Gibson takes Les Paul classic into digital age

The guitar that helped make famous the likes of Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin is about to join the 21st century. The makers of the Les Paul guitar are developing a new model which will link straight to a computer rather than need to be plugged into an amplifier.

Gibson's new range of "Magic" Les Paul guitars will have a digital output that will let guitarists control the volume and timbre of each string separately, and transform them to sound like any other instrument - an organ, a voice or even just a pure, untouched Les Paul guitar.

"We're improving the electric guitar for the first time in 70 years," said Henry Juszkiewicz, the chief executive of Gibson. "If we didn't build a digital guitar, I can assure you the digital guitar would still happen."

The new technology uses an ethernet cable, like that used to network computers together, to connect the guitar into a digital network. Gibson argues that means none of the quality is lost by transmitting the signal over a long distance - unlike normal analogue electric guitars, where long leads to amplifiers lose high frequencies.