|
|
Post by newey on Jan 14, 2014 22:12:19 GMT -5
We've talked before about the possibility of digital switching of guitar pickups. It is now apparently a reality in the Music Man "Game Changer" guitar: Music Man Reflex Game Changer I particularly liked how they boast of being able to combine any coils in series in any order- truly complexity for complexity's sake! |
|
|
|
Post by sumgai on Jan 15, 2014 1:56:16 GMT -5
What I liked most was the part about "patent pending". Yeah, as if. Let them try to bowl us over when someone clues them in about our site, I'd like to see their reaction when the court says "obvious to any practioner of the art" and voids the patent. A true crusader against stupid patents might alert the P.O., but not me - life's too short for the pissing contest that would surely follow such an action. For those of you who have come in late to the party.... the fifth post ever made on this forum requesting help was made on April 24th, 2005, by our very own founder and the original Admin, RandomHero. Therein he asks for help in figuring out how to implement a series switching scheme on his HSS axe. (Interestingly, JohnH takes the Giant Teddy Bear for being the first to post in the original Wiring sub-Forum.  ) As for digital controls, Unklmickey, ChrisK, Channelman, I, and a bunch of other members have all discussed such, far too many times and way too long ago for the search engine to present any coherent results. Trust me, we've hashed it out, complete with diagrams, and the take-away was that in all likelyhood, very few players would stand for a battery powered switching arrangement that might (emphasis on that 'might') color the tone - because it's digital, and digital's bad for the Tone, doncha know! (Not to mention the very real fear of what happens if the battery should run out of juice.) Sure a few would take the plunge, but not enought to make it market-viable. Now MusicMan seems to think that Hell has frozen over.... If they really want a black-eye, I'll present ChrisK's drawings, complete with date stamps. That'll cause a ruckus with someone's paycheck (for not doing a more thorough due-diligence), trust me on that one.  (We should look carefully at our server logs... I do wonder if someone from MM has been looking over our shoulder....) Nevertheless, don't get me wrong, I think MM makes a fine instrument, usually almost worth the asking price. And I think that someone big in the business (bigger than the imports, pretty much American in nature and heritage) has to take the plunge and brave the fires of introducing something this radical. Gibson has a 100% track record for unerringly shooting themselves in the foot; Fender is mired down in rehashing the same-old, same-old, and PRS has no incentive to color outside of the lines. Lest we forget, MusicMan is a wholly-owned brand belonging to Ernie Ball, and that company has been around since JC was a mess cook on the Merrimac! If anyone can pull this off without bloodying their nose too badly, I'd pick EB/MM to take a run at it. ..... ......... Now that I've looked at the actual page linked by newey, I'm having a small second thought. Consider - if Gibson can't sell their magic whatever output guitars (USB, FireWire, whatever) for any amount of money, I think $2345.00 is a bit much for MM to expect from the greater part of the playing community. Possibly close to 2 large, but more likely a grand and a half ($1500.00) would've been a better introductory price-point. The curmudgeon in me wants to believe that they're stockpiling moolah, in case they have a patent fight down the road - but that might not be fair of me to state such. sumgai EDIT: spelling error |
|
|
|
Post by newey on Jan 15, 2014 6:49:42 GMT -5
Yeah, I got a chuckle out of the "patent pending" claim, too. But I doubt EB/MM has much to worry about. If it's a huge hit, they'll be happy to finance the litigation. If it's not, no one will bother to sue them over it . . .
Also, this brings us back to the ageless debate we've had- whether one wants the "all everything" guitar, one that realizes all possible switching combinations, versus a guitar that has a limited number of combos that are all usable in real-world playing. Among the members here who've done a few projects, the consensus seems to be that the "all everything" guitar is interesting as a wiring exercise, but that it's more practical to focus on those combos one will actually use. After all, many of the combinations won't sound distinctively different.
With this product, it seems sort of in-between the two extremes. You can have all the combos, but not all at once. You can to upload a few via USB to the axe, but if others are desired, you have to go back into the software to redo it.
