Hands-on with Gibson Dark Fire guitar

With a history of announcing technically advanced guitars at CES and not actually making them available, Gibson has a lot to prove this year. The new Dark Fire digital model was available for not only a hands-on test at the show, but should start shipping to dealers within a few weeks.   The guitar uses a separate box for connecting the guitar to your PC using a standard FireWire cable. This gives you the ability to record easily using included sequencing software, but is – even more importantly – the method that you can use to create some fantastic tones out of the guitar. In a hands-on test, we found that the Dark Fire produces some crazy industrial-metal sounds, cool reverb effects, and a plethora of distortion settings – which you can adjust on the guitar itself using an LED-lighted knob. You can   The Dark Fire uses the same robot tuner knobs that automatically adjust strings for you, and the improved battery for this feature now lasts for 500 tunings – or enough for at least one punk rock show. We also loved the fire-red design, sturdy construction, and subtle inlays on the guitar. Now, it’s back to the HDTV walls for us.