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Post by Johnkenn on Jun 16, 2019 13:51:57 GMT -6
So cheeeeck this out. Freaking LOVE this thing. somniumguitars.com/I've tried to get along with Variax's - but just felt like they still had this piezo plunk sound to them...but I've wanted something for building tracks that could be somewhat interchangeable. So I don't have to invest a butt ton in guitars along with all the Pro Audio stuff we invest in. Enter this Somnium guitar. Completely interchangeable pickups. Passive or active. And you can put your own favorite pickups in. All it takes is a (provided) mini screwdriver to wire in your own pickups. I'm going to get the founder, Mark to drop by to correct me if I'm saying anything wrong, though. This is a PERFECT solution for me - and probably a lot of us on here. They are basically cartridges that you can switch in and out with different pickups. The mechanism is really pretty ingenious and tolerance seems great. They just click in and out with a squeeze mechanism and you can even run it with only one cartridge in. Also - you can put all of the pickups anywhere. Want a mini-humbucker in the bridge and a P-90 in the neck? No problem...oh wait. Want it the other way around, just swap them. Talking about a major time saver in getting sounds...It's literally a 5 second switch to see what the other pickup will sound like. The neck feels really good and the body is well done...and there are a bunch of different styles on the site. Even a headless Steiberger looking one, donr  Here's our own joelhamilton seeing and playing it for the first time. I wanted to get his initial reaction - so this is literally him picking it up, playing and swapping without any instructions. How cool is this? |
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Post by Johnkenn on Jun 16, 2019 13:58:37 GMT -6
And sorry for posting this in Pro Audio, but I wanted to make sure people saw this...
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Post by Johnkenn on Jun 16, 2019 14:39:37 GMT -6
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Post by somniumguitars on Jun 16, 2019 14:40:24 GMT -6
That RMI R66 pickup in the neck has a real nice overdrive built in.
Great video John.
Ray/Somnium Guitars
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Post by ragan on Jun 16, 2019 14:43:35 GMT -6
Wow
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Post by Ward on Jun 16, 2019 14:48:50 GMT -6
VERY cool!! Reminiscent of the Armstrong lucite guitars of the 70s
Nice playing, Joel!!
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Post by drbill on Jun 16, 2019 14:49:56 GMT -6
Very Cool john!!!!!
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Post by Johnkenn on Jun 16, 2019 14:53:36 GMT -6
That RMI 66 pickup in the neck has a real nice overdrive built in. Great video John. Ray/Somnium Guitars That's probably my favorite. Love the mini humbucker too, though. |
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Post by MarkStad on Jun 16, 2019 15:52:00 GMT -6
VERY cool!! Reminiscent of the Armstrong lucite guitars of the 70s Nice playing, Joel!! Yes, Joel did an awesome job! Armstrongs though were extremely limited. You could only switch out one pickup (bridge), it slid in at the front of the guitar which limited the guitar design and appearance, and the pickups were proprietary. We wanted to remove all of those limitations and give guitarists the ability to play any pickup in any position, be able to change them in seconds while still plugged in, with any shape or style guitar even traditional Tele, Strat, etc. In other words, the ultimate in versatility in a professional grade USA-made guitar. There are even more features that haven't been revealed, we will cover those soon! |
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Post by Ward on Jun 17, 2019 5:37:02 GMT -6
VERY cool!! Reminiscent of the Armstrong lucite guitars of the 70s Nice playing, Joel!! Yes, Joel did an awesome job! Armstrongs though were extremely limited. You could only switch out one pickup (bridge), it slid in at the front of the guitar which limited the guitar design and appearance, and the pickups were proprietary. We wanted to remove all of those limitations and give guitarists the ability to play any pickup in any position, be able to change them in seconds while still plugged in, with any shape or style guitar even traditional Tele, Strat, etc. In other words, the ultimate in versatility in a professional grade USA-made guitar. There are even more features that haven't been revealed, we will cover those soon! Absolutely fantastic! And long overdue. Congrats! Tons of possibilities and potential here. |
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Post by donr on Jun 17, 2019 10:10:57 GMT -6
The Tele style body looks about ideal for what appears a stellar implementation of the interchangable pickup idea. Looks and sounds great. And Joel blazes.
