Do you expect me to talk? No, Mr Bond! I expect you to die!

[Mark Hammer]

How heavy was it?

[pinkjimiphoton]

as i recall, around 20 lbs. made my les pauls seem light

[Mark Hammer]

That seems odd, given that the body is synthetic, and hollow.  Did yours have the Kahler trem?

[pinkjimiphoton]

they weren't hollow, and weren't lite weight. the ones with the kahler addition were never produced, trying to redesign the guitar bankrupted the company. there used to be the whole story available thru google,  i dunno if that info is still out there or not the way the net neutrality thing is.

they LOOKED wicked cool... but outside of looks... it was a plastic over designed melody maker with an elementary computer in it... that's likely where a lot of the weight came from.  it not only had preamp with tone stack, but all the other circuitry for just the pickup switching.

mine was very early, and was absolutely NOT carbon fiber,  but plastic. probably also where the weight came from. the phenolic plastic covering the stepped fretboard had a bit of wear too on a couple of the "frets".

tried searching google and didn't find much other than regurgitation unfortunately.

one of them deals like a gibson doubleneck. they look great, they sound great, but once ya own one, ya end up selling it. they weigh too much, the necks are like super thin classical width 20 fretters instead of the more usual les paul dimensions..

looks can be decieving. i truly hope you find one so you can try it and see if it resonates with you.... make sure you play it a lot before buying tho if at all possible... as i recall, the active electronics were also noisy and not particularly fuzz friendly which is also a deal breaker for me.

i looked up my sale on ebay hoping to find more info, but the listing is so old all i could see was mention on my feedback profile.

[Mark Hammer]

That's rather disappointing news.    I expected this thing to be the greatest since sliced bread.
Although the imlementation may have been problematic, you gotta admit some of the ideas behind it were pretty neat.

[pinkjimiphoton]

dude, it was the neatest thing since sliced bread, for real.... but, much like a zune or something.... great ideas sometimes don't matter.
personally, for me the big deal breakers were weight, the power supply (t/r/s 1/4" sharing the ground between the power for the onboard comp and the audio) but mostly the frets. the neck was nicely shaped and pretty comfy for chords if you weren't sliding toward te bass range, but i regularly do ridiculous bends to ludicrous lengths and this bent about as good as a fretless guitar.
you could do it, but it may snap out from under your finger, and it just wasn't pleasant.
for more chordal playing it may be hip, but for me... i'm a les paul or strat guy who splits the diff with a firebird or 3.

i wish you could play one. you would either love it or hate it instantly. my brother whom i'd inherited it from also had a gitler in his collection... now THAT was much MUCH cooler... and very weird. if you've never seen one, they were made by a guy in israel, and are in the museum of modern art. a fishbone skeleton looking instrument with some sophisticated capabilities... very minimalist.

http://gittlerinstruments.com/order

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2013/01/31/the-gittler-guitar-is-strikingly-minimal-and-offers-the-best-synth-tracking-on-the-market/



Features:

    Abrasion resistant Titanium construction
    Active electronics and tone shaping controls
    LED fret marker lighting
    6 individual pickups
    Hexaphonic output capability
    Patented locking string mechanism
    Adjustable bridge
    Locking strap anchor points and adjustable bout
    Interchangeable acrylic neck profiles
    Deluxe version with black chrome DLC coating


the bond was a cool concept, but these ones are at least as cool, and having had the privelige to play both, the gitler just wins in spades.

[PRR]

Mr Bond is getting his tailored trousers trimmed right this moment on the Early Movie. (I have no clue which channel.)

This is also the movie where a 5,000 Pound Lincoln is crushed to a cube, then dropped in the back of a Falcon Ranchero (800 Pound rated payload) and driven away on a bad road. Oh, and a ton of Gold too. Someone actually figured this was a problem (even without $1Mil of Gold). A "reduced" crush-cube is in the drop-scene. The highway scene is a yet-lighter crush-fake. Then in the last scene the whitewall tires turn to blackwall, because this filler scene was shot at Pinewood Studios with yet another fake crush.
https://autouniversum.wordpress.com/2015/07/08/the-cars-of-james-bond-ford-falcon-ranchero/

[thermionix]

A very tiny bit of Goldfinger was actually filmed in KY.  Louisville IIRC, and some aerials of Ft Knox.

[PRR]

The crushing was done in Florida. OJ drives in in a 1964 Lincoln, they crush a 1963 Lincoln, and the final crush-block has almost no Lincoln in it; the 2nd block in the Pinewood shots is at least the third. A very small crew spent a few days at Kentucky, without Connery. Good old Pinewood served nearly all the scenes. The "inside of Ft Knox" is total fantasy and unlikely; however they had to post guards because people were stealing the gold-painted "bars". Some work in Switzerland, and a last few days in Kentucky.

[DavidRavenMoon]

I played one of these back in the 80s when they were new. I thought it was quite interesting.