November 30, 2005

Internet Tele

I think Sugarchuck will forgive me if I call him a luddite He'd drive 300 miles to get a pair of EV34 tubes or some original 1948 wire to wrap pickups, but wasn't sure about computers and such.

He confessed that he has finally joined been assimilated into the iPod culture. It's a slippery slope, friend. It starts with an iPod, but then descends to a Fender Telecaster with an "Intel Equipped" logo:

18 November 2005 - Intel has created probably the world’s first super-charged guitar that will allow you to surf the web in-between songs.

The company has teamed up with Fender to create a concept guitar that explores the possibilities and redefines the term ‘music on the move’ – an internet-enabled super guitar.

Beginning with the iconic FENDER Telecaster - made famous by legends from Bruce Springsteen to Franz Ferdinand – the ‘surf guitar’ is the world’s first to allow you to download and playback your favourite riffs from the Internet without touching the strings, so you can sound like Bo Diddley while doing diddly-squat.


Fight it. Fight it hard.

On the web Posted by jk at November 30, 2005 2:54 PM

If the fingerboard was perhaps magetized in someway so that they would "pulldown" the strings to the correct note, that would be cool.

Kind of like a player piano.

But otherwise, it looks like a six-string PDA, and nowhere near as portable or useful.

Just because you can put a computer in it, doesn't mean you should.

Like my toilet.

Posted by: AlexC at November 30, 2005 3:16 PM

I was going to email this to you, now I see I don't have to. Great, now concerts will have pauses while the band checks their email. Franz Ferdinand is a legend already?

Posted by: Silence Dogood at November 30, 2005 3:34 PM

When I think of "legendary" tele players, Bruce Springteen is a ways down the list and Franz didn't quite make my list at all -- should I know him?

Roy Buchannan Albert Lee. Keith Richards even.

Posted by: jk at November 30, 2005 3:52 PM

...and if you don't like your computerized toilet, maybe you should have gotten the 800MHz bus...

Posted by: jk at November 30, 2005 3:54 PM

I am a luddite, no debate there. I do think that putting a computer in a telecaster is rubbish, and like JK, I wouldn't call Springtseen, or that other guy (guys?) a telemaster. But... I am very impressed with the technology used to recreate amps for recording. Pete Anderson, a true master of the telecaster, recorded his last few projects with an Amp Farm Deluxe Reverb sample and he sounded great. Jim Keltner proved, so many years ago, on Ry Cooder's Get Rhythm cd that even the dreaded drum machine can be a wonder in the right hands. My complaints with Pro Tools are all based on the producer, not the technology (if you can abide the lyrics, listen to the sound of a Steve Earle record to see how compatible state of the art technnology is with roots music). I guess in the end, computers don't kill music, people do.

Posted by: Sugarchuck at December 1, 2005 9:34 AM

Sometimes, the wrong technology makes it worse, and better technology makes it better.

To the ThreeSources engineering division: Leo Fender and his ilk created guitar sounds with very bad analog circuitry. I've seem good analog guys cry over transgressions in Leo's hand drawn schematics. For years, solid state attempts to create these pleasing sounds failed miserably.

Now, folks are using DSP to recreate these. I use a Pod for recording that allows me to select which amp and which speaker cabinet and it faithfully recreates even the hysterisis on the controls. Amazing stuff.

These have rescued recording, which has a tough time reproducing those odd tones. For live tone, it's still voodoo and karma.

Posted by: jk at December 1, 2005 10:44 AM | What do you think? [6]