Not sure if everyone's seen this yet. I don't play guitar, but this looks interesting:

"Guitar maker Gibson has a history of innovation. The company is responsible for the Humbucker pickup and the legendary Les Paul electric guitar. Now it is selling the Self Tuning Guitar, which actually has servo motors on the headstock to turn the tuning heads. The Powertune system, developed over 10 years by German company Tronical, uses a set of piezo-electric pickups to determine the pitch of each string. These are separate from the regular guitar pickups, which rely on the string vibrating in a magnetic field to cause a current. The information for the pickups then goes off to the computer brain, which sends its instructions up the strings to the tuning pegs. The system comes pre-calibrated for concert pitch, but you can tune one string yourself and have the guitar set itself around that.

Best of all, the Powertune can store custom tunings, from alternative open-string tunings for slide guitar to, well, anything you like. A quick flick of the knob between songs will switch smoothly between them. The rig is an add-on for existing guitars, and will cost $900. And of course, guitar purists are already whining that "real" musicians should be able to tune their own instruments. - wired.com

http://www.tronical.com/
http://www.gibson.com/namm2007/PoweTune.html

*bump*

I figure some people outside of those who actually visit this forum might find it of interest.

.

I just thought it was interesting.

And even "real" musicians should find this very useful:

Best of all, the Powertune can store custom tunings, from alternative open-string tunings for slide guitar to, well, anything you like. A quick flick of the knob between songs will switch smoothly between them.

This is up there with the guitar where the frets light up so hacks can play in the right key.

For $900 I can buy a nice, new Telecaster.

Neat idea, but will only add to the sentiment that guitar players are complete morons.

I thought you were talking about this:

http://www.gibson.com/robotguitar/index.html

It looks like it's the same tuning technology anyway. Have a look at the video to see the thing in action.

I agree that any guitarist should be able to tune their own instrument, but for sheer novelty value I must admit this does have me drooling slightly...

Are you saying this thing is never out of tune?

It can go out of tune, since you need to pull the "Master Control Knob" to get it to tune itself.

Watch this video to see how it works:

http://www.gibson.com/robotguitar/Ro...deoVoting.aspx

I don't see what the big deal on this is, I've heard of self-tuning guitars a year ago from my friend who's a luthier. I guess this is the first big name company to output something like it, but it's certainly nothing new.
As for the laze factor, I think the auto-tune has its benefits. The biggest being, of course, that it can put your guitar in different tunings with relative ease and speed. When you're playing a show, it'd be useful to not have to change tunings after every song.

I now I somewhat said this before....but anyone who can't tune their own guitar should not be playing it. It's not like we're talking them having to learn Quantum Physics.