Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits
I've been experimenting with LCR networks (sometimes called CRL networks). They are passive circuits, so people might actually buy them, as opposed to general adversity to active circuits.
A LCR network removes impedance from the pickup circuit without removing resistance or capacitance. So you get parts of the sound of a lower wind but a lower wind would also lower resistance and capacitance, so what you get is something that you cannot get by fiddling with the winding.
Sound-wise, it makes the sound "sweeter", more rounded, gives it more "bell". That's what you get if you leave resistance and capacitance high but lower impedance.
The most famous user is Ritchie Blackmore, if you follow his 1975-1995 tone you'll hear what I mean.
The only commercially available products I am aware of are Bill Lawrence Q-Filter and Dawk's (Blackmore's ex-roadie) MTC. Since I considered offering such a solution commercially I have shied away from going anywhere inside 5 miles of Dawk's work since he has already indicated that he's upset about people copying his work and I don't need the trouble. If he invented something he needs to file for a patent or shut up, but obviously avoiding any exposure to his product is the smooth way to go here.
Bill Lawrence Q-Filter will give you a LCR network but it is very, very underengineed. What you buy there is just a coil in a plastic mount and then you can build your basic LCR network with one more resistor and one more capacitor. The values he gives as example don't work very well. You can clearly hear that messing with the Q-filter that way gets you the right thing, the right direction, but it's just lacking the right values. Also, a LCR network should probably not just have it's own pot, but you would integrate the guitar's volume control to automatically blend in (like a treble bleed mod) some of the LCR circuit to sweeten up the tone when the guitarist take back the volume pot (which is what happens in Blackmore's guitar).
I have since replaced the fixed resistor with a trimmer and I'm in progress of using a 12-way rotary dial with different capacitors to dial the sucker in. But commercializing this will require a little broader approach, namely I have no idea whether the coil shipped as the Q-filter is right in the first place and I haven't even started integrating the volume pot.
Anyway, the commercial prospect of this is difficult to evaluate. On one hand, being a passive circuit removes the biggest obstacle, which is active electronics and the need for battery or phantom power, next to the plain prejudice against active guitars. You have a famous guitarist as an example. But just one, that's not very impressive, why don't other famous players use it? Another problem is that you should probably de-activate your normal tone circuit (or replace it with a 1 Mohm pot). That would raise adaption problems. Technically the best way to go is to have a push-pull that is a tone pot down and a LCR network up, or two 1 Mohm pots but then it's not "throw in" anymore.
But most importantly, to my ears this is a usable, good way to dial in "your" sound that cannot be had any other way. Even with a 250 or 500 Kohm tone pot still active it does good things. I would expect if a critical mass of early adaptors would write about their true impressions you'd probably ended up with a market. The "no Hi-Fi sound in my guitar!" crowd doesn't come after you and fundamentally, this is plain good stuff.
