Comments about:

Gibson Digital Guitar

My main interest here is this:

How does this affect the guitar as a midi controller.

Separation on six strings, not that interested in.

Sending guitar audio as digital data at the onset, that is very interesting, because that data can be sent pretty fast and of course manipulated, etc.

Can someone from Gibson answer this, will this affect / impact the guitar as a midi controller.

Midi travels at 32 kbps, Cat 5 Ethernet, 100 Mb or 12.5 MB / sec.

a lot faster than midi, now if this can speed up ptich to midi conversion or altogether replace it, yes, this is great.

I would really be interested in hearing from Gibson on this subject, have used the Axon controllers, and they are fast, but far from perfect, and I know guitar to midi (synth) controlling can defintiely use a breakthru in technology.

MIDI itself is over 20 years old and not ideal for transmitting guitar pitch data, now that gibson instantly converts the audio to digital data, and somehow we map that with some software (Apple's Core Audio, Core Midi on OS X comes to mind).

this would be great.

macguitarman@mac.com

This post has been edited by jklimeck: Tue 25 Jan 2005, 22:26

yeah, it seems a bit odd to convert the audio (string-vibrations) to digital on string-separated channels inside the guitar, just to send it to a breakoutbox for it to be converted back to analogue.

hmm, doesn´t make a whole lot of sense. lots of technology for little result, maybe.

but at the same time I´ve always dreamt of being able to have a completely different sound on each string, and play guitar with that to see what happens

that was in the days when I played a lot of guitar... before I got a computer

I don't even play guitar, but sure want to, and I went to the Gibson site and checked this out, and my conclusion was, "what is the point?" it sounded good, but it did not sound different or better to me.

Maybe the guitar guys know something I don't, but I was expecting some radical departure in sound or something of that nature, but all I heard was the proverbial difference between firewire and USB 2. In other words, not much…

Was this just an “x or size” in high tech for high tech’s sake?

Blessings,
Damon

After going to the Gibson Digital website and going over the guitar's specs, I was not really impressed. It doesn't seem to have any use as a MIDI controller and it doesn't do any modeling like a Line 6 Variax.

I guess it would be great for people who want to record each string seperately for effects or editing a take to perfection, but I'm not excited about it. Eddie Van Halen and a few other guitarists of note used hex pickups in the early 80's and moved on.

Even with the on-board digital convertors and an Ethernet jack, the guitar doesn't strike me as revolutionary. It's most likely a fantastic guitar, but you can probably get a decent Brian Moore with a 13-pin out and a Line 6 Variax 700 for the same price. Unlike either of those two techno-axes, the Paul is still a Paul and not everybody wants that sound.

I hope the guys who buy the digital Les Paul's have fun.

Jeff