Gibson to Embed Guitars with Ethernet 474
caseyuw writes "Gibson is planning to roll out their Magic this year with the delivery of guitars using Cat 5 instead of analog cables to connect instruments and amplifiers. The debate over the quality of digital vs analog signal processing is not new, but using a 'Magic' Les Paul would force you entirely into the digital domain." We mentioned this last year, but the above article has much more information.
Wireless? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ethernet, not Firewire? (Score:3, Interesting)
CAT5? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, there will surely be those who claim that since it IS a cable, it must be better. But with the same information being carried over, I hardly think that they can make much of a case, other than being pesky.
I would take one in a second (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course you will see all the "purists" noting that it doesn't have any tubes in it, therefore it must be useless. However I would love to be one of the first people to play one.
~S
Haven't you ever been to a concert? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ever heard of a wireless microphone? Same concept, except connected to the pickups on the guitar.
Re:CAT5? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:CAT5? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hey there's a video presentation (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently it's compatible with all existing ethernet devices. So in theory you could connect any kind of tranciever you wish. Want Fiber? Just get a tranciever, want wireless? Just buy a tranciever. Want to route it across the internet through a tunnel.. Holy sheep shit batman!
I know a lot of bands, the worst problem they have is finding a studio to practice in. You could set up a "virtual studio" just by tunneling and building VPN's between their houses.
Things like latency could be transformed into delay effects..
Anyways, sounds really cool. I'm gonna post the story on my site and try and get an interview.
When a guitarist... (Score:0, Interesting)
I'm sure the geek culture thinks this is cool, but most musicians will probably shrug and think, "So what?"
And there are the audiophile types who will condemn the ditigal format as sounding too processed and impersonal. There are some things you can do with analog that digital will never be able to touch.
Don't expect this to take off like the next revolution. It will likely be a nifty toy to play with and nothing more.
I know that after playing guitar for over 10 years, I could really care less about cat5 in my guitar. It is more complication than I need when I'm on stage troubleshooting minor problems.
Re:CAT5? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want fast and realtime communication, you also get 2 extra conversion steps while using wireless transmission. Extra conversion is extra delay.
And reliability is a factor too. Wireless transceivers for analog audio signals have a bad reputation for reliability and audio qualitiy, and you should avoid them until you have the means to invest the monetary value of, say a medium sized car, into it.
No guitarist is going to ever touch that equipment if it fails him/her onstage, ever...
Re:1st p0st (Score:2, Interesting)
If digitizing of the analogue signal can be perfected at the instument end of equipment, the possibilities for signal loss/distortion are greatly diminished. A digital signal from the guitar can be sent directly from the guitar to the recording equipment.
This allows for a more pure signal to be recieved, and recorded. While there are people who object to digitizing music (give me a 'pure' analogue signal!), it is hard to deny the reality that ALL recorded music (on CDs) is digitized. By digitizing earlier on in the process, Gibson is mearly allowing for the listener to hear a sound that was sampled from a more pure origonal than current methods allow.
I don't really see how someone can object to studio use of technology like this, and as another poster pointed out, there are plenty of uses for such tech in things like the addition of live effects during concerts, etc..
And maybe, just maybe this will help to get us away from the current bland techno beats, as this *does* give better access to instuments to the button pushers.
Don't Write it Off Yet! (Score:4, Interesting)
RJ45 Connector Durability Issues (Score:2, Interesting)
All in all though, new technology such as this will create some totally wild new music and some awesome new stage shows. I am excited! (Big Kev excited!)
Some related technologies:
Yamaha mLAN [yamahasynth.com]
CobraNet [peakaudio.com]
Steinberg System Link [steinberg.net]
Cheap home recording!! (Score:4, Interesting)
'Till now, if you wanted to record on a PC (and some of this also applies to 8-tracks and tape systems), you'd either need a really good stack, a proffesional pre-amp, or one of those new-fangled V-Amps. But none of those come dirt cheap, so lots of people have to download software amp sims from Kazaa, and stick with that. Not great.
In a few years, if this tech makes it into low-end guitars, beautiful, full, well equalised tones for everybody! And I also imagine that when this becomes common place, it will bring the quality of cheap & expensive axes much closer together.
