This robot rocks

Dark Fire, the newly launched red robot guitar by Gibson, burned up Beijing at its unveiling last Thursday night. Gibson released just 2,000 of these high-tech $2500 models in 400 outlets across the globe on December 15, 2008. Barely a year after the release of the self-tuning Robot Guitar in 2007, the company announced its 2nd generation technology with Dark Fire, which incorporates an upgraded robot tuning system and adds a piezo-neck pickup system to let the player blend acoustic and electric sounds for a much broader tonal range. It can tune itself in just seconds and needs just one axe for a whole gig.

Humidity, heat, set-up and hard playing can cause subtle changes to the length and tension of guitar strings, so players have to keep making adjustments to keep them perfectly in tune. And there are few things more aggravating to even an average ear than a guitar that's just not quite tuned.

The auto-tuning system looks great and is easy to operate; pull out the control knob, select which one of the available tunings you want to use, Open E, Drop D, Open G, Hendrix tuning or Double Dropped D, then let go with your left hand and strum the open strings.