http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/05/04/digital.guitar.ap/index.html

Hope that's not gonna throw all the buffers for a loop (pun intended) :lol:
Great..... no more picks to buy, just use an optical mouse :shock: . ...Whole lotta love. Will it crash if you plug it into a Cyber-Twin? Enough..time to go to bed.

I remember seeing that several months ago, and they invited Slash to the premier... :?

The odd thing about it, and I quote:

"The digital guitar uses computer chips to clean up the signal"..why would I want a cleaner Les Paul?

The cool stuff:
"It also allows the player to control the sound of each string. For example, the guitarist can have a heavy metal crunch on the low strings, medium distortion on the middle strings and a clean sound on the high strings."

this is just my opinion, so don't come screaming about it

At least this time they did some innovative wiring...each string gets different processing...at least it's clever...
 Anything that has the letters Digi in it, is immediately suspect...lol.
 After all it IS a "Gibson'.

well, but isn't it what the Roland virtual pickup already does?
doesn't seem to me much an innovation

I would jump on the bandwagon.  I'm a electronics techno geek.  The thing I love about it is that they aren't trying to use their technology to emulate some classic, or make it an "all guitars in one" type thing.

You just need to look at it as a totally different instrument.  It's like the difference between an electric guitar and an acoustic guitar.  If you still want the classic good ol' Gibson Les Paul PAF sound, then go buy one.  If you want something that does something different, try one of these.

I don't have enough money to do get one of these, but I would add it to my collection if I had time.  I can see it being a very versatile instrument if one learns how to use it well.

More technology = degraded sound.
More technology used artfully = enhanced sound

I've always been a big fan of technology and music - I love synths, love effects (digital and analog), was an EARLY adopter of hard-disk recording, etc...

But I've yet to find any kind of hi-tech guitar stuff that really blows me away (unless you're TRYING to not sound like a guitar)..

SO far, if I want a known guitar tone - the best way to get it is still GUITAR->AMP and sometimes pedals in between.   I just can't imagine a modeled anything sounding as good as the real thing, and that's not elitist snobbery - it's just that until I can be fooled by a blindfold test, I don't buy it.

That said - I'd love to play with one to see what it can do.
"-)

PS - the Kramer Ripley stereo guitar had the ability to have separate pan and volume for each string - going to a stereo output...

I'm not too impressed... I'm not fond of modelling or digital effects, though I have a solid-state amp with built in effects (shame on me, but the distortion sounds damn good). Some people will like it, others won't. I think there may be a market, but it won't involve me.

The man himself....

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Monitor/6454/

can you say Quadraphonic?

i think it'll bomb.  just my opinion.

thats the one that uses CAT5 cable right ?

Network administrator by day, rock star by night!

Someone wrote about this pickup per string method in GP mag a long long time ago.
 Not digital, but a six way pickup, a coil for each string and related cablery, probably something that was thought of when designing the very first electromagnetic guitar pickups.
 Obvious enough...for something to do that's different, alot of messing around...one reason for the Digital besides cost is that it probably all goes through a 'regular' guitar cable?
 Not being the one to care about these things first, I didn't read past the basic concept on this unit.

No thanks...I'll pass...looks like nothing more to me than something to make lazy guitarists even LAZIER.

:wink:

Although it is an interesting idea nonetheless.

Lazy? Sounds to me like a whole lotta work.think about it: You're at a gig, switching between songs. You need distortion on the lower three strings. but you want your highs crisp and sparkly. So here you go down to the floor. Select low E, distortion. You do the same another 2 times for the A and D strings. What a bunch of work. No, I prefer to just stomp on a distortion box and be done with it

Nice idea but what makes this worth the extra $1300?

Hex pickups have been with us for some time already.  I'm a midi guitarist since the early 90s(my original midi setup was a photon pickup mounted on an Ibanez Artist Series guitar) and a digital guitarist(VG88) more recently.  The first application that I know of for hex pickups was an attempt to deliver less clumpy distortion.  I read about it in an Anderton book called Guitar Gadgets or something.  The ripley stereo guitar used a divided pickup for a slightly different purpose, as MarkB has already mentioned and its named suggests, to create an unusual stereo image for guitar.  

Hex pickups have gradually improved with time.  Now you no longer have to buy Roland products if you don't want to.  RMC, LR Baggs, Gibson and even Graphtech are getting into the game.  Seperate processing for each string can also be accomplished with RMC piezos and a fanout box they are now making.  With more and more guitars including piezos these days(that's about half of the hardware you need to do standardized 13 pin digital/midi stuff)  it's possible that we're a very short step away from seeing an explosion in this stuff.  

All this new technology is not necessarily an either or proposition.  I like the traditional electric guitar sounds but I expect a little something extra thanks to my midi guitar background.  I love digital stuff but it can never replace a quality instrument with good tonewoods of your own selection and old fashioned magnetic pickups.  IMHO nothing beats the funk tone I can get the traditional way(I hate the fact that my VG88 can't reproduce the funk tones that I like) or the sound of a good fuzz face into a screaming marshall amp.  Heck a good fuzz face into a good emulation of a marshall is pretty cool too...  :lol:  heheheh.  Try a parallel traditional + digital setup and tell me you can't imagine the possibilites.  You may decide it's not your cup of tea but then again it may get you pretty jazzed.