Jump to content
Gibson Brands Forums

Min-Etune: Pros and Cons


PelhamBlueFire

Recommended Posts

Hello everyone,

 

 

I just joined the Gibson forum a few days ago and my English sucks, so bear with me. This is my very first thread, aside from my introduction. I will briefly talk about my Gibson guitars, and then I will into the Min-Etune system.

 

First, I bought the briljant SG in the classic Heritage Cherry finish. Awesome guitar, that just fit me like a glove. Soon after I bought my SG, I started to see the line-up of 2015, and I hated it. I thought to myself, "I don't know what Gibson is turning towards, but I need to get my les Paul right here and now." I dislike all the extra bells and whistles of the 2015 guitars, so I made a decision to get the Les Paul (Heritage Cherry Sunburst), as well. Needless to say, I am very happy with what I got. My Gibson guitars are both Standards from this year, so they both have Min-Etune...which I'd like to discuss here.

 

 

Pros

1. Alternate tunings

Min-Etune makes life a lot easier when it comes to alternate tunings. If personally found it opened up options for me to do a lot more songs, because I don't need to have multiple guitars. Before I bought my Gibsons, I only had a single Fender Stratocaster at one point, thanks to another Fender getting destroyed at a gig. Therefore, I couldn't play certain songs anymore. I have always been a massive fan of slide-tunings like open-G and open-E, and I'd have one guitar tuned to that tuning, whilst my main guitar (Strat) was tuned to a standard-E tuning. Now, I am more into alternate tunings then ever. I am more prone to search for songs in certain tunings, versus before when I was more restricted. For instance, Led Zeppelin's Kashmir was always quite difficult for me to do, because I didn't have three guitars. Now, I don't need to have as many guitars.

 

 

2. Speed and useful for live situations

As I said before, the Min-Etune allows me to have one guitar and I can play all night or day on it. Bear in mind, I'm not a professional musician or super skilled. I always relied on a Chromatic Boss pedal for tuning, so I am naturally not great at tuning guitars quickly on the ear alone. Therefore, I am not the best when it comes to tuning. And frankly, I'd much rather strum all the strings and let the Min-ETune system do it for me when I have to go from Standard-E to open-G or DADGAD. I view the Min-Etune as a comfort feature, and I use it accordingly. Some might say, what a cheap thing. But I just try to make the most out of it, since I couldn't buy the guitars without the system to begin with. I will get into this lack of choice later on.

 

3. User-defined bank

I like the fact that you have a complete bank to fill with your own tunings. Recently, a friend asked me along to do a brief gig, during which we played a lot of Goo Goo Dolls songs. I brought my Gibson Les Paul, and I filled that user-bank with all kinds of the funky tunings that John Rzeznik uses. Since every song basically meant I needed to tune the guitar, I could do so in a heartbeat. Very useful.

 

4. Easy to take off the guitar

From what I have been told, you can remove the whole thing rather easily. Therefore, no holes will be in your guitar after removing the Min-Etune. There are no wires leading up to the neck, which was the case in the past with other guitar that had a similar tuningsystem.

 

 

Cons

1. Weight on the headstock

This is mainly noticable on the SG, because its body is a lot lighter than the Les Paul. Therefore, there's less counter-balance. My SG's neck tends to "dive" a lot, whenever I'm sitting with it. I prefer to put a strap on, and just stand with the guitar, frankly.

 

 

2. Lack of choice

Customers deserve a choice. I see that the Min-Etune gets a lot of hate all around the internet, and I think a large part of that has to do with choice, or lack thereof. New technology shouldn't be forced upon customers. I'm a guy that likes features like this on a guitar, because it makes my life easier and I like to explore alternate tunings since it's relatively new to me. But other, more traditional, players will just want a great sounding guitar with no bells and whistles. And I get and respect that, too. Some people like the Kluson tuners, others might prefer locking tuners. Again, this should be optional, as well.

 

3. Manual tuning is quite weird

I have tried manual tuning on my Min-Etune guitars, and it feels really, really weird. In fact, I think it's better to either use the system, or to get it off and to buy different (locking) tuners.