Nowadays, alot of rich kids, or kids with parents or brothers or whatever in the industry make it because they are the only ones that get to prove themselves. Even without being conscious of it, the A&R rep at the studio will prefer a real nice sounding, well produced demo than something cheap, because it makes the songs sound better, and in music, what else is there? In the long run, this technology could be really beneficial. But for now all the struggling artists will have to keep hearing audiophile elitists crapping on about how anything mastered at anything less than perfect 96khz audio hurts their ears.
Think of the possiblities when they add memory... (Score:4, Interesting)
It would be just like adding a sequencer to a drumkit.
The guitarist can play lead and rythm parts on the same guitar.
No more problems when lip synching or playing the music off a tape. Simply save the packets on the guitar and send out. How would the audience or the anyone know?
You could actually buy a guitar that played EVERY Stones or Rush song perfectly.
Cover bands everywhere are celebrating.
Re:d/a converters. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cheap home recording!! (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a little experience in home recording, and I have to disagree.
Since it's little use to plug a guitar straight into a soundcard, you'll need some pre-amping. I use a zoom gfx-8 to get the right signal strength. This baby cost me the equivalent of $500. It can do some compression (which it shouldn't) and a hell of a distortion (even though it's digital, it beats a lot of analog equipment I've used, including my current choice of amplifier),and some other fx, if you'd like to. (Every el-cheapo amp with a line-out will also do fine, in my esteem.)
When you've pushed you signal through this thing, any decent sequencer software can finish the job, provided it is equipped with a compressor and a parametric equalizer. These are available for under $200. You can use the fx-processor for bass too, but I personally perfer the line-out of my old 25-watt bass amp, because it's got all it's need, and anything I need to alter, I can do with some EQ.
The moral of this story:
Gibson MAGIC will NOT make home recording cheap, because these babies will be
Re:Wireless? (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's wait and see, it's Gibson after all (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, Gibson's shotgun-like litigious actions within the music industry within the past decade have caused the music industry to put little faith in its supporting a technology standard of *any* kind. The past actions of its current management will make music instrument manufacturers think twice (or more)before they adopt or even license Gibson technology.
Some history:
1) Gibson completely blew their opportunity as once-owners of the Oberheim name (which they inherited as part of a purchase). Poorly-defined and ill-marketed products killed the Oberheim brand; meddling by ownership didn't help...(recently the Oberheim name returned to its rightful owner, Tom Oberheim, who is nicely rebuilding the brand).
2) Gibson bought Zeta Violin (a very innovative manufacturer of electronic violins and basses), and with it the services of the gifted engineer who who started Zeta. They had this engineer cobble together a MIDI substitute called ZIPPY. This at a time when MIDI was just getting a head of steam up. Gibson's ownership wanted to replace MIDI and collect license fees. Forget about helping to nurse a just-getting-off-the-ground standard, or MIDI). Talk about bad timing. ZIPPY died, and the engineer had a hand in regaining Zeta (a fine company these days).
3) Next was Gibson's infamous purchase of Opcode Systems, a few years back. Opcode was a primary manufacturer of music software and hardware at the time - one of the best. They created the OMS standard, which the Mac music community was widely dependent on. They promised Opcode's then-owner an opportunity to start a little R&D Group and come up with a few new things. The whole thing died in an acrimonious lawsuit, and in the offing, Gibson destroyed Opcode, and OMS. What a waste.
4) Unrelated to technology (at least computer technology) is Gibson's recent purchase of the once-renowned Baldwin Piano Company. Gibson has chosen to take even this famous music industry name, and make it a laughingstock. At this year's NAMM (National Association of Music Manufacturers) show they presented Baldwin pianos in gaudy, bright colors with graffiti-like drawings on them (for instance, one bright yellow grand had a desert scene painted on it with a Hummer riding across the desert floor in the the background - unbelievable!). I can see doing this to one piano, but the whole damn line? The instruments are laughable, and a blight on the once-reknowned Baldwin name.
5)Gibson is run like a personal playpen and funhouse by current management, who is out of touch with market reality (and a few others); however, Gibson has good, dedicated people. For their sake I hope this technology cathes on.
