In the never ending quest for great tone :


http://www.acmeguitarworks.com/ToneShap ... 32C218.cfm


What say you?

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

Shallow me is instantly put off by the microchips. Stupid I know as I have no problem with circuitboards over p2p in amps.

The other half of my mind is thinking, a gazzilion switching options without any external switches. Its a must have.

One day I'll make my mind up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pACePi441ds

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No no and no

It gives you many options players like in Strat but with PASSIVE circuitry and herein lies the crux of it all: A passive circuit can only have frequencies and volume EXTRACTED from it, it CANNOT ADD to it like an ACTIVE circuit does with preamps. In other words, once the entire guitar itself is dialed up to '10' and/or wired for say, the loudest pickup combinations, it can only go down, not up with those pre-determined gizmos. Granted, you get more pickup combinations and varied capacitance on the fly but it is NOT going to RADICALLY change the sound of your Strat. For such things, EMG pretty much has a lock on that with their ACTIVE stuff and when using their stuff, you will indeed hear RADICAL frequency changes and additional volume as applicable. Moreover, you can dial in your specs, unlike the permanent presets of the above passive unit. Oh, and EMG's price per device is a lot cheaper than this passive one which has a lot of combinations of which, guaranteed the individual player will NEVER use most of.

As always,this is merely IMO, YMMV.

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You dig?

Thanks for the heads up MiamiMike! That's certainly something to consider when I swap out my pickguard!

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"If I don't see you no more in this world I'll meet you on the next one and don't be late... don't be late." -Jimi Hendrix

Hmmm. Well, it's roughly five times the price of the regular Strat harness it replaces. But alongside many other wiring mods (Clapton mid-boost kit, for example) that ain't so outrageous.

For those of us that would like to tinker with options without committing ourselves too much to any one of them it might have some potential.

And I hear loud and clear what Martian is saying. But some of us just have a phobia about 9 volt batteries in guitars...

At any rate: new to me, and interesting. Thanks for posting, Mike.

Cheers - C

[quote="Ceri]

...I hear loud and clear what Martian is saying. But some of us just have a phobia about 9 volt batteries in guitars...

At any rate: new to me, and interesting. Thanks for posting, Mike.

Cheers - C[/quote]

I *have* that phobia and won't use a wireless system even.

_________________
Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

I resemble that statement!

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"If I don't see you no more in this world I'll meet you on the next one and don't be late... don't be late." -Jimi Hendrix

that' very interessting mike, thanx for sharing.

cheers

It looks to me like it would be a very good tool for educational purposes. One could monkey around with different stuff and get a hands on, ears on, feel for what effect the different parameters have on tone. Somehow I suspect with all that switching going on and the extra miles of circuitry the signal would have to pass through that the end result would likely not be an exact duplicate of what it would sound like with those values chosen in a conventional setup but it would certainly help give you an idea of where you want to go on your next project.

I suck at soldering, so I would like it just for that, kind of expensive just because of that though.

They sell them at musiciansfriend for $119, little cheaper than the webpage.