Okay, boys and girls… After announcing this guitar over a year ago, Gibson has finally released the Firebird X er… system. Not just a guitar, this baby packs built-in effects, completely on/off switchable and coil-tapped pickups. It also includes a piezo pickup for getting an acoustic sound. But wait! There’s more! The pickups can be switched to run in series and parallel. But we won’t stop there! The on-board effects can be controlled by sliders on the upper bout of the body, and with the included switch pedal, you can activate those effects.
But just to make sure Gibson didn’t forget anything, they also include an expression pedal for the effects. By the way, the effects are all programmable via USB interface to a computer. Oh yeah… There’s also a boatload of software included.
Even the case is revolutionary (Gibson’s words). It’s lightweight, and includes the obligatory straps, but it’s strong enough to withstand a fall from a six-story building (I wonder if that’s with the guitar in it). 🙂 Oh! And let’s not forget the robot tuning system.
So what’ll all this cost? Supposedly, somewhere in the neighborhood of US$5500.
My thoughts? I’m not sure. It’s certainly very cool. All this in a 7 pound guitar! Wait! It’s not a guitar, it’s a system! 🙂
It certainly is a system, and mind you, I only mentioned a fraction of the features of this guit… er… system. The technology that has gone into it is pretty amazing in both breadth and depth. That, I can’t deny. And to have your pedalboard right in your guitar is pretty freakin’ cool – ala Matthew Bellamy of Muse.
There’s a part of me that says this screams of overkill. But on the other hand, it’s not as if this guitar will be a high-production model. It’s a limited edition. But who knows? If demand is high, Gibby may turn it into a sales platform.
Also, for myself, and myself only, I just want to play. I’m not sure that I’d want to spend a lot of time niggling over effects patches. And besides, though the effects may very well be good – perhaps even awesome – I’ve got the effects I like on my board, and for the most part, especially for my modulation effects, I rarely change where they’re set to (well… except for my Deep Blue Delay).
Don’t get me wrong. I’m really not trying to be cynical here, but something like this would take me awhile to dial in. Like I said, I’d rather pick up a guitar and just start playing, knowing what sounds the guitar will make.
Guitar Gear 
That’s way too much to pay for such an ugly guitar!
I’ve always dug the Firebird look myself, but I don’t think I could deal with all the hardware…
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This thing really freaks me out. I work as a software engineer, and I know how fragile software can be — regardless of how much effort in quality you put in. After all software development as a mainstream industry is less then 25 years old. So what happens when you have a bug in the code (and you will). Lets say you fall in love with this “system” — ten years of hard playing are you going to be able to get support for it? And what happens when you can’t get replacement parts for it?
The nice thing about a standard electric guitar is that it is a simple system, there is hardly anything that is unfixable by third part. We have guitars that have been around for 50 years and people can still plug them into the latest Mesa Boogie and they just work. I freer you won’t be able to say that about this guitar.
I am not against progress but when it comes to guitars, lets keep them as guitars not computers with strings attached. I mean really, what’s next – a guitar with a touch screen for the neck that has “virtual strings” ?
I’ll take a Gibson Les Paul, a Fender tweed amp, a Fulltone OCD and an analog delay pedal over a computer with strings any day. At least I’ll know the sound that comes out on the other end is created by me, and not some algorithm.
Or maybe I am just getting old and cranky 🙂
I see your point, but there are players out there that love this kind of stuff. I’m with you in that simpler is better, but this is similar to the folks who like artificially relic’d guitars. I personally can’t stand them (though I do have one that is slightly relic’d). But some of my friends totally dig that look.
That’s one hell of a guitar for one hell of a price. When I started to read the description, I thought of the Muse guitarist. I saw him on the TV then took a look at the gizmos built into his guitar and the price of them.
I’m with Vijay on this. If the board in that guitar fries, your left with $5500 of scrap.
I’ve got a DigiTech RP155 box. If that fries, I’ve still got my guitar. I can either live without it or buy a new one .