First of all I'd like to say I love Fender products, I actually own 3 and love them. I assure you I'm not a spambot!
My name is Chad, I'm a high school student and I'm conducting market research for my Engineering Design and Development class. I'm from Greenfield Indiana and me and my partners could really benefit from your guys help. We are currently developing a guitar that is capable of tuning itself and we need market research done to prove that our project is worth while. We would hope to have this product available at around 100 dollars on top of whatever the guitar's original price would be. If you would be so kind as to take a a second or two and answer the poll, you could provide very valuable information to our team and our project. Thank you guys very much!

-Chad

Ever hear of Gibson's "robo-tune" guitars?

They were all the rage when first released about three years ago.

Now you can't give them away.

Save yourself and your classmates some heartburn -- formulate a new business plan.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

If it really was only $100 more than the price of a normal guitar, then yes, provided that you don't make it as revolting as the gibson robots.

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Rated "M" for meaty.

a buddy of mine had a Gibson robot, it was neat but unnecessary. also it creates more parts and moving things that can go wrong. its not that time consuming or difficult to tune a guitar with a tuner. my father does it almost as fast with a pitch pipe

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Thanks for your feedback, would you guys care to elaborate on what made the Gibson robotuner so bad?

As far as the Gibson Robot goes there were numerous issues with the tuning machines. Many people claimed that once they had set the machines to manual they would not return to auto. There were also malfunctioning battery chargers that meant the electrical system was useless after the last charge had been exhausted. There were reports of lost rings, little parts that slipped over the strings and acted as an insulator that are not present in regular guitars. They are small and easy to miss if one falls to the floor during a string changing. Once the rings are lost the tuning system would not function. Other users complained that the control knob that was to be pulled out to engage the system would easily pull right off the guitar without ever turning the system on. There were reports of broken or malfunctioning knobs.

Probably the largest issue was a complete failure on the part of Gibson to provide some semblance of support for the owners of these fragile instruments. To my knowledge Gibson still does not supply replacement parts for these guitars and requires the owner to return the guitar to a specialized service depot. I believe there are 4 of those in USA.

There were also other issues not related to reliability but rather to quality. The self intonation system was a little too coarse. It would get the guitar close to properly intonated but not to the degree of accuracy most guitarists with a decent ear would be happy with. Also Gibson's promised tuning accuracy was hotly disputed. The company claimed the guitar would self tune within less than one cent variation but that was frequently not the case. Many people reported checking the guitar and found it to be as much as 3 cents out after tuning at the slow and accurate setting. As Gibson tends to expose themselves to ridicule anyway by doing stupid crap on a semi-regular basis they also became targets of criticism for claiming they had invented the auto-tuning guitar when other systems had preceded them.

I have not cruised the Gibson forums in some time but I am sure most of them will have discussions on these shortcomings somewhere in the archives.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

When Gibson came out with their self-tuning guitars a couple of years ago I went on the Gibson forum and posed the question what would people do and how much would it cost to get their guitars fixed when the warranty was up,and got a verbal assault like you wouldn't believe.The thing is that sadly people are finding out that when they have problems with the guitars it usually involves sending it to the factory at their own expense after the warranty is up and then having to pay repair costs on top of that.

I think that since most people who play guitar know how to tune them ,I doubt very much if any of them would spend $100 more for the guitar to do what they can do in seconds.Since most people who can't tune a guitar are young beginners I don't think that many of them would have the $100 needed for the self-tuner.

How do you plan to service this equipment after the warranty is up?Will you supply technical support and schematics for techs and DIY guys or will people have to send their defective product back to your facility for repair?

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.