Crazy Idea

[kevincurtis]

HI All, I would only read this if you are bored! :)

During a refelctive moment last night it occured to me that it would be useful to be able to A/B pickups quickly and easily without the hassle of actually fitting the pup. Into my poor head came the idea of inverting a pickup in some kind of casing (with normal fixings removed) over the strings from the topside, securing it with maybe vacuum suckers, have a quick adjustment for height, then feed it into an A/B box that you could flick from current pickup to tested pickup.

Now the obvious problem here would be that it would totally interfere with playing style...but I'm just thinking it would still be sufficient to be able to choose which one suited your guitar the best (I trust Tim's opinion entirely of course, but we humans aren't necesarily the best at articulating exactly what it is we want!)

I'm not actually thinking of doing this! but just thought it might be a great way for someone like BKP to be able to get people quickly testing - and realising how good - the pickups are.

Am I just solving a problem that doesn't exist :roll:   :oops:

Think I'd better get back to work!

[Twinfan]

The close proximity of the pickups would cause problems I think - the magnetic fields would be an issue.

Nice idea though  ;)

[blue]

saw a gibson display guitar for sale once; it came with about 30 pickups, all mounted on pieces of mahogany, which plugged into the back of the guitar so you could try and compare any and all of gibson's pickups.  was cool  8)

[plastercaster]

you'd get a different tone because the pickups would be in different places along the length of the string, and this would be especially bad with humbuckers.

shockingly, Gibsons idea sounds the best to me, as long as there was some way to quickly and securely mount the mahogany into the guitar without having too large an effect on tone or the security of the bridge.

[WezV]

i was going to suggest the module idea - but all it really tells you is how pickups will sound in that guitar, and others quite like it i suppose.  It doesnt help you choose a pickup unless you have a guitar like that one.  Although for pickup makers an idea like that is great - i think Kent Armstrong has something like it,  or somebody did anyway, it was a strat with a slide in and out scratchplate

kevin's idea would let you try out pickups on your personal guitar without taking it apart - unfortunately twinfan is right, the magnetics would play hell with it.  I have tested pickups by holding them over the strings before  and its very hard to find a position that works without the existing pickups messing it up completely

[Philly Q]

There have been quite a few different guitars with interchangeable pickups over the years.  They usually have the pickup set in some kind of solid block with metal tabs which connect to the guitar's wiring when the pickup is slotted in.

The first, AFAIK, was the '60s Ampeg Dan Armstrong plexiglas guitar, as used by Keith Richards.  I think John Birch and Tony Iommi designed one in the '70s, and in the early '80s I remember someone coming up with a Strat-shaped guitar along similar lines (I think they might have been called Player guitars?  Not sure.  :? ).

Then there was a wacky contraption called the Teuffel Birdfish which came with a selection of single coils and humbuckers as standard.  And I just found these Mercurio Guitars too.

Apologies for that bit of guitar geekery.  :oops: