For Those About to Rock, We Will Tune You

As a once and forever 15-year-old boy, I find few words in the English language provide me with quite the same frisson as robot. Sure there's rocket, monkey, explosion—all highly ranked in my stunted adolescent consciousness. But let's face it, there's just one word that comes anywhere close to attaining robot's hallowed stature. That would be guitar.

Now, for the first time, those two most holy words have come together, deliciously, like chocolate and peanut butter. Gibson is releasing its first ever self-tuning "Robot Guitar" this week. And the gods of rock saw that it was good.

With technology leased from the German company Tronical, Gibson has modified its classic Les Paul design to create a guitar that adjusts itself to one of six preset tunings. This is no instrument for beginners. Retailing for between $2,200 and $2,500 (a cool grand more than the robot-free Les Paul), the Robot Guitar is courting serious hobbyists and professionals who demand precision tuning, or frequently switch between different tunings and don't want the hassle of lugging multiple instruments around. "It's a cool idea. Nobody likes tuning," concedes Dinosaur Jr. frontman J. Mascis. "But I have to wait for the drummer to rest anyway between songs." Another company, called TransPerformance, sells a similar tuning device that it will install in your nonrobotic guitar for you. But Gibson's is the first out-of-the-box self-tuning ax.

It sounds like a minor development in guitar technology, even rather gimmicky. But for an instrument that has barely evolved since the 1950s, the Robot Guitar is nothing short of magic: simply pull out the "master control knob" and strum the guitar. The knob lights up as a computer embedded in the back of the guitar measures each string's pitch. The tuning pegs turn by themselves, making a robotic whirring sound that enhances the wow factor (and is, to be honest, a little creepy). The control knob's lights flash blue when your instrument is locked into the tuning you selected (watch it here). If you're so inclined you can override the device and tune manually. But why would you? It takes all of 10 seconds for the Robot Guitar to do its thing—and blow your mind as it hasn't been blown since the first time you heard "Eruption."

In an industry that has been flat to sagging, the Robot Guitar could provide a welcome boost to retailers. After 10 years of brisk growth, guitar sales headed south in 2006, according to the April 2007 Music Trades Magazine industry census. Low-end beginner acoustic guitar sales dropped 24.4 percent last year; electric guitars fell 19.1 percent. Certainly there is a dearth of righteous shredding on today's Top 40 radio. And the wildly popular videogame "Guitar Hero" allows even the most tone-deaf nonmusician to simulate the experience of rocking out. (Indeed, in a head-to-head battle comedian David Cross recently outrocked Mascis, who tells NEWSWEEK he'd rather spend his videogame time "destroying aliens.") Professional musicians account for 15 percent of instrument purchases in the country, according to George Van Horn, a senior analyst at IBISWorld. "Gibson is obviously aiming high, but it's worth chasing" the pros, he says.

Judging by all the buzz the Robot Guitar has generated, Gibson won't have a hard time chasing down anyone. "You don't see this kind of excitement often," says Norman Hajjar, the chief marketing officer at Guitar Center, which has stocked 1,000 of the 4,000 Robot Guitars hitting the market nationwide Dec. 7. "They're quite a draw. We let people touch and play with the guitars—they're putting them through their paces. It really charms people." As of Thursday morning, Guitar Center had already taken deposits on roughly a third of the 1,000 Robot Guitars they have in stock.

It's no wonder. The very fact that "Guitar Hero" and now "Rock Band" are power-chording their way off store shelves this holiday season proves that the dream is alive. The reason that the odious song "Rock Star" is currently ubiquitous has nothing to do with quality songwriting. Truth is, we all want to be rock stars; the videogames and Nickelback's opus get us all a little closer to living the fantasy. But with the Robot Guitar, it's the musicians themselves who have gotten a long overdue leg up. Now all we need is a guitar that plays itself, freeing up our hands to punch at the heavens, home to the rock gods whose company we will all someday keep.

© 2007