Hello, Fender Community,

This is my very first post in the forum, and though I've read through all of the rules for what is OK and NOT OK to include in posts, and will do my best to follow them to the letter, there's a good chance that I'll make a mistake here and there as I go along, so I'd ask that you try to be patient with me and use constructive criticism about the things I post as I will strive to do with you.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get into the subject of this thread:

Now, I don't personally own a guitar with active electronics, but it's always frustrated me that a person who wants to convert their passive electronics guitar for active electronics is forced to cut out a piece of their guitar's body in order to incorporate a battery compartment for their active electronics and/or on-board effects.

That being said, the thought has crossed my mind several times whether or it would be a good idea to adapt an--XLR jack (be it 3-, 4-, or 5-pin--to take over this role. I know I, at least, would not mind being tied down by a cable while playing if it would take that kind of risk out of performing; besides which, it would seem as if in order to incorporate this kind of modification, the biggest--and yet, simplest--thing one would need to do is replace their 1/4" jack with an XLR jack. Then they would just need to plug into their pedal board system with the XLR cable, and their instrument would then be treated (to the pedal board power supply) like another pedal, while the instrument's signal would then be sent out to the effects).

I think this would be made even more do-able now that more and more mixers and racks are incorporating at least 12V phantom power for microphones; this idea can take advantage of this by adding a small device to step down the power from 12V to 9V.

[Note: I'd like to discuss how the pros and cons of this conceptual power system, as well as how it might be accomplished or incorporated. Links to related articles about concepts or technologies pertaining to this discussion are highly encouraged for the better understanding and visualization by all those reading this thread. Furthermore, I understand that the ideas I've presented may seem highly impractical to some (maybe even many or most!); I muse about things like this, and have on occasion been told by close friends that I am very creative, and should consider becoming an inventor, and while I am flattered, and would like to be able to see my idea fully realized, I prefer making music more ; I have QUITE a few more where this one came from, but those are for other threads.]

although the concept is good, i dont think many will use it as routing and drilling is requiered on most guitars to be able to fit a xlr sized jack anyway, so theres no real save on effort there, the only advantage would be the lack of batteries... and the standard 9v battery lasts for a pretty long time anyway...

i myself am looking to do away with dragging cables all over the place and going wireless, ive owned a couple active pickup guitars and i didint find the battery issue to be worth changing...

to me it would be better to convert the battery to lipo... then you will probably be able to play for the rest of your life on one battery charge

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blues - its a religion...

I understand that XLR plugs tend to be large (and would, therefore, probably require routing or drilling of the body - as you've said), which is why I didn't stick with the idea of using a standard-size XLR plug. If you go to 'http://www.calradstore.com/' and do a search for "mini XLR chassis mount" you *should* see several photos of 3-, 4-, 5-, and even 6-pin mini XLR plugs that look pretty similar to flush mount 1/4" plugs, so it seems like they might be more feasible than even I'd originally thought.