6)Other companies will be coming forward with technologies like this, and others. Let's wait and see if Gibson maintains its consistency in things having to do with technology, and screws this one up.
Certainly, if this technology did catch on, *any* music instrument manufacturer licensing it would have to be *very* wary of Gibson's current management's penchant to sue fast and hard for any real or even (and especially) perceived violation of licensing or other agreements. This company is vulture-like when it comes to the law. Gibson is a great example of a company who is purchased by a management with a few crazy ideas and a lot of money. They come in, buy a well-established company with good products and dedicated peopl,e and make it a personal plaything. Gibson, and the music industry deserve better.
point-to-point (Score:3, Interesting)
Especially knowing how the music industry drives technology, I suspect we'll be seeing these sorts of links in the near future.
Hmm. Infrared LEDs on the guitar strap?
Guitarists hate digital (Score:4, Interesting)
As far me, I'm really interested to see how this goes. With all the noise introduced in analog effects pedals the business has been needing something like this just to get a clear signal.
Famous last words (Score:5, Interesting)
Doesn't this just sound like one of those famous quotes waiting to be reused over and over again in 20 years time - like the "there is a total world market for 5 computers" and "rock and roll is a fad, Mr.Epstein".
(Please don't reply with the Bill Gates 640K quote - he never said that)
Re:So where's it going to get power? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Guitarists hate digital (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, part of the point of electric guitars are that they are noisy, and that's part of the whole sound. I heard one eminent musicologist declare, "music is just pure tone plus noise, and each genre expresses one particular noise preference." Even a virtuoso like Segovia would sound like crap on a guitar with no noise in the signal.
Is digital all that good... (Score:1, Interesting)
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/1
http://www.informatik.fh-h
Beware of the license (Score:4, Interesting)
The spec (...) is now available online in a version 2.8 for a 10-year royalty-free license.
So what happens after ten years? Huge fees those manufacturers who can afford, lawsuits for everyone else? The fact that Magic is not a open standard may prevent it's wide acceptance.
Re:Cheap home recording!! (Score:1, Interesting)
OT but you mention recording, demos, stacks and the like-
I'm not sure I've ever heard a stack that sounded like a stack after the engineering/production happens on the final mix. Just my opinion of course. So keeping that perspective in mind...
Many moons ago I built PAiA's "Stack In A Box."
http://www.paia.com/tubestuf.htm
Bought the PCB from PAiA then stuffed it with mostly salvaged parts. I believe I spent about $40 total.
Added compression, eq, a bit of reverb and got what was in my opinion very passible guitar sounds considering it was just a few pawn shop pedals and a kit pre-amp going straight into the board.
Guess the point is that I'm too cheap to buy magic when solder will do. YMMV.
Re:CAT5? (Score:5, Interesting)
Utilitiding power-over-ethernet means that you no longer have to worry about dub batteries. That's a huge saving, and the reason that phantom power (essentially a power-over-mic-cable technology) exists in all mixing desks.
With wireless, you have to worry about power too. For a large stage show, you assign a tech to deal with that, and kick his ass if you run out of juice.
For people who arn't the Rolling Stones, U2 etc, power and signal in one cable is a good thing.
Additionally, cable gives a dependable signal. Note that this is not TCP/IP over ethernet, but a completly different protocol. What happens when you lose bandwith in your wireless connect? You'd get a click in the sound. That's speaker-wreckingly-ears-bleedingly unacceptable. 802.11 doesn't have badnwidth guarentes, whiles cable does (de facto, if not de jure - I don't know the ethernet spec well enough).
Re:I would take one in a second (Cheap CAT-5) (Score:2, Interesting)
I bet with Magic you'd have to buy special on-the road, 'professional' CAT-5 which would be far more expensive that a Whirlwind cable. I could see how going digital would be useful as a replacement to XLRs backstage tho.
Re:Digital can duplicate analog sound exactly. (Score:3, Interesting)
Does anyone still actually argue that analog is superior to digital?
Yup. Ever heard digital distortion? It's downright disgusting and would only be considered useful by certain Industrial-Noise outfits. My valve bass amp (Ampeg SVT) compresses as it reaches distortion, creating a fantastic sound.
