that I cannot use since it messes up my machine back to guitars so guitarists are the most fickle people on earth. We as ovation fanatics know this best we hear plastic gutar all the time and Gibson thinks they will be ableto market their own form of eithernet and everone will buy into it?>???? guitars have been equiped with synth pickups for years and they have not taken off. tube amps are still the standard even with modeling amps and the pod etc. what are your thoughts???? are you ready to be the 21st century guitarist ????? | ||
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| Mr. Ovation |
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Joined: December 2001 Posts: 7210 Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | My new Vox Valetronix Amp uses an RJ45 (ethernet) cable to connect to the Pedal board. No MIDI. I'm not so sure about running a guitar connected that way... but it does leave open a lot of possibilities for Live work. Like going wireless. But I am a little confused as to WHAT is sent over the cable, unless there was some bank and patch switched on the guitar... I don't think the guy on the board would ever get the honor of changing the vol and tone controls on the axe. But interesting... I have long thought that MIDI was a little restrictive based on the tech available. | ||
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| stonge |
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Joined: February 2002 Posts: 21 | I work with computers at my day gig; I play guitar to relax... ethernet on my guitar, yah great! network it with the "internet-ready" microwave oven and the "net-connected" fridge, and they can instant message each other while I'm starving to death 'cause I'm outta food, can't cook it, and can't tune up because my LAN crashed lol. technology for technology's sake, and I predict it will be just as ignored as my Bond Electraglide (the 90's idiot bastard son of my Goya Rangemaster with the addition of LEDs and a power brick). I think the problem is that Gibson is currently overrun with "marketing pukes" (is that the correct term? lol) who are reading too many computer mags whilst forgetting that they're making big $$$ selling their sole successful 50 year old design to people who play them into tube amps (you know, those things that were obsolete circa 1966 or so). The only big splash that Gibson's ethernet guitars will make will be in the outhouse of musical history (just like their low-impedance Les Pauls, smartwood, and bolt-on shred guitars lol)... dang, I'm grumpy enough tonight that I think I just pissed myself off... sorry Alpep! [ February 28, 2002: Message edited by: stonge ] | ||
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| tommcatt99 |
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Joined: February 2002 Posts: 52 Location: PA | I've been watching the Gibson stuff for awhile now. It's original name was GMIC, but everybody called it 'Gimmik'. So they changed it over to MaGIC (Media-Accelerated Global Information Carrier). Very clever. There is info on Gibsons site for anyone interested. They're pretty vauge about it's uses in the Guitar form. It seems interesting in the field of Recording and or Post Production, but I don't think they'll need to push this on Guitar players. Here we see the new Les Paul in 'Blue Screen of Death' burst! :D | ||
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| Beal |
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Joined: January 2002 Posts: 14127 Location: 6 String Ranch | As the Brits would say, "It's all a load of old cobblers" In american we say it's all a bunch of shit. The tone is in your fingers and your heart and if YOU can't make that come out of your guitar no amount of effects will cut it. | ||
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| Paul Templeman |
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Joined: February 2002 Posts: 5750 Location: Scotland | One of the reasons that Ovation guitars still get a hard time, especially among older musicians, is because they have a "high tech" image in a market where "herringbone" & "handbuilt" are buzzwords. Guitar players have always been & probably always will be, resistant to change. The Gibson ethernet thing is just not going to happen in the market place, most guitar players find onboard active-electronics too adventurous. It also sounds, as Bill so elequently said, like a load of old cobblers. (a quaint English euphemism for the scrotum) Digital modelling amps & the like are incredibly practical tools, but the vast majority of guitarists need to feel air moving, smell the tubes cooking, and of course, suffer tinnitus for the majority of their working lives. I use amp simulation for recording purposes sometimes, but I would not consider playing electric guitar on-stage without a tube amp. I my case it's not because of any technophobia but simply because IMO it sounds & feels superior, plus it's simple & reliable. It's the simplicity & reliability that can make products like this Gibson thing a non-starter. Guitar synths are improving all the time, but still don't have the acceptance they deserve. I saw someone trying one at a trade show. He found a baritone sax patch, played some outrageous speed-metal riff & pronounced that it was useless because it couldn't keep up with him. I've had several guitar synths & as long as you are prepared to live with their failings they can be very useful, especially if your keyboard skills are as crap as mine. Midi is full of compromises & limitations, and it's replacement must be waiting in the wings, but midi is so entrenched in the industry it's going to be a while, don't hold your breath. The new Line-6 "Guitar Port" strikes me as a spectacular product, not neccesarily because of it's technical capabilty, though I'm sure it will be excellent, but the fact that many people will buy the product PLUS the monthly subscription to the online backing tracks & additional amp models. Good scam. Maybe that's the future, no more gigs, we all just go online. I sincerely hope not. Paul | ||
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| Mr. Ovation |
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Joined: December 2001 Posts: 7210 Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Slightly off topic.. but the Vox Valvetronix modeler amp is a TUBE AMP!!! At least most of it is.. It blows all of the others Cybertwin, Line6, etc.. off the stage. The best description of the tech behind it I heard was.. "if you really liked the sound of your | ||
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| darc |
