Electric Guitar Trends

I am surprised how much money people will pay for a set of vintage guitar tuners.  Those old Kluson Deluxe tuners did the job all right, but when it comes to guitar tuners we have come a long way since the 1960’s.

I have a Fendor Malibu acoustic, made circa 1966, and it has the double line Kluson Deluxe tuners.  They all still work after all these years, and I suppose that is quite an achievement.

However, you really have to tune from below to use these tuners, and the gear ratio means it can be physically hard to finesse the tuners to just the right spot.  Once the guitar is in tune, it does stay in tune quite well.

By the late 1980’s, electric guitar manufacturers began introducing locking tuners.  These tuners have a thumbwheel that when tightened, holds the guitar string firmly in place.  Locking tuners retain the normal tuning buttons, for tuning the string up to pitch.

Today, all tuners have higher gear ratios which makes them much easier to turn.  It also makes the guitar easier to tune in general: there is less gear lash and therefore less need to loosen the strings and tune from below.

In December 2007, Gibson introduced the Robot guitar, which actually tunes itself.  They use a tiny servo motor in each tuner, and a battery powered microprocessor to turn them to the right spot.  Gibson is now on its second generation Robot guitar, which has smaller, lighter tuners and longer battery life.

An important feature of the newest generation of Robot guitars is that they can adjust all 6 tuners at the same time. So the tuning happens fairly quickly.  Another feature is that alternate tunings, such as an E major tuning, can be selected at the twist of a dial.

Of course, all this technology comes at a price.  So, who should use this type of guitar?  A guitar player who needs to change tunings in the middle of a set.  If a song requires say, an Eb tuning for one song, the Robot guitar makes this doable, without have to carry, tune and prop up another guitar.

So, you can keep your vintage tuners.  To me, electric guitars are getting better all the time.