In defence of Min-eTune (sort of)

Stuckfast

I've seen a lot of people here and elsewhere saying how much they hate the Tronical Tune / Gibson Min-eTune system. I'm going to come right out and say I love it. Yes you have to learn a few obscure sequences of button presses, and re-stringing a guitar takes longer, but ultimately it just seems like a logical progression from using a digital tuner. Plus the machine heads are geared incredibly low, so manual fine tuning is more accurate. The only thing I really dislike about it (as someone who mainly plays acoustic) is that it doesn't work with capos.

What am I missing that's so terrible about it? I've not tried the Gibson version, is it less good than the Tronical one?

I'm quite tempted to pick up one of the Gibson models that has it fitted, if they're still going cheap.

stratman3142

The e-tune system was fitted to my Les Paul 2014, but I ended up replacing the tuners with Grover Rotogrip 502C - locking machine heads.

I wanted to like the e-tune system and it's a clever piece of engineering. I changed because:
1) If I wanted to correct the tuning of a single string on the fly it was too slow and far quicker for me to do it by ear.
2) Following on from point 1, the fact that the tuners had to be manually rotated in the opposite direction on one side was very confusing on the spur of the moment.
3) I found changing strings too fiddly.
4) I wasn't keen on the string locking method which I found awkward.
5) I can see that it might be useful if you use a lot of altered tunings, but I only use a drop D on rare occasions.

Ravenous

The thing I want to know is - in a few years' time when the battery pack starts to fail, can you replace it?  (I'm assuming these things have some sort of rechargeable pack, and we all know rechargeables lose their "vigour" eventually.)

Stuckfast

Actually my main gripe so far is to do with reliability. The battery pack has been fine -- and it only rarely needs to be recharged unless you change strings a lot -- but I've had to replace two of the machine heads. It seems they seize up so that although they still work automatically, you can no longer turn them manually. But I've had it for nearly five years now.

WezV

Manually tuning the thing once was enough to convince me I didn't want to do it again.  Other than that I have no real issues with the system

rlw

Ravenous said:

The thing I want to know is - in a few years' time when the battery pack starts to fail, can you replace it?  (I'm assuming these things have some sort of rechargeable pack, and we all know rechargeables lose their "vigour" eventually.)

Unless you play absolutely every day, and use many different tunings, the battery will stay charged for a couple of months.  Even over ten years, you are unlikely to charge it more than a hundred times.

WezV

rlw said:

Ravenous said:

The thing I want to know is - in a few years' time when the battery pack starts to fail, can you replace it?  (I'm assuming these things have some sort of rechargeable pack, and we all know rechargeables lose their "vigour" eventually.)

Unless you play absolutely every day, and use many different tunings, the battery will stay charged for a couple of months.  Even over ten years, you are unlikely to charge it more than a hundred times.

And the options to go back to normal tuners doesn't go away - its not like you would be out of options and have to throw the guitar away

Philly_Q

I've only tried the original Gibson/Tronical "Robot" tuners from 2008 - with a lot of electronic gubbins in and on the guitar body as well as on the headstock - and although it works reasonably well I just can't see the point of it.  It doesn't make tuning the guitar any quicker or easier.  The proverbial sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

And as for SGs being neck heavy - this takes it to a whole new level.

Stuckfast

The current Tronical models are the same weight as conventional machine heads, though I guess not as light as open-gear ones.

jimmyguitar

They look terrible and it's trying to fix a problem which doesn't exist. Tuning a guitar is a piece of piss!

Stuckfast

Why do I hear so many out of tune guitars then?

mart

Stuckfast said:

... I've had to replace two of the machine heads. It seems they seize up ...

Have you tried changing your username and seeing if that helps?

ICBM

Stuckfast said:

Why do I hear so many out of tune guitars then?

Because so many guitarists don't learn how to string and tune their guitars properly, and some guitars are set up badly so they don't play in tune even when that's done right.

I can just about see the point of this if you're changing tunings a lot, but given the reports of failures (I've seen one personally too - one string kept detuning) I wouldn't trust it on a gigging guitar without a backup, and if you're going to do that you may as well take two guitars in different tunings… OK, if you're using more than two tunings it perhaps still makes sense.

jeztone2

jimmyguitar said:

They look terrible and it's trying to fix a problem which doesn't exist. Tuning a guitar is a piece of piss!

This!!!!!

It strikes me the president of Gibson is desperate to be seen as some sort of Steve Jobs figure. To the detriment of his company.

If Gibson want to be a modern company. Offer me a Les Paul with 6100 fretwire as a standard option.

eSully

ICBM said:

I can just about see the point of this if you're changing tunings a lot, but given the reports of failures (I've seen one personally too - one string kept detuning) I wouldn't trust it on a gigging guitar without a backup, and if you're going to do that you may as well take two guitars in different tunings… OK, if you're using more than two tunings it perhaps still makes sense.

I've seen this too, happened on my 2015 LPJ and was quiet frustrating for a little bit. If anyone reading this has the issue currently try removing the offending tuner. This is very easy, just remove the front nut, that's all that holds it in place so it's very easy to take off, and blow on the connection or use a compressed air can. In my case it was probably just an issue with dust in the connection. Once I did this and reattached it worked fine.

As I use and like the GForce system I've commented on here a few times defending them, I can't be bothered anymore, if you don't like them, remove them, they're not glued or screwed to the body, it's simple! You might be able to sell them on here or ebay for the cost of reasonable replacement standard tuners.

ICBM

eSully said:

I've seen this too, happened on my 2015 LPJ and was quiet frustrating for a little bit. If anyone reading this has the issue currently try removing the offending tuner. This is very easy, just remove the front nut, that's all that holds it in place so it's very easy to take off, and blow on the connection or use a compressed air can. In my case it was probably just an issue with dust in the connection. Once I did this and reattached it worked fine.

That may well have been the case with the one I saw too, although I didn't try to find out since the customer had already asked for it to be replaced with a set of Grovers.