Winter NAMM 2011

[telemike]

[video=youtube;VDuAarSEPcA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDuAarSEPcA&feature=player_embedded[/video]

[telemike]

http://gamechanger.music-man.com/videos

[poserp]

Put that in a Tele and I'm sold, although I think I might get lost with all the switching options.

[Seano Porno]

Firebird X.........hahahahahaha naaah man....this is what Herny SHOULD have done!

[magmadeth]

That's fucking sick.

[wimpy77]

can u imagine how much this is going to cost?

[ashasha]

can u imagine how much this is going to cost?

Sterling said that it's only going to add about $350 to the out the door price. To me that's ridiculously reasonable.

[Reignman]

Sterling said that it's only going to add about $350 to the out the door price. To me that's ridiculously reasonable.

Honestly, that looks foolishly complicated to me... Sure it's been very simplified but it's still alot of moving, switching and shit to remember... doesn't do a thing for me.

[ashasha]

Honestly, that looks foolishly complicated to me... Sure it's been very simplified but it's still alot of moving, switching and shit to remember... doesn't do a thing for me.

It's like having two 5 way switches when you are playing. The 'z-bank' is just to store additional presets that you can move over to the 5 way switch and you wouldn't be touching that while playing. The 5 way works just like a regular switch, pull the push/pull pot and it gives you 5 other sounds. It's pretty simple in application to me. Configuring each switch setting would in my opinion only be as complicated as you want to make it. But the idea that you can have 5 pickup configurations of whatever you want is just amazing to me.

[Jon Chappell]

Configuring each switch setting would in my opinion only be as complicated as you want to make it. But the idea that you can have 5 pickup configurations of whatever you want is just amazing to me.

I agree. Transferring from the Z-bank to the 5-way is straightforward. The setup, which you do from a computer, is also fairly straightforward, even if there are over 8.5 million theoretical combinations. I saw Sterling and Steve Morse demo this at NAMM. Steve is no phony, and he was really impressed and talked from the heart about how useful and versatile it was. Oh yeah, he sounded great too!

[Anderton]

Apples and oranges. The GC is just about the pickup wiring. The FX is about many different onboard effects--dynamic, EQ, modulation, delay, etc.

Actually, what GC does is basically the same thing as the pickup switching/computer editor technology that was included in Gibson's Dark Fire and Dusk Tiger. The main difference is that those two also included onboard EQ that was part of the computer editor.

[One Man Banned]

If they put those electronics in an Albert Lee model, I'm on it like white on rice. :thu:

[MikeRivers]

I didn't spend enough time in the guitar section of the NAMM show to have noticed this guitar (hell, somebody's got to report on the studio gear) but I was curious enough in reading the report to take a look at it. I saw, and reported on, a system like that a couple of NAMM shows ago. I can't remember the company, but they were from Maryland, right around home for me. Their system used jumpers that you had to set up by opening an access cover, but the principle was the same - just connecting the various pickups and coils in different ways. The process of selecting a wiring combination and saving it to a switch position is too much for me to remember. In fact, that many combinations and switch positions is too much for me to remember. Sure glad my D-18 doesn't have anything like that.

[MikeRivers]

Can someone who saw this guitar describe it further for me? Or direct me to the right place on their web site? I recall some mention of "the computer" and a USB port, but I watched four of their videos and all I saw were players flipping switches and demonstrating sounds, some of whom mentioned not getting into "the computer" yet. The web page has a "Web application" link, but it's Coming Soon.

I'm curious as to how they actually switch around the wiring. An 8x8 (or 10x10 to accommodate the piezo pickup) would do it, but in order to fit it into a guitar and have it controlled by a 5-position switch and a couple of pushbuttons (on the knobs) it would have to be electronic rather than mechanical, which would mean that the guitar would need power, and that it wouldn't be completely passive as they emphasize in the videos. - Unless they consider gates or FET switches to be passive since they aren't intended to change gain or frequency response.

I suspect that had I stopped by the booth and asked, they'd probably tell me "it's patent pending."

[MikeRivers]

Eureka! I found the company that I was looking for who made something like this back in 2009, and apparently they're still in business.
Coil Guitars

Isn't there every anything new under the sun?

[SheebaTonka Man]

If they make this a stand a lone product I will buy in a HEARTBEAT. But I cant justify buying a whole new guitar for this purpose alone, as cool as it looks.