Fluence printed pickups

[jubal81]

Dunno if you guys have seen these, but Fishman is about to start selling electric guitar pickups that are printed to circuit boards rather than wound with wire. The idea is that every pickup is consistent, modeled after the best sounding examples and totally hum-free. They're also paired with an active preamp (battery - boo).

I'm typically a luddite, but this looks really interesting to me. I HATE components that aren't consistent unit-to-unit and pickups are one of the biggest offenders. The demos sound really good, too. I'm most impressed with how impossibly quiet they are.

[crashguitar]

These are the one thing recently announced that sound really cool to me. Pick-ups are definitely a way to change the sound of any electric guitar and these seem like a really cool way to make them repeatable.

Chad

[jkokura]

I'm always wary of "new and better."

Jacob

[pietro_moog]

i don't like these pick ups but i think i need a strat

[GermanCdn]

I'm always wary of "new and better."

Jacob

I'm in the same boat, for whatever reason, the existing technology has yet to be defeated.  Look at Lace, they make same nice pickups, different ideas, sound cool in their own way.  And how many guitar makers install them as stock - pretty sure no one anymore, Fender stopped after they developed the Noiseless series.  Not saying they aren't a good product (I loved the tone of my gold Lace Sensors in one of my strats til I sold it), but for whatever reason, there are only two designs which dominate the market, and it seems nearly impossible to change after 65 years.

[micromegas]

I did see that in proguitarshop's NAMM videos, and also discovered this: http://www.zexcoil.com/ not that innovative, but they sound good and are hum cancelling too

[RobA]

They look freaking cool to me. But I'm really grumpy now. I've been working for about a month or so on a LiPo battery pack that would work very much like he described to use on SD, EMG, and acoustic pickup systems. I would guess that I'll be putting that to the side now.

Did he say 48 layer board? I've never even heard of such a thing. Anyway, I think these have some real potential. I've got SD Blackouts in my SG now and they are incredible. Just the improvement in the way the volume knob works is worth the move, not to mention the fact that the tone control is now truly useful. There's so much potential for other types of EQ too. The only downside really is the need for a 9V battery. With these having the rechargeable system already built in -- they could be great.