A Gibson Innovation or A Gimmick?

[ramblinmike]

MF Gibson of the Month

So aside from the fact I don't find this guitar visually appealing, this caught my eye:

"Comes with 2 Burstbucker Pro and 2 P-94 humbucker-sized pickups that attach wirelessly to the body using strong magnets."

Wouldn't this alter the EMF surrounding the pickup's magnets?

I like the idea of quick changing pickups, but I wonder what's the true cost of this convenience? (aside from the $2,800 price tag )

Guess it also severely limits which pickups you can put in the guitar.

[bowlfreshener]

With Gibson these days, its a bit of both. The Kiefer Sutherland signature guitar was purely gimmick. The robot guitar was a combination of gimmick and innovation, and this is a combination of both as wel. EMG pickups already use a system where the PUs are not hardwired in, but instead are clipped in so you can change pickups easily as well. Some of the hardcore purists and audiophile types already dislike these clipping systems, so many people many not see this as a desireable feature to put out and extra thousand dollars or more for. IMO Gibson has lost their minds due to some of the products they have put out over the past couple of years other than the Epiphone Valve Junior heads...

[Telenator]

I dunno. I think Gibson is right on track and becoming an innovative leader in the futrue guitar market. Things are gonna change guys. The traditional concepts of the electric guitar have a lived a long life and some feel have exceeded their usefulness. Like everything else in our lives, change is coming and I'm trying to be open minded about it.

In the minds of many, older, seasoned players, these new and modern Gibson models are a real travesty. To many younger people who have no traditional concepts to work through, they're just cool and they're going to make a lot of great music using these new tools.

[e-merlin]

Originally Posted by Telenator

The traditional concepts of the electric guitar have a lived a long life and some feel have exceeded their usefulness. Like everything else in our lives, change is coming and I'm trying to be open minded about it.

I'm a pretty open-minded guy and will hold off on judging this until I try it. Of course, being a Gibson, I'm not going to be in a big hurry! I doubt that there is any real technological innovation going on here. There's probably a set of contacts on the body that match up with a set of contacts on the pickup, and I would imagine that whatever holds the pickup in has minimal interference with the pickup itself. And, I suppose Gibson has already taken that into account in the pickup design.

Do some people really feel that guitars have exceded their usefulness? I suppose if you play "Industrial," but, like the violin, I don't think the guitar will ever outlive its usefulness. Changes to guitars these days are either incremental improvements to an old design or are cosmetic.

Aside from the electric violin I really don't think there has been any major leap in violin technology in hundreds of years. The violin my daughter played in elementary school wasn't technologically different from the fiddle my dad bought in a pawn shop 50+ years ago. That one probably wasn't technologically different from a violin built 200 years ago.

I'm sure that the electric guitar will live a long, happy life in many forms of music. I watched All American Rejects and Fountains of Wayne on Soundstage last night, and I think the future of guitar is in pretty good hands if there are bands like these that occasionally cut through the noise that is Pop music these days.

[Telenator]

All true.

I should have mentioned that I'm in no rush to buy any of this stuff, but I'm just trying to keep an open mind and not be too set in my ways when listening to other people making music with these new tools.

[bradpdx]

Guitar players, despite the rock and roll image, are a very conservative bunch when it comes to instruments. Consider that here in 2008 we are still using technology from the 1930s - tube amplifiers and magnet + coil pickups. Given all that has changed, that is remarkable.

The history of electric guitar has "frozen" some ideas about sound in players' minds, and for good reason. Very compelling and influential music was created on older instruments and that music continues to inform the ideas of players around the world. Given that the instrument can sound many different ways, this adherence to older ideas reflects the conservative nature of music.

Any maker of instruments and guitar electronics knows the customer's axiom: The old sounds are what we want. Just make them work better.

I don't know if Gibson's ideas have any real merit - I must confess I consider them a very odd company that makes strangely uneven products - but from my experiences as a player and a former engineer for a guitar maker, I would bet that change will continue to come slowly to the guitar community.

