Gibson's guitar gently weeps

BECAUSE DR SPINOLA was temporarily out of action, we substituted for him down at the Gibson offices in Fitzrovia this morning, all keyed up and waiting to see the famous robotic guitar he was raving about a while back.

Substitute, me for him. Substitute, my coke for gin and although the event started late, at least the lads thrust a beer in my hands and they were friendly.

What can I tell you about this guitar that you don't already know? Well, first of all it has two CPUs in it, and they communicate with each other through the strings.

It has autotuning and that, and stores your tuning and that, but something went slightly wrong with the demo while we waited for the strumming to begin. This, said the troubador, was nothing to do with the software or the CPUs.

We wanted to ask about the CPUs because, after all, AMD's Hector Ruiz is a great Gibson fan. But we had to make our excuses and go.

It launches on the 7th of December and will be available through specialist outlets.