Gibson Robot Guitar

[Enzo]

Some of you might find this of interest:

http://www.techonline.com/product/underthehood/207401328

It discusses the workings of a self-tuning guitar. The guitar will also retune to alternate tunings at the touch of a button.

[Mark Black]

That looks really clever!

Using the strings to carry power & signal to the headstock is a unique way to use existing circuit paths, and the idea the whole thing can be retrofitted to an "off-the-shelf" guitar is (to me anyway) brilliant!

[Steve Conner]

Power on the strings?! How do they stop it from electrolyzing your sweaty fingers, or messing up when you short all the strings together by fretting a chord?

[Mark Black]

The article wasn't quite enough in-depth, but I would guess the re-tuning time-slot might be "hands-off" or at least "open strum" required...

[David Schwab]

Power on the strings?! How do they stop it from electrolyzing your sweaty fingers, or messing up when you short all the strings together by fretting a chord?

Yeah, and where is the return path? Since only one string goes to each tuner.

From what I read in Guitar Player, you tune by strumming all the strings with your hand off the neck.

[Enzo]

Perhaps the truss rod?

[Mark Black]

After re-reading the article I see they did touch on the string-as-conductor usage. Apparently every function is on two strings for redundancy in case of a broken one. So two strings for common, two strings for +12V, and two strings for serial data transfer.

The way they were able to pull this off with no drilling or any other permanent alteration to an existing guitar is pretty cool.

Check out the manufacturer website:

http://www.tronical.com/home

On the lower right is a link to a (fairly long) video demonstration. Elsewhere in the site is a link to the Gibson demo video.

[Enzo]

If anyone has further interest I just found a video that tears the system apart and describes how it works, on the Electronic Engineering TImes web site. It is not a sales pitch, this is for engineers who like to know how things work.

http://www.eetimes.com/

Right now it is featured upper right corner, but if it gets moved, look under the Teardown TV section. There are videos tearing down other tech items too.

[jrfrond]

I got a good education at the Gibson booth at NAMM from the Robot Guitar product specialist, and just checked out the new SG version this past weekend.

Most people assume the the individual strings control each machine when they learn that the strings are used as conductors. In fact, there is B+, data lines and ground. Behind the headstock is the machine control module.

What makes the Robot electronics cool is that the module senses both pitch AND tension, plus is programmable and has a built-in intonation program. The bridge uses isolated piezos to sense frequency, and the tailpiece uses isolated strain gauges to sense tension. Schaller designed the servo-operated machines which can tune manually if the system craps-out of the battery drops dead. BTW- the battery charges with it's own PSU through the guitar jack, which is a locking 3-cond. 1/4" Neutrik.

I think the whole thing is uber-cool and works like a charm. Strat and Tele retrofits are coming in the future. I am trying get our shop here in NYC authorized for retrofits, which require some drilling and routing.