New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

[Luke Duke]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

Changing the battery, it should last about 1500-3000 hours if you dont leave your guitar plugged in all the time and it could be changed in 10 minutes by an experienced hand. Not a huge hurdle to gain alot more versatility.

I just hate pulling pickguards off. Back plates don't bother me near as much.

Luke

 

[Ayrton]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

Something like this BUT! Actually made by SD ! /Seymour_Duncan_Pickup_Booster_Circuit
BTW, Evan, Is this product named & produced w/t Seymour's blessing? Or will some litigation be heading there way?

Yes please!

Evan, you put the SFX-01 in a tone knob, and I will buy it.

I would prefer to do away with the mini switch (maybe a push/pull?), and just have the single knob.

 

[ParameterMan]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

1) An onboard booster that takes notes from a treble booster or something with attitude. I'm tired of onboard boosts that just make things louder-- considering that most guys use distortion, you only get more distorted when you wanted to get louder.

The idea would be when you turn it up things start to get fatter, edgier and a bit hairy/crunchy. Something that really makes your lead sound "cut" and "sing". Maybe it could have a wee bit of compression, but with the dry upper mid/treble added back in to retain the bite and snap.

Oh, and it needs an input cap that simulates a guitar cable so the pickups don't sound radically different. Maybe with a DIP switch that changes the value to work with humbuckers or single coils.

It might be cool to do two versions: a single coil and a humbucker. The single version would pose the right load to the pickups so as to give the ultimate "coil-cord-into-bassman" response and when cranked up it would add fatness and some compression. The humbucker one would add bite and crunch as well as accentuating the attack.


2) A pre-packaged, on-a-pot implementation of the classic Q-filter idea with the LCR values all worked out, maybe with a DIP switch if one setup won't cover the whole range. I think a whole lot of high-output humbucker users would love this thing.


3) A variable capacitor. I don't know if this is possible, but something that takes notes from the classic wah circuit, where the resonant peak of the inductor(in this case, the pickups) is altered by a clever pseudo-variable capacitor arrangement. So you could have a variable frequency tone control/mid boost/resonant peak adjuster sort of toy to play with. Add an inductor and you could have a variable frequency mid cut/comb filter/turn remover thing. And it would be effectively passive in that it doesn't introduce anything into the main signal path.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

Why is any of this better than having it on your pedal board?

A lot of players don't use a pedal board. I rarely use mine. I use a guitar, a George L cord and my amp. I have a pedal board, a really good one loaded with all kinds of cool stuff, but I rarely plug into it because my guitar sounds better and purer just plugged straight into my amp.

Anyways, I vote for two On-Board Circuits: one to make my Fender sound like a Gibson and one to make my Gibson sound like a Fender. With true by-pass when they're off.

 

[uOpt]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

Changing the battery, it should last about 1500-3000 hours if you dont leave your guitar plugged in all the time and it could be changed in 10 minutes by an experienced hand. Not a huge hurdle to gain alot more versatility.

I don't want to re-hash the age old battery problem, but really, these 10 minutes can be very long 10 minutes for somebody who has the problem and has the battery under a top pickguard (Strat, Tele, batwing SG, RG etc.).

Now, generally, apart from the passive LCR network I think that a mid-boost would be the way to go. Basically what I do on a GE-7 put into a circuit that has two trimmers (for one-time adjustment) and one exposed potentiometer. Maybe ship with some cardword thing that allows you to first dial it in outside the guitar at home, then with adjusted trimmers put it into the guitar.

This might also help with people getting interested since it is a true customization to personal taste.

A treble boost probably won't work too well since the Germanium transistors provide a parts availability problem and they take more power. I think this is better left in a pedal.

 

[theodie]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

I don't want to re-hash the age old battery problem, but really, these 10 minutes can be very long 10 minutes for somebody who has the problem and has the battery under a top pickguard (Strat, Tele, batwing SG, RG etc.).

Well, I have no problem with a 10 minute swap. If it is that big of a deal (which it is not), just change it every other string change or so to make it easier and one would never have to worry about doing it on the fly. The battery is pretty much a non-issue at this point.

 

[B2D]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

I thought the Afterburner was an EMG product?

 

[jeremy]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

it is, he is thinking about the duncan firestorm which is very similar

 

[guitfiddle]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

Takamine has had good success with their "Cool tube" technology...it's a tube preamp right on their acoustics.

