New Pickup in Premier Guitar

[dominus]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

Im not against "new and improved" but I've been playing for over 30 yrs and I've seen a whole lot of so called breakthrough stuff fail. Im sure there will be a market and some will love them. But it all boils down to one thing, sound. If its so much better people will do the mods and use batteries. If not ....we will see.

Are you talking about that mounting bracket they had? That was specifically for the demonstration, not something you do to a guitar. From what I read, the only thing you need to use these is the stereo jack and battery clip. (I didn't see anything about using different pots, Frank can chime in about those.)

 

[bladefrenzy]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

No I was generally talking about the whole thing. Not knocking it either. Just a wait and see type thing.

 

[Diminished Triad]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

Will these pups eventually lead to creating from electric guitar steel strings the sound heard from steel strings played on an acoustic guitar? If so, combined with a piezo bridge (or completely replacing the need for a piezo bridge) these new pups could go a very long way for those of us hoping for the great comfort of an electric guitar with the ability to produce the great acoustic sound of a large acoustic guitar.

 

[TimmyPage]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

They seem like a really cool concept, I'm definitely going to give them a shot if the opportunity pops up. As they mention in the article, guitar players are a superstitious bunch. It took until about a year or two ago for people to finally start accepting that digital amps (AxeFX) were capable of being great, and there are still a huge amount of guys (on TGP) who will claim to their grave that they can hear how 'digital' and 'sterile' those amps are.

Digital pickups are the way of the future. I had the opportunity to try the relatively new EMG 57/66, and even as a jazz/americana player I think they sound brilliant, soulful but still extremely clear. I have no doubt that the ideas behind these fishman pickups will be a big deal in the guitar world, even if we take 10 years before it really starts to manifest in popular guitar culture.

It's the same way that 7-8 years ago, every forum was arguing about true bypass vs buffered, the same argument that lead everyone to believe that solid state is objectively worse (despite the fact that they'll gladly play their expensive solid state... sorry, analog drive pedals through their expensive tube amps). We're old fashioned, we hate change. This stuff might be the real deal, and we already have people closeminded and ready to ignore it.

Me? I'm totally ready to try it out.

 

[TimmyPage]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

On another note, I think a big issue we have to address at some point as we move on is the concept of batteries in guitars. It's important to be able to power these kinds of modern technologies, but even in our effects pedals, batteries are kind of outdated. We need to maybe move to lithium batteries, and perhaps change our cabling at some point so that the guitar cables will simultaneously take the signal to the amp, while transferring a bit of power into the onboard preamp in our guitar. Just a thought.

 

[dominus]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

On another note, I think a big issue we have to address at some point as we move on is the concept of batteries in guitars. It's important to be able to power these kinds of modern technologies, but even in our effects pedals, batteries are kind of outdated. We need to maybe move to lithium batteries, and perhaps change our cabling at some point so that the guitar cables will simultaneously take the signal to the amp, while transferring a bit of power into the onboard preamp in our guitar. Just a thought.

It'd be a concern if you were changing the battery every week, but guitar batteries need to be changed so infrequently that it really doesn't matter. A regular nine volt battery could last as long as a rechargeable's life. (And I say that as someone that's really interested in going solar.)

 

[darthphineas]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

18v mod?

How is that applicable?


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[jon the art guy]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

These pickups may not even have the same kind of ma draw normal pickups do as well. Also, I don't see why a LiOn battery pack couldn't be installed and charged via a charger that plugs into the 1/4in jack. The standard design on active pickups breaks the circuit on pulling out the jack; why not add a charger into the circuit the same way?

 

[dominus]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

18v mod?

How is that applicable?

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

I don't mind batteries, but they need to be watch-sized and easy to replace. 9 Volts are heavy and the cavity for them takes too much wood out of the guitar - that's why I don't like them.

 

[GoldenVulture]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

Phantom power them.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

I guess microphone cables will have to become the new standard for guitar cables then.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

No way! If we can't apply the full lexicon of established mods to a new idea, then way good is the new idea? If it can't swap mags and can't have 18v mods and can't be made into a variety of hybrids...well, then, what's the point?

Heh!


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[B2D]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

All this sounds good, but unique unto itself. I'm not seeing words like "authentic" here, which I thought was this product's first job.

It looks like you get two sound choices per pickup, toggled with a push/pull. We have two or more sound choices per a single pickup now with coil taps and humbucker pickups, and even though it might not be as controlled, at least it doesn't require a battery, and you have countless options in what you can do and which pickups you can use.

In the market of inauthentic pickup recreations, it seems like the Variax is two decades ahead of this thing.

That's kind of an interesting statement - what does "authentic" sound like to you? Strats in particular tend to vary widely anyways.

Here's what I can tell you: the set sounded like a really great well-balanced vintage and vintage/hot strat set with all of the benefits and none of the drawbacks.

The impression I got was - and bear with me because this sounds kinda strange - it sounded less like a Strat plugged into an good amp (it was a Princeton with some mean-sounding gain dialed in, by the way) and more like a really good studio recording of a Strat with the EQ and compression dialed perfectly. Like something you'd hear on a classic record except live and in your face and you're in the driver's seat. I know that's a weird way to put it but that's the impression it gave me. And it didn't homogenize the sounds of individual players either, it made differences stand out.

The Variax is a totally different thing and FWIW I'm not a huge Variax fan. Just try the Fishman stuff out when you get the chance.

Which model(s) did you try out?

The classic humbucker set and a Strat set.

 

[Hairmail]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

They sure do sound great in the demos:

 

[Jack Z]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

Looks like Sam Ash has a preorder for a Strat set for $225, so it sounds like they're going to be priced like EMGs.

pricy... made in usa?

 

[dominus]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

pricy... made in usa?

Three single coils for $225 = $75 each. Not really all that pricey. New Duncan single coils go for $52 each. Lace Sensors are $70 each.

Strat battery pack:






Neat.

 

[DreX]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

Currently I can get two voices with coil taps. Here's what it would take for me to install these pickups; no push pull, instead I'd want to put a 10 way dial selector in my guitar and choose from ten voicings. Only that would warrant screwing with batteries and a USB recharge. The main issue is that it's simply hard to figure out what problem these pickups solve, if not a lack of variety from any single installed pickup.

I'd like to say that I see the best potential for this as a competitor to EMG, but I really do don't think the EMG lovers will embrace a pickup from a company known for acoustic guitar pickups... I just don't.

So the current Strat model has two voicings, vintage and "Texas hot". If these were typical coils, they would only differ slightly in wind count, about a 10% overwind. I had asked months ago why all the Duncan tapped coils were about 50% divisions in the tap point, and someone had said that lesser divisions (like, say, 10%) makes too little of a difference to make it worth the while. But here we have a battery powered Fishman doing approximately that, so I'll ask again, why not offer an SSL-1 with a tap point, 10% distance between the primary output and the tap output?

 

[darthphineas]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

It doesn't take a disturbance in the Force to tell me Fishman is marketing these to the masses and not to just one guy that thinks the difference with what a coil tap will do is analogous with what the Fluence model will do.

Whoever keeps feeding these talking points to their proxy might should raise their game a bit.


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[voggin]

Re: New Pickup in Premier Guitar

Gibson should start installing these in some models. Can you imagine? These pickups and a PCB board? Traditionalists would be dropping by heart attack across the nation!