By Charles Weiselberg

So, the other day I moseyed on over to musiciansfriend.com. Gallivanting that site is like being a kid in a candy store. It’s Pavlovian – I start to sweat, drool and bark as every page loads. That’s not even including the urge to chase my tail in a circle.
Today, the site features an advertisement for Gibson’s new “Robot Guitar.” My curiosity got the best of me, and before I knew what I was doing, my hand was on its way to discovering one of the most awkward inventions ever made. Beware. This all might have happened in the Twilight Zone. I sure hope so.

This “Robot Guitar” should really irk any musician, guitarist or not. The first demo video shows how the robot guitar has the capabilities to tune itself. My jaw dropped in disgust. This must be a joke. I played the video three times to make sure I was not hallucinating. Unfortunately, I wasn’t. Instead, I had stumbled upon a rip in the space-time continuum.

This machine exists.

And it’s coming for you.

An extra knob has been added to the body of the guitar. It’s shininess and flashing colors will give it a sales boost, appealing to the laziest of musicians.
The instructions from the demo describe three simple steps to being perfectly tuned. First, one must make sure that they are not holding down any strings or be close enough to accidentally pluck any of the strings. Then with a little tug of our shiny little doo-dad, the knob pulls out halfway. This is the part when the knob gets to flash all sorts of pretty colors. Flashing colors are of course one of your most important tools as a musician. You know, instead of other things. Things like, I don’t know, understanding rudimentary basics of the instrument you have chosen to take up? Next you strum all six strings just once. No matter how horrifically out of tune the strings may be, the guitar will begin to tune itself. It tunes by actually moving the tuning knobs for you. I will repeat, because this warrants repeating: Gibson’s “Robot Guitar” turns the tuning knobs for you.

George Orwell comes to mind when thinking of the Robot Guitar. Is this the future of music? Please tell me I am imagining this in a dystopian future where robots have been built with the ability to play the trumpet. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Yh7xssnhoXM).

Call me a purist, but is music not an art form you create in order for people to hear? To my great disappointment, we still don’t have Smell-o-vision, so I am inclined to say “yes.” Since an artist in this medium toys with emotions aurally, shouldn’t they at least able be to tune their own instrument?

Even tuners bother me. Pedal tuners are ok if you play a lot of shows. That’s understandable. Regular tuners, though, become crutches for the musician. So many musicians I know merely tune their instruments to exactly what the tuner tells them, never giving a second thought to the pitch. Not to toot my own horn, but I am a drummer and even I can tune a guitar by ear. The trick I developed is not incredibly difficult. Just learn the pitch of one of the six strings and tune as you normally would around it. In fact, this cheesy method stems from the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ song “Otherside.” The first note played in the recurring riff/motif is an octave on the low E string. For whatever reason I can always conjure that one note. This is a method I think anyone could learn quickly with just a tad of focus.

Aside from doing all the work for you, the evil knob of the Robot Guitar is not quite done ruining all those years of private lessons you’ve taken. For all of you Cannibal Corpse fans out there who fiend for drop-D tuning but just can’t find the time of day to turn your string down that one enormous whole-step, the Robot Guitar has you covered! Throw that roast in the oven because you will no longer have to toil for hours performing this near-impossible task. Other alternate tunings can also be performed with no effort at all. Such as, among many others, Open E and A can be preset from what Gibson likes to call the “Master Control Knob.”

Even changing strings has been made idiot-proof. Changing strings is one of the few things as important as knowing how to tune – yet another fundamental snuffed out before aspiring musicians take the time to learn it. The amount of commands you need to enter into the Robot Guitar is more effort then just taking the time to do it yourself. Just listen to this ridiculous chain of events that needs to occur before the guitar has done the job for you.

First, you pull out both the tuning knob and nut of the low E string in the same way you did the Master Control Knob. Feed whichever string needing changing into the nut while you screw it back into place. Pull out the Master Control Knob and turn it to the appropriate setting. Now you have to tap the knob twice, while turning it to the pitch of your choice. Hold the knob for three seconds, now, and the tuning knob will move on its own. Finally, if you were lucky enough to make it this far, your clever little button will flash blue to tell you just when it’s done and ready. Did you get all that?

What do you plan to do one day when you’re playing live and a string breaks? Are you going to go bust out your extra pack of strings that you carry with you just to show people how cool your guitar is? Not only would this cheapen the physical act of listening to music for the musicians, but for the crowd member as well.

Allow me to explain. Let’s assume for all intents and purposes you were to change strings on stage using the Robot Guitar method. The audience will now be the ones sucked in by the pretty lights. For the rest of your set they will be either too dazzled or too disgusted to give your music the full attention it needs. Music will take a back seat to Technology. As a musician and music nerd, this actually scares the hell out of me.

O.K., I can’t deny one aspect of the Robot Guitar that is pretty awesome. The technology actually allows you to adjust the action perfectly. I’ll spare you the crazy process it takes to get to this point. Basically, after setting it properly, the Master Control Knob flashes green when the screw needs adjusting clockwise and red when the screw needs adjusting counter-clockwise.

Overall I think Gibson should be ashamed of itself for this invention. It has put technology and profit before education and quality. The Les Paul design it mimics is yet another travesty. It goes against the morality and integrity I had previously believed Gibson stayed touted.

The one thing that technology – and robots that can play the trumpet – fail to recognize is what’s most important in music. What’s most important is emotion and expression. Only humans can create music. These machines are merely programmed. They do not have feeling while playing, and if there is no feeling why bother listening?

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