(Source: Gibson)

Although the auction for this NBA Finals-themed Gibson Les Paul electric guitar started last month, there are sure to be those who haven’t checked out this autographed customised donation-aimed guitar. That’s one long phrase, eh?

Besides being only 1 of 2 made by Gibson, this nickle-plated parts guitar (which includes ‘57 Classic pickups BTW) will feature autographs by at least 7 big NBA names, including but not exclusive to Dwayne Wade, Clyde Drexler and Tim Hardaway. Special feature-wise, you’re looking an an ABR Tune-o-matic bridge and Grover Rotomatic machine heads.

If you’re interested, you’re going have to fork out at least US$4,400 as that’s the current bid on the guitar with around 4 and a half days to go. Bid increments are at US$50, and the proceeds of this auction will go to charities supported by NBA Cares. To bid, visit NBA Auctions’ website.

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(Source: Gear Live)

While guitar gear has been improving steadily over the years, with a few cool innovations stepping in from time to time, guitars themselves have barely changed since a decade ago. Indeed, in most cases, you wouldn’t want anything to change. Heck, there’s really nothing to improve on an acoustic.

And you could argue that manufacturers have at least been trying to improve electric guitars - improving tone, comfort, style, and more. But electrics still have a lot of room for improvement, and we’ve seen nothing really groundbreaking, until recently that is - when the Gibson Digital Guitar was unveiled.

It is the very first electric guitar to feature an on-board Ethernet port - allowing digital output to be sent to digital applications, e.g. digital recording apps or even internet streaming. And that’s not all. Gibson has attempted to go even further with its MaGIC (Media-accelerated Global Information Carrier) protocol, which will allow bi-directional transfer of data over a conventional Ethernet cable.

While there’s no ETA on the commercial release of this guitar, it is surely an indicator of the future of electric guitars. No longer will guitarists be limited by analog signals. Ten years from now, techy guitarists won’t be able to live without their digital guitars the same way techy pianists are inseparable from their digital keyboards now.

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(Source: CNET News.com)

Well, it seems that the Performer automatic tuning system has been ported over to acoustic guitars, namely the Gibson Chet Atkins SST. Previously, it was exclusive to electrics, such as Gibson’s Les Paul and Fender’s Stratocaster and Telecaster electric guitars.

The Performer self-tuning system consists of small electric motors and rocker arms that automatically change the tension of open strings to pitches set by the player. So, all you need to do is to tune your guitar once (and fix it as your preset), and the system will automatically tune it for you the next time (and the time after, etc.).

Pretty time and effort-saving if you ask me, but I’m not sure if something as “sacred” as tuning your own guitar should be substituted by electronics. Call me a technophobe, but I feel some things should be kept old-school.

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