Digital Dreams or Nightmare?

Details Below ..

This one has been in the cooker for quite a while now, but Gibson has finally released its HD.6X-Pro Guitar System, known as the HD Les Paul amongst the cool kids. The new guitar marks quite a shift for Gibson, featuring an all digital setup, and uses a Cat5 cable instead of a regular guitar cord to transfer your musics to an amp or computer. Gibson calls this technology MaGIC, and it allows you to transfer string data from all six strings individually, along with a mic signal and a full-on six string signal (the normal kind). MaGIC also supports two channels of upstream, to offer a stereo monitor to the player. Most of the "MaGIC" happens inside "BoB" the Breakout Box, which converts the digital info into analog, and can send each string or combinations of strings to different amps. You can also plug the guitar straight into your computer, to record the digital signal directly, for which all necessary plugins are included, and the eventual plan is to allow for jamming over the internets in a low-latency form. Lastly, if you get bored of all this digital voodoo, you always switch the guitar to all analog mode, which bypasses the digital circuitry entirely and outputs a signal via a traditional 1/4-inch plug. The guitar is currently going for $4000, with 100 signed-by-Les-Paul models available for $8k. Sounds a bit steep, but that's the price you have to be willing to pay for the privilege of unadulterated face melting.

[Via gizmag]

Now, I have always been a fan of gadgets and the like and have tried (to great expense) almost every incarnation of guitar to midi/effects/digital there has been. I still own a Roland GR700 setup and a Stepp DGX and have a Roland VG88 system that I managed to get hold of at an auction for half price (and found out why it was half price when I got it home!). The reason I have tried all these adaptations of midi/digital guitar nonsense (because ultimately, it is nonsense) is that I love the sounds and effects that can be used by all those lucky keyboard players out there! I can't play a keyboard to save my life but I can knock the odd tune or so out of a guitar and any access I can get to these sounds, I will try. Not all have been successful. The most "useable" system (so far) has been the very old and superceeded GR700 Roland. Ok, it had a bit of time lag on the lower notes and came with a pedalboard the size of a small village but it got quite acceptable results and I used it for a couple of years in a country band I was in called "The Black Spur Road Band" - there's a name eh? Since then I have tried various Roland and Yamaha hex pickup arrangements with GR50/GR30 systems and now have a GK3 pickup on a couple of my guitars which give me access to some great sounds from the likes of the GR30 and the VG88 (Roland). But and it's a big but, it's still not quite right. The feel is somewhat odd and I know you're thinking "of course it's odd playing keyboard sounds on a guitar" but that's not what I mean. It is very difficult to play with the accuracy required to not get some strange squeeks and sometimes, completely wrong notes at volumes that are impossible to diguise! Some will say "learn to play right you twat!" and to a degree, they would be right but a guitar is (unless you are classically trained) not an exact instrument. Rock and roll is not exact in its implementation. This is where digital is not good as it is discrete in its operation and without all the stuff that goes on underneath the keys in a keyboard, very difficult on a guitar. The VG88 is closest to being very playable as it is more of an effect pedal than a midi instrument and to that end, works very well (when mine feels like working!). I have no idea what this monstrosity from Gibson will do or sound like but maybe it needed the guitar boys to look at the problem to put all that knowledge of guitars into something digital.
I can't see me trying one of these any time soon due to the price tag (unless I get one for Christmas!! - ha ha ..) but I will watch the reviews with interest.
Back soon ..