What kind of forum special pickup could and would you take?

[Gibson 1964]

Re: What kind of forum special pickup could and would you take?

I think we already did? No? Then again, there is the Harmonic Design's z90... their "PhatCat".

B

Good point.

[LtKojak]

Re: What kind of forum special pickup could and would you take?

So we can call it the ZD-90.

Deal?

[ratherdashing]

Re: What kind of forum special pickup could and would you take?

Even though a tele pickup is probably not a possibility at this point (le sigh) I'm just curious as to what you guys would want in a forum run CS tele pickup.

I'd love a Tele equivalent of the Custom Stack Plus, or maybe even a set of Classic Stack Plus for Tele. The Tele stacks never got the "Plus" update that the Strat stacks did.

I'd be open to anything that isn't super high output.

[blueman335]

Re: What kind of forum special pickup could and would you take?

It's not my fault you're too much of a cheap bastard to pay for a CS pickup.

It's a pleasure having guys like you on the forum.

[blueman335]

Re: What kind of forum special pickup could and would you take?

Aren't you an accountant? With hourly billing is figure you could find 160 for a pup.

Not everyone has your money, FDR. I'm not in public accounting (not that most of those guys are rich); I work for a private company and don't bill anyone for my hours.

If you want to sell more PU's, you make them more affordable to the masses. The higher the price, the fewer will people be able to afford them. That's how economics works.

And when you're not busy counting all your money, why not spend a little time working on your grammar so you can put a sentence together properly.

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: What kind of forum special pickup could and would you take?

How about P-9Z?
I really liked Z-90, that makes me sad.
ZD-90 is also cool.

[ratherdashing]

Re: What kind of forum special pickup could and would you take?

If you want to sell more PU's, you make them more affordable to the masses. The higher the price, the fewer will people be able to afford them. That's how economics works.

Selling more of something at a lower price isn't always the best business decision. I'm sure you know that.

Should Porsche lower the price of the 911 so they can sell them to the "masses"? They're currently the most profitable car company in the world.

[King IzzO)))]

Re: What kind of forum special pickup could and would you take?

Even though a tele pickup is probably not a possibility at this point (le sigh) I'm just curious as to what you guys would want in a forum run CS tele pickup.

A tele sized SSL-6 with a baseplate is what I was thinking. It would be a hotter pickup than a JD, but not QP territory, would fill that hole there, and wouldn't take a whole lot of R&D to make.

That's completely ****ed that someone has a Z-90 that isn't a true Z-90. Maybe we could call it the br0Z-90, so SC(split coil)-90. I dunno, Z-90 just sounds best. If I can get one in black (cover, bobbins, whatever) I will commit to buying at least one right ****ing now.

[DarkMatter]

Re: What kind of forum special pickup could and would you take?

Is this actually happening? Or just hypothetical?

[ratherdashing]

Re: What kind of forum special pickup could and would you take?

A tele sized SSL-6 with a baseplate is what I was thinking. It would be a hotter pickup than a JD, but not QP territory, would fill that hole there, and wouldn't take a whole lot of R&D to make.

I'd buy that, as long as it had a tap option like the Strat equivalent does. And yeah, baseplate for sure.

[blueman335]

Re: What kind of forum special pickup could and would you take?

Selling more of something at a lower price isn't always the best business decision. I'm sure you know that.

Should Porsche lower the price of the 911 so they can sell them to the "masses"? They're currently the most profitable car company in the world.

They're not the most profitable if they're only selling 911's. I'm sure they're selling a lot of something else. For just about any products of reasonable quality, the lower-priced models will almost always far outsell the top-of-the-line ones. We're a middle class nation; many people live paycheck-to-paycheck.

Being 'most profitable' encompasses many things, price is only piece of the pie. Things like labor, raw materials, fixed assets, overhead, marketing, executive bonuses, etc have a huge impact on profit. You can have a large gross profit, and if you don't actively control your expenses, you can wind up with a small net profit, or loss.

[Agileguy_101]

Re: What kind of forum special pickup could and would you take?

A tele sized SSL-6 with a baseplate is what I was thinking. It would be a hotter pickup than a JD, but not QP territory, would fill that hole there, and wouldn't take a whole lot of R&D to make.

I want one too, I bet it would be awesome especially with a tap.


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[uOpt]

Re: What kind of forum special pickup could and would you take?

Is this actually happening? Or just hypothetical?

I think there's a good chance now. I will collect what we have this weekend and drive this a bit more. My main goal with this thread is to establish whether this process can be kickstarted again and give both us and SD a good experience.

My major concern at this point is engineering, as SD has never made such a pickup and I think the crowd would highly prefer to have one that can be opened by soldering or screws (as opposed to a sealed plastic thing).

If the ZFD-90 falls through due to engineering or cost issues I would still propose a Blackmoreish Strat pickup which would be a much more manageable project. I'll clearly mark it as my pet project with a couple supporters, though.

[ratherdashing]

Re: What kind of forum special pickup could and would you take?

They're not the most profitable if they're only be selling 911's. I'm sure they're selling a lot of something else. For just about any products of reasonable quality, the lower-priced models will almost always far outsell the top-of-the-line ones. We're a middle class nation; many people live paycheck-to-paycheck.

Being 'most profitable' encompasses many things, price is only piece of the pie. Things like labor, raw materials, fixed assets, overhead, marketing, executive bonuses, etc have a huge impact on profit. You can have a large gross profit, and if you don't actively control your expenses, you can wind up with a small net profit, or loss.

Lots of assumptions here.

The cheapest Porsche (relatively speaking) is the base-model Boxster, and it lists for just under $60k. That's significantly less than the 911 (starts at $90k), but it's hardly a "middle class" car. I don't know which Porsche is the most popular currently (the 911 is the most popular of all time, but it's also been made the longest), but I wouldn't assume that it's the Boxster. I definitely see more 911's than anything else, around here at least.

In any case, the reason Porsche is profitable as a whole is because every model they make is profitable in and of itself (i.e. they spend less money making them than they earn selling them). If they reduced the price of one of their cars, they might sell more of it (though that is far from a certainty), but it's debatable whether they'd keep as much of that money, especially if the per-unit production costs of the cars don't change.

Pricing of luxury/niche items, which is what Porsche automobiles and Seymour Duncan pickups both are, is very different than pricing of mass market items. SD isn't in the mass market business. Even their production line pickups are niche/high-end products. Realize that the music instrument business itself is a niche market, and compound that with the fact that most guitarists won't ever swap out their stock pickups. Niche within a niche. They're not making paper towels.

Long story short: in a niche/luxury market, lowering your price isn't always the best strategy.

In your second paragraph, you pretty much helped make my point for me.

Anyway, this is all a huge digression. Sorry everyone.

[speed2dirt]

Re: What kind of forum special pickup could and would you take?

They're not the most profitable if they're only selling 911's. I'm sure they're selling a lot of something else.

Yea, that would be Volkswagens, which they are the majority shareholder (50.1% ownership). Per Wikipedia:

It (Volkswagen Group) produced the third-largest number of motor vehicles of any company in the world, behind General Motors and Toyota. It has maintained the largest market share in Europe for over two decades. As of 2013, it ranked ninth in the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's largest companies.