New fender "personality cards" and solderless electronics ~

[4real]

[ux4484]

I find this interesting with Acme guitar works closing shop and relaunching as a new sales-only toneshapers.com site in the last two weeks.
This is basically an outboarded toneshaper (which on a Strat makes it more useful as it can be tweaked on the fly).

[Deleted]

Another video here :


As an idea i think it is brilliant, it sets the path for future (obviously) computer/appliance controlled guitar, but does not scare the old "vintage-ists" by being 100% analog and passive. Great idea. A really great idea. If they start selling cards to be "programmed" (configured) by the user, it is so brilliant! Why it is so brilliant? Because it takes a lot of brains and guts to go contra-digital in an era here even our washing machine has a USB connection, yet make something so smart and handy. For the occasional traditionalist strat hot-rodder this will be a great tool. Well done fender! I am impressed!

[mlrpa]

That super duper deluxe pro plus hyperbole strat thingy is BRILLIANT! Finally, Fender has created something I actually want. Great job!

[sumgai]

I predict that someone will come along and start selling cards with non-Fender-innovated options. With 50 pins on that connector, the number of routing options is truly staggering. I hope that Fender embraces this kind of sharing, and doesn't start sueing everyone in sight.

And obviously without having seen one in person, I'd hazard a guess that there's room in there for a small battery, perhaps a cell-phone or similar rechargable unit. That's gonna be a real incentive for DIY types.


My only disappointment was that none of the videos I found showed the Sunburst variation, they all had that caa-caa blue finish. Blech!

[haydukej]

Jan 29, 2014 13:10:18 GMT -5 sumgai said:

My only disappointment was that none of the videos I found showed the Sunburst variation, they all had that caa-caa blue finish. Blech!

Check the Fender Website for the sunburst viddy.

Hopefully the first personality card they make is labeled "Les Paul"... bazinga.

[Deleted]

The obvious gotcha here is that this is *not* a deluxe strat. No bevelled heel, no LSR nuts (HSS), no S1-switching. Its essentially a personality cards equipped upgraded american standard. OTOH it has compound radius, N3 pups, features coming from the deluxe. So pups come from the deluxe, neck from the deluxe SSS, while body comes from the AM Std.
Anyway, the idea to move the mod labor outside the guitar was just clever!
Personally i would love an HSH version (with identity cards) all white with maple fretboard. i wouldn't buy this sunburst with rosewood fretboard cause its extremely like my Aria strat.

[sumgai]

'duke,

Thanks for that, it's about as close as I need to see, to determine that the (depicted) Sunburst is akin to the early 60's, where the red was much brighter than earlier paint jobs. Fender only did that for 2 or 3 years, perhaps 4 at the outside, then it was back to the more subdued version of red.*

Indeed, the Sunburst is synonomous with Rosewood/Ebony necks, maple just doesn't quite cut it for most players. Two-tone, or so-called brown-burst, that's a different story, but with red as the middle color, that just makes the maple look a baseball bat or sumpin, I dunno....

In all events though, I'd still have to play it first, to see if it calls out to me. I can already make any guitar sound like any other guitar (let alone any other instrument you might care to name!), so the adaptable switching is not the main attraction for me. We've gone over this before, it's really all in how the instrument plays under your hands. If it doesn't feel right, then all the Tone(s) in the world isn't gonna make you like it any better, now or later.

But I do admit that that 9½-14" radius neck is attractive enough to draw me in for a tire-kicking session, once it hits the shelves.







sumgai

p.s. I'm reminded..... most of the Japanese reissues are of this strong red coloring, particularly where they state "faithful reproduction of a '62" or some such. Certainly not all of 'em, but a good majority, for sure.

[newey]

With 50 pins on that connector, the number of routing options is truly staggering.

HMM. I find myself wondering if, by getting one's hands on one of the cards, a clever type might be able to decipher the pinout. With that info, presumably, one could sort of reverse-engineer a custom card . . .

[JohnH]

Im wondering what physical controls are provided, and are they standard types. Of the various extra options that i might want, there are not many that i would want to commif to for an evening, to the exclusion of standard options. Really it would come down to what tone pot does what..

I would want some more powerful switching built in, such as a superswitch and an S1, with all lugs available to the card terminals. Gimme at least one noload pot too. With those physical parts built in, one could develop interchageable card versions of most of the wiring schemes that we do around here, as well as almosf every way that Fender has stock-wired a Strat or Tele.

Put on the list for one of those, with a box of 20 blank wiring cards.

[santellan]

From what I could see at Namm and talking to CTS, they use a proprietary CTS (not Electroswitch/Oak-Grisby) superswitch with all 24 contacts going to the 50 pin personality card connector. The same for each proprietary CTS pot (a special pcb quick connect standard type and a new dpdt pushpush pot). The have 3 contacts per standard pot and 9 contacts per pushpush pot for a total of 15 connections (based on using 1 pushpush pot). In keeping with the proprietary nature of this product they have also decided to use a small connector on the new pickups for this system which makes swapping out pickups a breeze. I would also guess that all the pickup connections (3 per single coil and 5 per humbucker)are going to the personality connector since they have room (24+15 leaves 11 open pins) which is based on the SSH setup. So all the connections needed for wiring a Strat are there at that one location with the personality cards making the final connections to give you the completed wiring for it's specified function. I could also see that the personality connector is mounted on to a golden flex circuit which connects to the circuit board probably as a rigid flex design. So you could design custom personality cards but can bet it will void the warranty.

Oh they probably had CTS make them a no-load pot as well for the blender.

[newey]

santellan-

Thanks for the inside info on this piece. It is apparently more complex that we envisioned based on the marketing copy.