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Joined: February 2002 Posts: 48 Location: CT | Am I ready to be the 21st century guitarist? Well, I'm *willing*... :) provided that these alledged 21st century tools are either open (not prohibitively proprietary) or supported by conversion devices that open them to current standards. Oh, and did I mention they need to be affordable? i.e. the ends had better justify the means. I use alot more techie stuff than most guitarists, and I can admit with more 1st person experience than most what a pain in the ass it all is. For the most part, the ends do not justify the means - I've lost alot of time, money, hair, and energy that might have been better invested in a good amp and some old-fashioned woodshedding. Sometimes I throw up my arms and ignore the high-tech stuff for a couple of years. And sometimes I'll build a rig that really works for me... for a few months. Here's the thing: guitarists seem to be divided into two camps. The first spend all their time trying to sound as much as possible like a recording that was made 30 years ago. The second camp says, "Yeah great sound, but um, it's been done. I think I'll break the bank buying toys and then burn the house down wiring them together in pursuit of new sounds." What Roland etc often seem to miss is that the latter camp are the target audience for guitar synths, and they will bore quickly if they're expected to be satisfied with the canned tones that the mfr arbitrarily decides to put in their next GR-xxx. The result, guitar synths are only embraced by a few geeky hobbyists, and a very few innovative pro's with budgets and guitar techs and relationships with manufacturers that allow them to explore THEIR OWN new ideas. So I think the technology this Gibson R&D puke is talking about is actually very cool. The question is, what will the products that the marketing pukes decide might be profitable turn out to be capable of? I didn't see any mention of MaGIC guitars on the site, just data transfer specs and blah blah. So I don't really know what we're talking here in the way of the "21st century guitar." If you want to give me a guitar with a more sophisticated output jack so I can integrate MIDI and phantom power and control messages and maybe even my headset mic and cascade it all through my footcontroller with one cable and program a rackmountable patchbay to decode this crap and automate my preferred amp(s), then cool, I'll take it. But if they think they're going to own that spec and sell me a cutrate Gibson LP with an extra knob or two on it, to control my proprietary Gibson amp... big deal. Guitarists can't agree on how many tone controls they need as it is. And I KNOW they won't happen to offer an adequate variety of products to suit my tastes if I can't do my usual McGyver routine. By the way, whatever happened to the spec that was supposed to replace MIDI about 4 years ago? Same basic concept as MIDI but much faster, with much higher resolutions for pitch bends et al. Can't remember the name, but I think it had a "Z" in it. Zzzzz.... | ||
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| darc |
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Joined: February 2002 Posts: 48 Location: CT | One other thing, Gibson had better plan on licensing MaGIC to other guitar maufacturers, because they've got a much better shot at selling me a MaGIC implementation on a Hamer than they have at selling me a Gibson anything. | ||
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| alpep |
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Joined: December 2001 Posts: 10581 Location: NJ | well as I understand the interface is proprietary and there is no support from other hardwasre manufacturers to introduce products for the interface nor did aes give them a standard rating on the interface. so as I see it you have an analog to digital converter then you can plug into other digital divices avoiding additional d to a and a to d conversions along the way until you get to the amp so you will have only 2 total conversion. I imagine you could then connect various digital optic output gear via spdiff. I understand the principal but am not really sure if it is necessary. darc you are so right gibson just developed the interface but no gear and if no one builds anything to use this technology so what. I hate to bring a sore point up with you but remember when your parker midi fried the midi of the keyboard well midi is a standard and there is NO way that should have happened. stonge some day we should get our bonds together along with kellers two and we will have the largest bond display out side of when they together in he factory. I happen to like the bond it is a crazy wonderful guitar. CWk2 said it all unless you have it in the fingers and in he heart no matter what you hook the guitar to it will not happen. of course we are here because we are gear heads and like tweaking our stuff (the coveted viplectortone is good example ) and checking out the new thing and that is what makes it all interesting but now a days expertise in an instrument is NOT what is important you can fix bad notes in sonar and if you sing off key that can be fixed and if you are cute enough they will hire someone to play on our record and tour with you so you can just stand on stage and look cute. In fact turntables and mics out sell guitars now I am sure because there are more kids intersted in scratching records and rapping. (nothing wrong with that I even like some of it but it put musicianship in jeopardy) and I know the bar has been lowered when people come up to me and say they like my playing!!!!! anyway I guess with every new item introduced there will be a detractor but you also have to have a basic need for the product I think this is an example of technology for technology's sake and it serves no useful purpose. | ||
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| Mr. Ovation |
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Joined: December 2001 Posts: 7210 Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | I did a bit of reading and listening/watching a video at Gibson for Magic. It actually is primarily a "data format" designed for the music/video industry. I'm not sure how a guitar figured into it.. but the idea of all of my audio/video components being able to plug together in a similar way I connect PC's together is interesting. Check out Gibson Video which takes a little of the vapor away. I do think they are trying to develop tech that is out of their league. Folks like Cisco Systems, Intel, and Linksys I think would be more suited... and better received. There is a developers kit available... but I still don't see Gibson making it in the IT market. | ||
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