Inventions in guitars

[shreddingjoris]

anyone ever thought of just placing a pickup without all the wire-work? wouldn't it be easy if u could just CLICK or LOCK the pickup? all the swapping would be easier....u guys think this would ever happen?

[superhairycamel]

yeah pretty sure emg do that

[Matheau]

Yeah, almost positive EMG does it, and I think a few other active pick-ups. Also it is the same idea behind buying fully loaded out pickguards.

I don't think it would really spread much beyond the people that already do it. Those sorts of systems can actually end up being a larger pain than the thing they were trying to streamline originally was. The number of options on how to wire pick-ups and controls is far beyond what those sorts of pop-in and pop-out systems are really meant for.

If you actually do swap between pick-ups so often you need a system like that, you can buy clips to make it so you can do that. It isn't a complicated piece of wiring to do, just one that is a completely unnecessary for most people.

[dragsternj]

Gibson Les Paul Push-Tone

[chaos731]

It's funny...I've actually been thinking of building a project guitar/heavily-modded RG that has what I guess I'm going to refer to as a "modular pickup bay". Basically, it will theoretically allow very fast swap-ability of pickups "on the fly". At the very least, even if I don't get that ambitious, I want to experiment with pickup wiring to the extent that the guitar electronics will be based on shielded molex connections rather than solder joints. There's a lot of potential there, I think, but it would have to be seriously perfected and highly standardized before guitar makers used it on any significant level.

Anyway, it's a cool idea...on paper.

[Racerx2k]

And if you REALLY wanna get silly, you could run the pickups on rails, like I saw on some basses, years ago, to allow you to fudge with the pickup placements.

[Petie]

The Ampeg Dan Armstrong lucite guitars have a slide-in pickup system. It's a single-pickup guitar but it comes with a humbucker and a single coil, so you can install whichever one you like by just sliding it in and tightening a thumbwheel.

[newbieguitarmaker]

I made a design for a system like you were talkin about, it works better than emg's but others had similar designs >_>

[Lefty Robb]

Originally Posted by Racerx2k

And if you REALLY wanna get silly, you could run the pickups on rails, like I saw on some basses, years ago, to allow you to fudge with the pickup placements.

Someone has already made a guitar like that, I know I've seen pics of one around somewhere..Probably something Neil Feather made...

[GLG421]

Wasn't George Lynch working with ESP on a similar Sliding Pickup system?

[vultures]

Originally Posted by dragsternj

Gibson Les Paul Push-Tone

http://youtube.com/watch?v=XQ1UM8kDRLw

Really cool concept!

[Lefty Robb]

Originally Posted by vultures

http://youtube.com/watch?v=XQ1UM8kDRLw

Really cool concept!

2 problems:

1: everytime you change em out chances are your gonna ding the crap out of the guitar if not done correctly. (hey lets lean it over on the case, wow, super smart)

2: less wood = less tone as far as Gibsons are concerned, and also the pickups are now not bolted to the body so thats even more tone loss.

[Freedom777]

Years ago I thought of the snap-on pick up system for Dimarzio and Duncan pick ups (I still have the drawing around here somewhere..) No welding needed BUT it required laying a "circuit" so to speak which ran through the routed pick up cavities to the electronics (vol, tone, etc. - soldering needed here)....not meant for guitars with pickguards and the pickup ring itself was the mechanism that released the pickup and alsop kept it in place....I didn't figure out how to adjust the height with this system and once I heard of (though not seen) "other systems out there"; I dropped the idea.... I suck...