The ULTIMATE in "Lazy Guitarist" Gear!!!

I rather tune the guitar and I got a Snark. Instead of $300 extra for the guitar, I paid $15 and it does not take that long to tune up anyway for me.
 
I rather have more guitar, but I do with the Gibson I have anyway. Spent the extra on an Amp that isn't necessarily the norm either, but some people like it.
 

Played an outside gig Saturday (hot as Hades)...
Had some issues getting my guitar (Floyd Rose) to stay in tune.
Min Etune would be cool for playing live.
Quickly moving to drop D and back, etc.  (If not careful, tuning can really slow down the pace.)
I'm thinking about getting a SG with Min Etune.

Check'd it out today.
Min Etune works very well.
Super quick.... and the tuning was tight.

Nice.
 
I really liked the illuminated knob on the robotuner prototype guitars, but putting everything on the back of the headstock does make a lot of sense as it makes it retro-fittable as well as applicable to other peghead layouts, e.g.:
 
http://www.gizmag.com/min...ne-robot-tuners/27155/
 
http://www.tronical.com/tronicaltune/
 
While the Roland V-Guitar systems have offered "virtual" alternate tuning capabilities, it can be a bit of a hassle and doesn't necessarily sound all that great. Now I'm wondering whether the Min-etune could be used for 'B-bender' and pedal steel type tuning tricks.

Hi Mike,
 
I believe it uses vibration to sense pitch (polyphonic).
You strum all strings once... and then you typically have to pluck one or two strings to fine tune them.
When I demo'd, I had to fine tune to the B and high E.
 

Rep was at our office this week demoing the Peavey At-200. I was skeptical, but in the final analysis this guitar turned out to be quite playable with a variety of tunings and good tones that include a realistic acoustical sound. Priced at $499 right now with the expansion kit free during July. Might be worth a look at your local dealer if your looking for this type of guitar.
 
 
 

@Mike: I personally don't need either of these guitars at the moment. Saying that, I would also welcome both to the rack if that changed. We are at the cusp of what's coming in the future. I'm glad I had the chance to try one out - it's much better than my skeptical mind thought it would be.

Hey Mike,
 
I realize many guitarists are in tune... regardless of conditions.   :)
Some guitars (Les Paul and other fixed tail units in particular) are much better in this regard.
Dealing with moving to/from drop D can *really* slow down the pace/momentum of a show.
Even if you try to group those tunes together...

As for how the headstock-mounted Min-etune/Tronical system detects the strings' pitches, the tuning machines obviously must incorporate some sensor technology which senses each string's vibration and transduces it into an electrical signal which is sent to the control unit and processed for pitch detection and compared with reference frequencies, based upon which the tuning machines are driven to adjust the string tensioning.
 
Btw, I believe Gibson's original robot-tuning system used the guitar's pickup for pitch detection, so the shift to a headstock system no doubt required a bit of development in order for the motorized tuning machines to be able to reliably sense each string's pitch across the nut (and string trees). Although I suppose it's also possible that the system senses the headstock vibration and isolates each string's pitch through DSP filtering rather than employing sensors in each tuning machine.
 
The Peavey/Antares auto-tuning is "virtual" using DSP rather than actually phsically varying the string tension, similar to what Roland's V-Guitar systems have already been implementing since the 1990s. Just do a search on "VG-8" and "Joni Mitchell".