That's what I'd like to see...a preamp circuit that uses one of the sub-miniature tubes like in the Twin Tube pedal, with a knob that has a center detent for normal, then twist up or down for higher or lower output. Maybe make the circuit hot enough in the top end to make just a hint of OD.

For a Les Paul for example, one could go from two volumes, two tones to two volumes, one tone and a tube booster.

 

[baritone]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

Why is any of this better than having it on your pedal board?

This is how I feel also. That is why I have a whole mess of stomp boxes under my bed. But I guess some people like to have guitar+amp with extra features easily accessible.

Has anyone tried that old Danelectro guitar that had a bunch of built-in effects?

 

[ImmortalSix]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

We were discussing new products to release and one of the things we're talking about are on-board circuits for guitar. They could be mid-boost, EQ, or anything for that matter.

What do you think about that?

That could work

Would you buy one for your guitar?

Probably not

If so, what product sounds the coolest to you?

A full range boost, much like a clean boost or a pickup booster

If so, how much would you pay?

No more than $49

Thanks for asking us, Evan. You da man.

-Hunter

 

[Evan Skopp]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

Great feedback, guys. I've passed this thread around to our New Products team so they can read your comments. Thanks again to everyone who participated.

 

[santellan]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

How about a series of interchangeable modular preamps that resides on a board that also has the standard Strat controls for a plug and play solution.

You could then select any one of the following circuits;

On Demand S/C passive pickup to Active Preamp
On Demand Dual S/C passive pickups to Active Humbucker preamp
On Demand Passive Humbucker to active preamp
On Demand Clean or dirty boosts (T/S style, R/M style, etc )
60hz hum cancelling circuit
Baxandall Tone Controls
Single Control guitar effects based on the FV-1 chip
Phantom Power supply module ( via cable to guitar )

As long as it fits in the cavity you can keep addding to this list

 

[Stratman]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

How about simple circuits that for an example...

Do the task of switching polarity, single to humbucker and vice versa, use different capacitors, etc.... All of which are easy to connect (e.g., soldier) too. Current switches have really tiny holes that are a PITA to wire up.

Switches on the back of pots that are already wired for serial/parallel etc... with large soldier contacts...

Get the picture...

Better yet! Push - insert connections, like on elelctrical outlets...

Here is a working example of a working device (I have one and I love it)

http://www.acmeguitarworks.com/ToneShaper_for_Stratocaster__P2032C218.cfm

 

[Brown Note]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

I've once made a onboard booster based on the je-1000 circuit by jackson. The je-1000 is a fabulous sounding circuit and it has a 3 pole dip swich that affects the tone range being boosted and a trimpot for fine tuning the amount of boost. As a final touch it effectively lowers the output impedance thus making a normal passive act like an active pickup with longer cords.

Je-1000 has been out of production since the 80's so something like that would be an absolute nessessity. Perhaps that duncan version should sport a possibility of adding a simple switch to turn it on instead of having to always play through it?

It would be kickass to boost upper mids with the likes of invader for soloing or make the lower mids more pronounced with jb to overcome the looseness when a rhythm part is being played. Basically that would take the best rhythm pickup and turn it into solo extraordinaire with a simple flick of a switch.

EDIT: and all the old school jackson lovers will buy atleast one!

 

[B2D]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

Great feedback, guys. I've passed this thread around to our New Products team so they can read your comments. Thanks again to everyone who participated.

Sweet. Thanks for taking the time.

 

[phil_104]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

I am a little late on this, but if duncan made a mid-boost, I would order one for my PRS on the spot.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

How about Quik Connect wiring for four con + shield pickups for swifter/simpler pickup changes?

 

[TwofacePimp]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

I read through all the posts, and I think only one person mentioned it briefly...

A 60hz hum canceling circuit for passive single coils! There's a high-end guitar company that makes something like this, but imagine if SD, the master of the pickup universe, brought a good system to market! This would change the lives of gigging guitarists the world over! It'd be the best thing since porno! I'm exaggerating, but I've always wanted something like this, and I think it would be useful to others too. Even a good noise gate at the guitar level (rather than later in the signal chain) would be pretty cool.

My other idea would be a way to switch pickups with a footswitch, and possibly combine it with other pedal combinations (neck pickup with delay, bridge pickup with a disto pedal, etc.). Yes, I'm lazy, and you'd have to use a different type of cable from guitar to pedals, but think of the possibilities!

 

[Frankly]

Re: New Products - Opinions Please / On-Board Circuits

Maybe something similar to the Alembic Stratoblaster but with a bit more versatility?