October 17, 2006 Gibson showcased its new Les Paul HD.6X-PRO Digital Guitar at the Audio Engineering Society (AES) Convention last week to much acclaim. In semi-public development for several years, the Gibson Digital Guitar is a genuine Gibson Les Paul, plus it uses digital technology. The best part of the Gibson Digital Guitar system is its delivery of signal processing on a string-by-string basis, providing unprecedented control with the ability to adjust volume, pan, equalization and the routing of each string individually. This means you can use a guitar amplifier for each string ... or record all six strings individually into a computer ... or send the six-string digital signal to a compatible guitar processor ... giving guitarists the ultimate flexibility for crafting their custom sound. Through Gibson's advanced technology, each string's signal is isolated, converted from analog to digital and routed individually, giving the player a myriad of live performance and recording options.
How it works: The Hex Pickup captures a separate signal for each individual string and sends it to the Onboard digital converter which uses Gibson's MaGIC digital transport technology to send the signal out of the guitar via the Cat-5 Ethernet Cable. The cable is capable of carrying the signal 100 meters with no latency or loss of quality and plugs into the breakout box, which converts the digital information back to analog and outputs it in Sum, Stereo or Hex configuration.
The Gibson Digital Guitar site can be found here.