Gibson HD 6X Pro Digital Guitar (Image courtesy Popular Science)
By Andrew Liszewski

Since I don’t know of a professional studio out there that doesn’t rely on digital technology these days for the recording and mastering processes it seems odd to me that analog pickups and mics are still a common means for recording instruments. Now I realize that most instruments are analog in nature but the sooner you can get that sound converted to a digital signal the cleaner it’s going to be in the end.

Gibson seems to be heading in the right direction with their new HD 6X Pro electric guitar. First off the most important aspect is that the guitar is a traditional Les Paul design so that the musician doesn’t have to compromise by playing on some weird digital hybrid. The pickups on the HD 6X are a new ‘Hex’ system designed by Gibson that uses 6 small humbuckers positioned under each string at the bridge that send 6 individual signals to studio-grade preamps allowing them to be immediately digitized.

These digital signals are then sent to a BoB (break out box) via a special ethernet port designed by Gibson called ‘MaGIC’ that can carry up to 32 bi-directional channels of audio over a single cable. The BoB can then be connected to a multi-channel sound card where the guitar can be recorded with a piece of professional software such as Cakewalk SONAR which is included with the instrument.

The Gibson HD 6X is available now and retails for about $5,000.

[ Gibson HD 6X Pro ] VIA [ Popular Science ]

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8 COMMENTS

  1. hehehe
    all very nice to read about recording convenience etc, but what about teh guitarists?

    What do they say about this after playing thru … If its conveience because of digital signal, then that can be done at processor level too, when the analog signal goes to the processor like Line 6 POD, where you can take teh digital signal out via USB.

    In any case, analog equipment holds a special place in most musicians heart, I dont think you can take that away :p

  2. Many other brands as Godin for example have instruments with an hexaphonic pickup that let record or process each string individualy, with a considerable low price than gibson.
    The problem is that de “original” sound of an electrical stringed instrument is formed by the addition of the imperfections that the aplification systems produce, then if you purge all this imperfections and process each string separately you obtain a electronic keyboard with the shape of a guitar.
    ?Is that what guitar players (or bass players, etc) want? Sometimes yes, but sometimes they want that dirty and imperfect analog sound, beacause our ears are analog too…

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