Somebody call me when we have all decided that single coil pickups based upon early manufactured magnets from WWII are just too noisy and not good enough. We aren't even there yet! Heck, I'm not.

[gibsonjunkie]

My college roommate had an Ampeg Acrylic guitar that had switchable pickups - and that was 1972...

I think Telenator is right. We need people to try new things. Some may work, some may not... but the future is changing every other aspect of our lives - why not guitars?

[e-merlin]

Originally Posted by gibsonjunkie

My college roommate had an Ampeg Acrylic guitar that had switchable pickups - and that was 1972...

I think Telenator is right. We need people to try new things. Some may work, some may not... but the future is changing every other aspect of our lives - why not guitars?

What new things, though? We've had MIDI guitars, Roland Synth Guitars, the Variax (I think that was what it was called), the Keytar (UGH!), and various other things that really didn't catch on, other than with fringe players.

The things is, the moment has to be right for any major invention or innovation to have the mass appeal to cause a major change in thinking. Back in the 40s the confluence of different styles of music coincided with heavy experimenting with electrifying sound. We got the Les Paul and the Tele!

What revolution is taking place right now that requires new instruments or a major innovation? Let me know. I'm still unemployed. I'll get on it!

[ramblinmike]

Hey e-merlin, how about a guitar that plugs directly into your consciousness? Now THAT would be innovation! Cutting out the middleman (the hands) would be a major musical revolution. Maybe that will be one of the features of Robot Guitar 2.0.

I think the changeable pickup thing with a tele would be awesome. Think of how quickly you could try out different bridge pickups to find the perfect one.

[SMPTE]

E-Merlin is dead on.

Alot of these 'innovations' are just variations on a theme. Sharpening the tool, as it were.

For a real change in what we use to make music we need a crossroad between a major innovation in technology and a big change in the musical tastes of a large population with disposable income. Until there is a change in how we amplify string vibration, or create that vibration (crystals anyone?) as major as the electrification wave in the 40s/50s matched with the explosion of Rock & Roll (and to a lesser degree the blues and country) there isn't going to be another big change.

(post 888! hehehe)

[klasaine]

Originally Posted by gibsonjunkie

My college roommate had an Ampeg Acrylic guitar that had switchable pickups - and that was 1972...

I think Telenator is right. We need people to try new things. Some may work, some may not... but the future is changing every other aspect of our lives - why not guitars?

Bingo! This is nothing new, nor is it innovative. We may need to try new things but this definitely ain't it.

[Guitar_Ninja]

I think it should be noted that this is a limited run of 1000, so Gibson really isn't trying to innovate here with a new line of guitars. They'll probably sell through them fairly easily and then move onto the next gimmick for the next limited run. Their bread and butter is still the traditional Les Paul.

As far as innovation goes the big thing for me that this guitar and the robot guitar both lack is backwards compatibility with the traditional methods.

A guitar that can tune itself is great, but without the option to go it manually it feels like you're losing some of the control over things that a traditional guitar possesses. It's sort of like standard transmission: I miss it when it isn't there.

My first problem with this guitar specifically would be how do you adjust the pickup height? It looks like you'd have to remove the pickup itself. Since it's a set-neck you're then stuck removing the strings. And without it routed for a traditional humbucker that means that 99.9% of the pickups in existence are a no-no as far as replacements. You're stuck using the modular ones, which may or may not be around for long.

I say, modular pickups? Cool. But let's have them housed in a traditional pickup ring with a traditional humbucker route. Automatic tuning? Great. But in both cases if the "new and improved" method is less versatile than the traditional method then I don't know that it can really be called progress. YMMV.

Plus I just can't get into a Les Paul without a pickguard.

[gibsonjunkie]

When the piano came out a lot of harpsichordists said it was a stupid idea... Evolution is a bunch of small steps leading (sometimes) to an improvement.

Whether or not these are Revolutionary or not is subject to a difference of opinion; that they are Evolutionary is not...