You are sort-of uploading a "switching patch", it seems. The idea that people will, via the website, "share their tonal selections with the world" is also a bit of a hoot: "Hey, Bro, check this out! It's (M x B) + N!"
I'm still imagining some poor schlub sitting in front of his computer, thinking: "Well, N X B X M sounds like crap. I know! I'll try M X B X N instead!"
ChrisK did a logic matrix a while back to illustrate all possible combinations of pickup coils. Even with phase included, it's not really an "extensive library of never-before-heard tones". For 4 coils, there are under 100 combos, excluding "all off" and phasing. Adding the 5th coil here, plus phasing, will certainly take the numbers into the hundreds, but it's still a fairly modest "library" to my way of thinking.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2014 9:24:36 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by JohnH on Jan 15, 2014 15:39:39 GMT -5
My views about it haven't changed much since we first saw it in 2011.
In fact, what have they been doing these last two years? Our members have designed and built dozens of new guitars in that time! Get moving Music-man people, you are being left behind!
I think it looks to be a nice guitar.
I wonder how low-impedance the electronic switches can be? does anyone know? Anything more than a few hundred ohms, and they ate dulling their tones by switching impedances, and they need to be very linear as well
I see there is a piezo bridge in there too - cool
Love the BS! all those 'never-before-heard tones', must be referring to the several hundred potentially crap-sounding out-of-phase non-humcancelling ones. Because we have heard all the good ones before.
I would look forward to 'sharing my settings with the world via the internet', or at least with the two other people who bought one.
I think it is difficult, in terms of product design and public acceptance of it, to put current, somewhat transitory modern hi technology into a high quality product of a type that usually has a very long life-span. Doing this brings the lifespan of the whole product down from potentially several generations, reduced to just a few years. All of the computers that can interface with this guitar will be doorstops within 5 years and landfill within 10 years.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2014 15:49:09 GMT -5
I think it is difficult, in terms of product design and public acceptance of it, to put current, somewhat transitory modern hi technology into a high quality product of a type that usually has a very long life-span. Doing this brings the lifespan of the whole product down from potentially several generations, reduced to just a few years. All of the computers that can interface with this guitar will be doorstops within 5 years and landfill within 10 years. Good point. I thought that if they based their interface on IP (wifi) it could lift the USB (potentially) limited lifespan problem, would make the guitar controllable from a distance, and would eliminate breaking the USB port from continuous use. |
|
|
|
Post by JohnH on Jan 15, 2014 16:45:54 GMT -5
That is a good idea, which addresses one of the main points of physical failure.
But suppose Joe Guitarist bought an equivalent product 10 years ago? He loaded up the cd that came with it onto his desktop PC, and it worked great for a few years.
But in 2014, the guitar hasn’t been played for several years. After replacing his pc a few years later, it too suffered a hard drive failure and he lost his saved settings for the ‘Blame Changer’ guitar. Currently he has a Windows 8 netbook, with no cd drive, so he can’t load up the old software off the cd. In any case, the cd is not in good condition following an unfortunate incident in 2008 involving a cat and a tin of paint. He now does most of his computing from his phone and ipad, but that doesn’t help him with this old guitar, since the maker never wrote an interface for them. In any case, the rechargeable battery has degraded and doesn’t hold charge any more. So these days he mainly plays his old Strat, with the cool switching mods that he got from Guitarnuts in 2007.
