Pole Position Guitar

I'm gonna' go with...
Great idea. Poor execution.

It's a neat concept, but poles should be aligned at various nodes for tonal/harmonic properties.

But that's not to say someone couldn't find suitable uses between those nodes, in which case I would've liked to have seen a device that acts more like a b-bender or maybe a bigsby arm, moving the pup for dynamic reasons rather than a "set it and forget it" design.

In any case, I wouldn't retrofit any but the cheapest guitars with this thing purely for aesthetic reasons. A $350 new guitar would be the perfect candidate, but then there would inevitably be a world of playability/tonal/construction concerns.
 
The looks don't do it for me, but it might have some tonal uses. It also depends on how easy it is to change your pickup position in a live setting. I tend to flick back and forth quite a bit between pickups for added textures. Also neck and bridge pickups have different output levels in matched sets so there would be volume issues.

The question is whether the downsides outweigh the benefits and I can only see one benefit: that of tonal possibility. I'm not sure whether this is going to be any better than a two or three pickup guitar.
 
I think it's missing some serious things. A big one is you need to be able to lock it into place if you have a position that you prefer, I'd hate for that to slide around unintentionally when you are playing.

And I love the interaction of multiple pickups (especially on a Strat), but using this Pole Position is almost like having a strat with a 3 way switch i.e. 1 position for 1 pickup at a time only.

That said, it is very good to see people inventing stuff and being creative with guitars! I hope he succeeds and does well out of this project.
 
Norton guitars are very similar. They slide and lock on poles. One of the options had a dual pole system and later on moved on to a single pole.

The neck and the pups we're attached to the pole which isolated the neck, pups and bridge setup which enhanced the sustain and tone. This also allowed the player to tilt the neck and rod pickup assembly to whatever angle the player desired since they were affixed to the rod.

I still have mine in my studio.
 
His LP issue is easily solved, and long in production. It's called a "third pickup".

His Strat comment is beyond wacky and shows a lack of tonal knowledge on his part- the 2nd and 4th positions are where the quack and the funk lives.

His biggest faux pas is cutting that huge chunk 'o wood out of the center of the body. I get his misguided reasoning (to make the PUPs slide), but the cost of losing that much sustain/tone goodness is just nutz.

You want to make your PUPs "slide" without hacking a guitar to shreds? Use your Axe Filter and EQ blocks with a modifier. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, you can make that PUP sound not only like it's moving from bridge to neck but all the way around your freakin' guitar body back to front...
 
I find it very hard to utilize live. With everything else going on are you going to have the presence of mind to slide to the right place constantly? And since you need to use your picking hand to slide, does that then put your pick in the wrong location when it's time to play? I can see a studio nerd looking for something unique using it but not the average guitarist.

Also bridge and neck pickups put out different amounts of signal to even out, something this fails to address.
 
There were certain models of the Dan Armstrong guitars that had a movable pickup feature.

Dan+Armstrong+sliding+pickup+Guitarz.jpg


Big whoop!
 
As far as the routing on the guitar is concerned.. I know it looks like he did some deep routing n the prototypes, but the final design he has currently settled on doesn't seem to be routed any differently than what Fender does with the Strat Plus. It's more or less taking advantage of what is already there. It could be marketed as an add-on piece for such a guitar. You could have 2 single coil pickups on the track, and then either have them separate or sandwiched together with wire options to have them in and out of phase of each other.

Build37.jpg
 
That several have tried it before, even by some well known entities, indicates some fairly experienced minds thought there was something to it. That it hasn't really made a splash in the guitar playing world might indicate it's a solution to a problem the majority don't have. Either way, invention's a good thing and I am glad people are still pushing the envelope.
 
If the people on this forum don't care too much about having infinite tonal possibilities, how well will this do with conventional players?
 
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