 

 

That's it for now. Please, feel free to discuss this with me.

 

 

Cheers

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

.

Here's a good study on the Min-Etune/Gforce system by Searcy posted in the Lounge - http://forum.gibson.com/index.php?/topic/116473-ntd/

 

Regarding the weight, I'll quote Searcy - "Ok, here's another interesting figure pertaining to the weight of the Min-eTune system. If you like Grovers they weigh in at 46g. That makes for a total of 276g for the set. So if the claimed weight of the robotuners is correct the Min-eTune actually weighs less that the Grovers. When I change strings later this week I'll weigh the min-etune system to check the claim of 244g is correct. Seems unlikly to me."

 

 

.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

.

Here's a good study on the Min-Etune/Gforce system by Searcy posted in the Lounge - http://forum.gibson.com/index.php?/topic/116473-ntd/

 

Regarding the weight, I'll quote Searcy - "Ok, here's another interesting figure pertaining to the weight of the Min-eTune system. If you like Grovers they weigh in at 46g. That makes for a total of 276g for the set. So if the claimed weight of the robotuners is correct the Min-eTune actually weighs less that the Grovers. When I change strings later this week I'll weigh the min-etune system to check the claim of 244g is correct. Seems unlikly to me."

 

 

.

Thanks! I really want to know what your findings are, okay?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I am 100% against these auto tuners being standard on a guitar. Optional is fine but I am one of those people that would never buy a guitar with one of these. I feel that this is something that caters to the lazy guitar player (mostly anyway). I can tune a guitar myself and if you are playing a show that uses multiple tunings, either tuning your guitar or changing to a guitar tuned properly is part of the performance. Anyway, just my 2 cents.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am 100% against these auto tuners being standard on a guitar. Optional is fine but I am one of those people that would never buy a guitar with one of these. I feel that this is something that caters to the lazy guitar player (mostly anyway). I can tune a guitar myself and if you are playing a show that uses multiple tunings, either tuning your guitar or changing to a guitar tuned properly is part of the performance. Anyway, just my 2 cents.

Well, I guess you make a couple of valid points. Although, you are a little too quick with calling people that use this "lazy." People that don't own a lot of guitars, or people that aren't that swift with tuning a guitar as we are, benefit from a fast and accurate system like min-Etune on stage...when you got through lot of different tunings. I like the system for its speed, accuracy, and the fact it makes tuning the guitar to alternate tunings that much easier.

 

But standard tuning, drop D, and E flat...that stuff I do by hand, and I can do it quickly, because of the fact I learned to do this when I still played Fenders a lot. I make great use of the "user bank" of the Min-Etune system, because of the weird tunings I sometimes find myself in for particular songs. I am one of the guys that likes to fool around with the Min-Etune quite a bit, and I just have lots of fun with it.

 

As for choice, well, I couldn't agree more. People should - always - have a choice. Forcing this upon players that hate this kind of system, is a big mistake. Next year, they're right back at it. No options, no choice...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just throwing this out here... my only real experience with both the Min-Etune and the new G-Force is playing them in the store.

 

First time I picked up an SG, with the Min-Etune. It would not tune for two whole minutes. Yes, I checked. The D and high E string completely baffled it. I had to resort to isolating those two strings and letting it think for a while.

 

The second Min-Etune I tried, wouldn't turn on.

 

The G-Force I tried same issue as the Min-Etune, hates the D and high E. It came up saying it was tuned, I strummed a chord and don't know wth it thought it was playing, not the chord I strummed. I turned the tuner back on and it started its little dance again. This time I got it right. My favorite song to check the ability to hold tune on the G-String... simple Cat Scratch Fever. Starts out in G string bend and you put that G string, thru some good power strumming and bends. When my strings start going bad, its always the first song that sounds like dog poo, so I always try it out on anything I play. First bend, its out of tune. I hit the G-Force again, it does its little dance. I try again. The damn guitar, just won't hold tune. It was all at the nut. I gave it 3 tries and back on the wall it went.

 

I picked up a LP with the Min-Etune and this time, it tuned right up, held tune and when it eventually lost tuning (guitar store strings always suck the life out of the guitar)... it would nail it back, pretty fast.

