New Golden age for pickups - dig it!

Well, it is much easier to find your sound these days. And there are components available now for all sorts of switching options.
 
Great article - I’m glad to see that the younger generation hasn’t abandoned the guitar and that the tech has kept up with the joneses’ for them. Not many 20 something’s will be obsessed with capturing Jimi’s Woodstock tones. They want something hip, tech oriented and modern. I’m all for it if it means that folks will continue carrying the torch for guitar playing.
 
We've got these bad boys too. Oldheads probably won't care for them.
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You realize most of the real innovations in ANY technology came from oldheads?

Leo Fender had new ideas right up to his last days, and not just in guitars. He holds design awards in cameras and boat hulls, as well as guitars and amps.
Bill Lawrence was still designing pickups and circuits in his 70's.
Thomas Edison held over 2000 patents. His last was awarded when he was in his 60's.

Keep the young bucks if you want. I want EXPERIENCE.
 
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disappointing that there isn't a new golden age for amps. would think that there is a technological solution for creating a real substitute for tube amps that perfectly emulates all the beautiful subtilty of their sound and response. Kemper is close but not close enough for me to let my tube amps go.
 
The 'moveable pickup' thing has been done many times before, though. People who don't know the history are doomed to repeat it.
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Right, Dave. This DeArmond sliding pickup was invented in the late 30's at the dawn of electrified archtop guitars.

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Yah, moveable pickups have essentially been around for as long as electrified guitars have.
But the idea of being able to angle 'em however you like or put both into unusual configurations is innovative, I think.
I think it's cool.
 
There really is a pretty amazing proliferation of new and different pickup types available today.
The Fluence were innovative but have been around for nearly a decade now and are pretty well-known among players.
Nothing there about Zexcoils: less publicised but definitely outside-the-box thinking and IMO deserving of mention.

The article also doesn't mention some advances in more tradtitional pickup formats.
Railhammer's half-blade concept, for example, and innovative pole treatments by many others.
PRS's idea of capacitive fine-tuning to match an individual pickup to the specific pots in its guitar.
And noiseless singlecoils that don't sound dull anymore.

I certainly agree it's a golden age for pickups these days.
I'm old enough to remember when replacement pickups were a new thing, and pretty basic.
You could get either a hotter pickup to drive your amp harder, or one with tone more like a vintage guitar.

Today there are a hundred or more brands and ten thousand flavors to pick from.
And there are more coming out all the time. It's a veritable buffet of tone.
Today we choose pickups to complement a particular guitar's voice, and to suit our own personal taste.
That would've been unthinkable when I was starting out.
 
Guitar in general, is in something of a renaissance. I was getting worried around 2010.
 
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