ULI JON ROTH To Present 'Revolutionary New Invention' At NAMM

Guitar legend Uli Jon Roth will present a revolutionary new invention at the the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) annual convention, which is going to be held in Anaheim, California in late January. He has recently come across a new self-tuning guitar technology, which was developed in Hamburg, Germany by Christopher Adams. Uli was so intrigued and fascinated by this landmark invention that he had it installed on his favourite white Fender Stratocaster guitar last week. The auto-tune technology is currently only geared for six-string Stratocaster- or Gibson-type guitars, but Chris Adams has promised to extend the system for Uli's seven-string Sky Guitars in the near future.

When asked to endorse the new invention, Uli immediately agreed and had the following to say: "This is something I totally believe in. I can't remember getting as exited about new technology as I am about this one."

Uli calls the Tronical Powertune system the fulfillment of a long-held dream. "This was one of the last frontiers to cross in the development of stringed instruments," he said. "Until recently, before I met Chris Adams, I thought I might never see the day… a solution seemed so far off because of all the technical difficulties, but Chris has absolutely thought of all the angles and has designed something here that is just perfect!

"Because I don't use a locking system on my guitars for reasons of sound, I sometimes have annoying tuning issues on stage, particularly, since I often like to play a whole set on one guitar only," he added. "All this is going to be behind me from now on — and what's even better, now I can tune down the guitar to E-flat or even D and C# within a split second. This opens up a whole new world of musical possibilities. For example, when we're performing some of those old SCORPIONS tunes on stage — as we have done recently — I can fret the songs the way they were originally written, instead of having to transpose them, say, from A to G# in order to hear the same result. Due to the lack of open strings in some keys that is sometimes musically awkward. In those days we used to tune down a semi-tone, and I like to play the songs in their original pitch. Up to now, detuning on stage was a complete impossibility, because it takes a long time for the strings to settle when using conventional manual tuning. Powertune achieves this result flawlessly within seconds! In my mind this is clearly the most significant technical development on the guitar since the invention of the pick-up. It's THAT groundbreaking — and the best thing is that it absolutely works, and that it's beautifully thought through in its economy of means."