 

That's pretty pisspoor (non)working tech, imo.

 

None of them were faster than me, with the little tuner on my amp, pedal or clip-on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just throwing this out here... my only real experience with both the Min-Etune and the new G-Force is playing them in the store.

 

First time I picked up an SG, with the Min-Etune. It would not tune for two whole minutes. Yes, I checked. The D and high E string completely baffled it. I had to resort to isolating those two strings and letting it think for a while.

 

The second Min-Etune I tried, wouldn't turn on.

 

The G-Force I tried same issue as the Min-Etune, hates the D and high E. It came up saying it was tuned, I strummed a chord and don't know wth it thought it was playing, not the chord I strummed. I turned the tuner back on and it started its little dance again. This time I got it right. My favorite song to check the ability to hold tune on the G-String... simple Cat Scratch Fever. Starts out in G string bend and you put that G string, thru some good power strumming and bends. When my strings start going bad, its always the first song that sounds like dog poo, so I always try it out on anything I play. First bend, its out of tune. I hit the G-Force again, it does its little dance. I try again. The damn guitar, just won't hold tune. It was all at the nut. I gave it 3 tries and back on the wall it went.

 

I picked up a LP with the Min-Etune and this time, it tuned right up, held tune and when it eventually lost tuning (guitar store strings always suck the life out of the guitar)... it would nail it back, pretty fast.

 

That's pretty pisspoor (non)working tech, imo.

 

None of them were faster than me, with the little tuner on my amp, pedal or clip-on.

Interestingly, I have been hearing this too. Some people seem to have poor luck with their particular system. Mine work just fine, but I'm starting to wonder if I got the luck of the draw when it came to my Min-Etune guitars; if that's true, then that's pretty awful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The first time I ever tried the Min-Etune system I didn't understand the frequency rage limitations it had and thought it didn't work properly. I ended up breaking a string on the Les Paul I was testing out. Now that I have a better understanding of how they work I can get the to tune to perfect pitch in less than 60 seconds.

 

I feel there is a very small learning curve when using this system. If you understand it it's easy to get it to work perfectly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Umm...Guys...

 

Mini-tune/G-force IS optional.

 

If you have a guitar with it and you want it off, you take it off and put on tuners of choice. Simple as that. It's a free country.

 

The problem is that Gibson raised the price on all of their guitars partly to compensate for the higher costing G-Force tuners. They then have to be removed and additional money has to be spent for a set of solidly built traditional tuners. If someone wants to pay a higher amount for these gimmicky plastic tuners, then so be it. But why should they be forced on everyone only to be sold on Ebay or thrown in the trash?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The problem is that Gibson raised the price on all of their guitars partly to compensate for the higher costing G-Force tuners. They then have to be removed and additional money has to be spent for a set of solidly built traditional tuners. If someone wants to pay a higher amount for these gimmicky plastic tuners, then so be it. But why should they be forced on everyone only to be sold on Ebay or thrown in the trash?

 

The price was raised to cover not just the G Force but better finishes on the lower end models, hard cases on all models, thicker solid wood finger boards, titanium saddles and brass nuts.

 

But options are good and I'm here to solve all your problems. If you really don't like the GForce I'll trade you a new set of Grovers of Gibson Deluxe tuners for the one you take off your new Gibson. [thumbup]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

The price was raised to cover not just the G Force but better finishes on the lower end models, hard cases on all models, thicker solid wood finger boards, titanium saddles and brass nuts.

 

But options are good and I'm here to solve all your problems. If you really don't like the GForce I'll trade you a new set of Grovers of Gibson Deluxe tuners for the one you take off your new Gibson. [thumbup]

The fingerboards come in thick and have to be finished to usable thickness and shape. Less material removed should be cheaper!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They all have to be thinned and finished. Milling a 16th off of the blanks dosnt save anymore time than milling an 8th off of it. It does cost you more in material though to make them thicker and wider. Then the new fret boards are finished. All said and done it costs more to make the new fretboards.

 

Then there's the mother of pearl inlays.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...