And yet another "new" switch. (6-way)

[Mincer]

Having spent my whole life in electronics, I'm very much pro-PCB. Especially in amps. But in guitars, I have mixed emotions. They could be good in some situations, (control cavity), and bad in others, (Strat pickguard mounted components). I'd hate to see pots soldered to a PCB. They'd be hard to change out, and you'd have to remove the whole assembly to change just one. Also, on the couple of LP's that I've done that had those connectors, there was no way the connector would fit through the pup wire hole in the body. That means the connector was added after the pup was installed. Kinda defeats the purpose, IMHO.

It's not a bad idea, but would need to be implemented very carefully.

I think good engineers who also play guitar and are interested in ergonomics and marketing could make it work. We are pretty limited with the setups we have now. There are standard switching schemes, and we are more or less forced to accept them. Imagine easy ways to transform what a 5 or 6 position does per gig? Of course it can be done.

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

The durability of the Freeway switches comes up a lot, so I am curious about these alternatives. When you think about it, the idea of soldering to all these little tabs and coming up with diagrams is pretty archaic, and not very ergonomic. I remember a company that came out with a pre-wired switch with little dip switches defining what each position does. You'd think someone would engineer something similar for these more complex switches.

On this topic of new designs using modern technology, there was the Ernie Ball Game Changer which was only available on certain Music Man guitars in the early 2010s. It allowed you to customize what you wanted for the different positions of the pickup selector switch, and you could even save presets / "patches" of those selections. Here is a video talking about its features:
https://youtu.be/fMcSYA0bb2M

But something didn't pan out with that product and it was discontinued. Also I have not been able to find anything online to confirm if fielded Game Changers are still supported by EB, which was a big concernt for a portion of purchasers of that guitar model whose purchase decision was heavily based on that particular feature being in the guitar and having continued supported from EB. You can read more about that here:
http://forums.ernieball.com/the-game...al-dead-2.html

Then there is the mysterious and as-of-yet-unreleasdd GuitarMax Programmable Guitar Control System - designed by PMT which seems to be very similar in nature to the EB Game Changer.

https://pmtmusic.com/pickup-control-system.

The product page for the GuitarMax on guitarelectronics.com site (which is a retailer of PMT products) has had a "temorarily unavailable" statement about the GuitarMax for well over a year. See screenshot. I've emailed both PMT and GuitarElectronics.com asking about planned release dates for the GuitarMax product but have not gotten any replies.

 

[Artie]

I've thought, for a long time, that a simple little board with those computer motherboard style tiny jumpers could add a lot of simple versatility. For example, imagine five different SMD caps, and you'd simply move one of those little black plastic jumpers to select the one you wanted. The same thing could be done to select where the pup wires routed to, or what the position of the switches did. It would be simple, relatively inexpensive, and anyone could configure it if given a chart of the functions.

 

[Mincer]

I remember the Game Changer, and the extraordinary price tag. I don't know if it is something EB/MM developed or if they licensed the technology. It seemed like a great idea. The ToneShaper was an idea that sort of did the same thing. Again, it was expensive, and had limited availability.

 

[Francois]

I've thought, for a long time, that a simple little board with those computer motherboard style tiny jumpers could add a lot of simple versatility. For example, imagine five different SMD caps, and you'd simply move one of those little black plastic jumpers to select the one you wanted. The same thing could be done to select where the pup wires routed to, or what the position of the switches did. It would be simple, relatively inexpensive, and anyone could configure it if given a chart of the functions.

I like the idea of choosing your caps ike that. Lately I wanted a mini toggle switch to compare 0.022 / .030 / .047 orange drop caps on my S-1.

 

[Artie]

I like the idea of choosing your caps ike that. Lately I wanted a mini toggle switch to compare 0.022 / .030 / .047 orange drop caps on my S-1.

It could be a tiny circuit board with 4 - 6 SMD caps. The whole thing would be about the size of an Orange Drop. You'd install it like a cap. Once you found the value you liked best, you'd simply replace it with that value cap, then you could use the "cap selector" in the next guitar.

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

I remember the Game Changer, and the extraordinary price tag. I don't know if it is something EB/MM developed or if they licensed the technology. It seemed like a great idea. The ToneShaper was an idea that sort of did the same thing. Again, it was expensive, and had limited availability.

Wow, I had not heard about the ToneShaper. That article is dated 2009. I had only just started to take an interest in learning about pickups and guitar tech around that time, so that's probably why I missed this; just a little ahead of my time.

I found the ToneShaper website and found a product listing page for it, but it doesn't look like it is still for sale.

I also found this YouTube video that talks about doing additional rear routing in your Strat so you can access and adjust the ToneShaper controls without having to remove the pickguard each time.

https://youtu.be/OPtCBC8D95M

I also found a former for-sale listing of a unused ToneShaper on Reverb where the asking price started at $99. So I estimate it cost btw $100 and $150 at retail. That's lower than the pricepoint of a set of Duncan or Dimarzio pickups. That doesn't seem expensive to me, seems priced appropriately. Even if my estimate is low, I would say if it was priced up to $250, that would have still been appropriately priced in my mind.

 

[Mincer]

Wow, I had not heard about the ToneShaper. That article is dated 2009. I had only just started to take an interest in learning about pickups and guitar tech around that time, so that's probably why I missed this; just a little ahead of my time.

I found the ToneShaper website and found a product listing page for it, but it doesn't look like it is still for sale.

I also found this YouTube video that talks about doing additional rear routing in your Strat so you can access and adjust the ToneShaper controls without having to remove the pickguard each time.

https://youtu.be/OPtCBC8D95M

I also found a former for-sale listing of a unused ToneShaper on Reverb where the asking price started at $99. So I estimate it cost btw $100 and $150 at retail. That's lower than the pricepoint of a set of Duncan or Dimarzio pickups. That doesn't seem expensive to me, seems priced appropriately. Even if my estimate is low, I would say if it was priced up to $250, that would have still been appropriately priced in my mind.

Yeah, I had never tried one, but I remember the ads, and I remembered that article. It seems like something like that could really be a selling point if it came included in a factory guitar.