On the synth front, my Korg Mono/Poly sounds far superior to the MS2000 digital synth that sits above it. Fuller bass sounds, more cutting leads and pad sounds that exude far more character and are so fat they need compression to fit in the mix.
On the drum machine front, it's more a matter of taste, but for me a Korg KPR-77 with everything but the kick run through a Roland RE501 tape echo sounds great.
Chris
I want it! (Score:2, Interesting)
"Fire Woman" coming at you from 12 different directions! A sea of fire, burning your soul. Then you play a few notes of "Telegraph Road" and the computer automagically switched to that ultraclean Mark Knopfler patch, reverbing around the countryside.
Then switch to Eric Johnson's "Trail of Tears". Eric used three completely different chains of effects and amps and danced on A/B switches while he played to achieve seamless tone changes. With Gibson's Magic, the computer can handle it.
And then imagine a guitar symphony version of the Music of the Ainur!
Damn, I'm creaming in my jeans over this.
Just imagine!
Re:But seriously (Score:3, Interesting)
Did you read the article? This will allow a lot of options, such as independant string processing, controlling remote equipment from the guitar, etc. If you're not a guitar player maybe this doesn't mean anything to you.
Not to say that there isn't a place for the good 'ol analog guitar, which will continue to be the mainstay of rock music. I sure won't be getting rid of mine.
Re:d/a converters. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:But seriously (Score:2, Interesting)
it might be able to process individual strings, but are the pickups able to pick up individual strings? if you mean making the guitar wireless, its already being done by connecting the guitar to a wireless microphone trasmitter. if you mean effects, i think pedals are good enough, since fiddling with buttons or knobs on your guitar to turn effects on or off would not be possible or convenient to do so whilst you're playing.
anyway unless the pickups become digital as well, the digital interface in between the analog pickups and analog speakers isn't going to do much. you might as well save the money you would spend on this gibson and buy some quality cables and pickups.
Cat5 cheaper? Not for long (Score:2, Interesting)
But hey, how long will it take Monster Cable to come out with an expensive "audiophile" and/or "guitar optimized"/"jazz optimized"/"bass optimized"/etc Cat5 cable to sell in the music stores? And how much longer before the guitar store zombies start adding "oh yeah dude my solos sound *so* much better with this cable yeah" to their spiel?
I actually spotted a Monster modem cable in the store - a 6-foot telephone cable which promised to improve my dial-up connections! Sheesh.
Re:Wireless? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Let's wait and see, it's Gibson after all (Score:3, Interesting)
Almost everyone in the music industry is well aware of Henry Juszkiewicz's history and do not put any faith in his gee-whiz high tech products. He is quickly becoming the laughingstock of the music business.
Pipe organists have faced this dilemma... (Score:1, Interesting)
You've heard of the plain, old-fashioned, analog pipe organ, haven't you? The kind they've been playing in Protestant churches for upwards of half a millenium? A pipe organ responds with as much as half a second of silence between the time the key is first pressed at the keyboard and the time the sound first emerges from the pipe. That's why great [or even competent] organists are so rare [by contrast with great, or even competent, pianists] - the organist has to anticipate everything the orchestra and the choir and the conductor will be doing about half a second in the future. It's damn near impossible to play the instrument, and if you listen closely to any work featuring an accompanied organ [Saint-Saens Sym. No. 3, Mahler Sym. No. 2], you'll realize that even the "greatest" organists in the world can't master the thing.
Re:I would take one in a second (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:But seriously (Score:2, Interesting)
The point? Let me conspiracy theory something up.
The point is the RIAA fears change. They see it coming. The big-name music making companies need to come up with a way to get free-music lovers back under control. I always feared the day I would need a license to play an old Metallica song through my own guitar. It seems, if that day is to come to pass, this is the perfect first step. Convince musicians that there's all kinds of good reasons to go fully digital. Soon, the amps go fully digital. Soon after that, there's a processor in your amp analyzing every note. Play the correct series and you are taxed by the RIAA for playing a cover song without prior written consent.
Sure, it's a crackpot theory, but what are the chances some RIAA good isn't salivating at the prospect of being able to crack down on illegal (i.e. unsponsored) guitar playing? Imagine if music itself becames outlawed. I fear the day my children are told that analog musical devices are no longer legal, because they cannot be properly monitored.