I reckon there would be an equivalent tale of woe in 2024, for such a thing bought now. It would probably involve the intentional non-backwards compatibility of Windows 2020,and the demise of Apple following tbe great product recall of 2018.
|
|
|
|
Post by ux4484 on Jan 15, 2014 21:10:19 GMT -5
Good point John, it's the same with any USB recording device, modeling pedal/amp you could buy today, but your investment being on the lower side of the scale (usually) most folks won't be too heartbroken 10 years from now. "I would look forward to 'sharing my settings with the world via the internet', or at least with the two other people who bought one." I'm constantly amazed at the abundance of shared settings for Line 6, Digitech, and even Fender (Fuse) for products costing a fraction of this guitar, I'm sure those four buyers will be very forthcoming ... If only for the post-GAS justification of the purchase. After having had tried the three above mentioned shared community resources, I always find them (the presets) lacking (intentionally I'm sure, as who really wants to share that special tone they spent hours dialing in). I just tweak them from scratch now. What I don't like about the Game Changer is the lack of having some relatively easy manual switching option (The reason I bought a Mustang III instead of a I or II). If it's just switching, why not a phone/tablet option? Wifi and a phone could be much more viable over the long haul, and give you a better gigging option (though I don't see this as a gigging instrument). I also don't care for the Wolfgang shape (The only guitar shapes from EB/MM that I really like are the Armada and the John Petrucci). I'd further this by saying MM might be better served by offering this as a option on any guitar, instead of a specific model. On a side note concerning forward compatibility, I was happy to discover that my Mustang III has more recording features with Windows 8 then it did with Windows 7. They're just not explained anywhere, you have to dig in your Windows setup to make them work. |
|
|
|
Post by ux4484 on Jan 15, 2014 21:20:21 GMT -5
Commercially available solid-state switches are available with forward output impedances in the single digit ohm value.
|
|
|
|
Post by newey on Jan 15, 2014 21:22:15 GMT -5
Obviously I failed to recall the earlier thread- this showed up in the "new arrivals" page at MF, but apparently only the use of this in the "Reflex" model is new.
|
|
|
|
Post by sumgai on Jan 15, 2014 21:26:50 GMT -5
John, Woah, that's some prognostication there, feller! IMO, your assertions are exactly why they make and sell soldering irons to individuals! Yank all that cruft outta there, lash up an "old-school" style switching system, complete with a ¼" jack, and everything is back to copacetic. Provided of course that the cat-and-paint can didn't get too intimate with the guitar itself! I too haven't changed my opinions any since that first thread was posted. And I'm not sure I should thank greekdude for making me realize that my memory had deteriorated that much, to have forgotten something barely two years old.  As to impedance issues with tone.... many, if not most digital switching "chips" have an On resistance nearly as low as the wetting current (the amount of energy it takes to overcome the contact points' initial resistance and start transferring electrons). I doubt this will be a concern in the laboratory, but as you insinuate, and as I said in the earlier thread, most players will stay away in droves, as they Ludditely perceive "digital switching" as yet another way to bollix up the Tone (or the Mojo, your preference). HTH sumgai Edit: yet another spelling error... I must be suffering from fat fingers today.  |
|
|
|
Post by gumbo on Jan 17, 2014 5:51:45 GMT -5
John, Woah, that's some prognostication there, feller! IMO, your assertions are exactly why they make and sell soldering irons to individuals! Yank all that cruft outta there, lash up an "old-school" style switching system, complete with a ¼" jack, and everything is back to copacetic. Provided of course that the cat-and-paint can didn't get too intimate with the guitar itself! I too haven't changed my opinions any since that first thread was posted. And I'm not sure I should thank greekdude for making me realize that my memory had deteriorated that much, to have forgotten something barely two years old. sumgai Edit: yet another spelling error... I must be suffering from fat fingers today. Fat OLD fingers, but don't let it get to you too much...... Fascinating stuff in this thread..only just got to turn on the 'pute after some days absence due to a local weather condition where at one stage we were rated as the "Hottest City in the World"....cool change just dropped 15C in a little over at hour, and now I'm beginning to think again.. There are some interesting parallels in redundancy thoughts with the "uptake" of the Fishman Triple-Play synth pickup system that has all-but-taken-over conversation on the (once-majorly-Roland) Vguitars Forum..once again dependant upon dragging a laptop or worse around with you for the 'benefit' of going wireless... ..sigh.. ..hope you're all staying warm... g-f-b |
|
)
