The world’s first self-tuning guitar was unveiled to the public in London on Monday — an instrument that automatically detects when a string has fallen out of pitch and corrects it.
The Gibson Robot Guitar was unveiled to the public by Mike Peters, lead singer and guitarist from the Alarm, the biggest band to come out of Wales in the 1980s and famous for rock anthem Sixty-Eight Guns.
Guitar-maker Gibson, based in Nashville, Tennessee, promises that the instrument, whose technology has been 10 years in the making, will ”change the guitar world forever” when it goes on sale around the world on Friday.
It will retail in Britain for £1 400. Ten first-run limited editions in the Blue Silverburst Les Paul model will be available in each Gibson store worldwide.
The regular model hits the shops in the New Year.
In an interview on the firm’s website, inventor Chris Adams, who hit on the idea after becoming frustrated by constant manual tuning, described it as the ”Mercedes of guitars”.
He said the self-tuning device was already being used by guitarists such as Billy Corgan, from the Smashing Pumpkins, and Matt Bellamy, from Muse, while the Who strummer Pete Townshend was intrigued.
Fans of Gibson guitars include Slash from Guns N’ Roses, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, Lenny Kravitz, Eric Clapton, Paul Weller and Paul McCartney. — Sapa-AFP