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Post by NoTomorrow on Jun 17, 2019 13:48:56 GMT -6
Thanks for posting this.... looks killer
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Post by Johnkenn on Oct 1, 2019 21:54:49 GMT -6
I’m so digging this guitar. Such a quick and easy tool.
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Post by ragan on Oct 1, 2019 22:00:13 GMT -6
I’m so digging this guitar. Such a quick and easy tool. Wait did you get one? |
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Post by Johnkenn on Oct 1, 2019 22:05:52 GMT -6
I’m so digging this guitar. Such a quick and easy tool. Wait did you get one? Yeah. That’s mine in the video. I didn’t want to embarrass Joel, so I just let him play... |
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Post by LesC on Oct 1, 2019 22:36:33 GMT -6
Just wow!
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 2, 2019 1:42:42 GMT -6
VERY cool!! Reminiscent of the Armstrong lucite guitars of the 70s Nice playing, Joel!! Yes, Joel did an awesome job! Armstrongs though were extremely limited. You could only switch out one pickup (bridge), it slid in at the front of the guitar which limited the guitar design and appearance, and the pickups were proprietary. Not exactly. Yes, it was a one pickup guitar, reminiscent of a very heavy Les Paul Junior. But it's not true that it was limited to proprietary pickups (of which there were three that I've seen.) I had a friend who owned one of the 6 black Lucite prototypes made to introduce the guitar at NAMM. He had three Dan Armstrong pickups (one humbucker, two different single coils), one Fender Telecaster pickup, One Gibson Humbucker and one P-90. The 3rd party pickups mounted in wooden shells the size of the Dan Armstrong pickups (which were quite large) The connection could not have been simpler or more robust - a pair of standard single pole bananas, IIRC males on the mounting shells (and the Armstrong pickups), females in the body*. Connector alignment was automatically determined by the way the pickup slid into the body. I don't know if empty mounting shells ever hit the market (obviously they were intended to), but anybody with minimal woodworking skills could have made as many shells as they wanted. And pickups could in fact be easily exchanged with the guitar plugged in. No tools at all were needed.
The major drawback of the Dan Armstrong guitar was that the Lucite body was ungodly heavy - much heavier than the heaviest vintage Les Paul. Very few people wanted to hold one of those up for long.
* - I might have this backwards, it's been a long time.
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Post by mrholmes on Oct 2, 2019 3:14:28 GMT -6
That's funny because my luthier did something like this, not as good as in the video, for the German distributor for Gibson Guitars.
When I saw it I said someone should produce guitars like this...
Have to tell this the biggest retailer in town this is cool....
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Post by Guitar on Oct 2, 2019 16:36:24 GMT -6
I love it.
I love watching Joel's hands go to work too. Some tricky stuff!
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Post by Johnkenn on Aug 8, 2020 21:08:50 GMT -6
I really enjoy watching this every once in a while.
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Post by drumsound on Aug 8, 2020 21:27:45 GMT -6
How great would that be working on a day of solos, or for a session player in general? You can have a bunch of sounds, but always have the same feel without some sort of moddeling BS.
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 9, 2020 13:05:21 GMT -6
Can you get it with a B-bender and reversed controls?
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Post by jeremygillespie on Aug 9, 2020 20:42:39 GMT -6
Can you get it with a B-bender and reversed controls? You can reverse the controls in about 10 mins with a few screwdrivers and an open end wrench. B-bender... not so much!! |
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Post by Johnkenn on Aug 9, 2020 21:04:38 GMT -6
Can you get it with a B-bender and reversed controls? You can reverse the controls in about 10 mins with a few screwdrivers and an open end wrench. B-bender... not so much!! Yeah. Pretty positive there is no b bender option. Who the hell offers that stock? |
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Post by drumsound on Aug 9, 2020 22:28:35 GMT -6
I think most of the B-Bender mechanicals would be in the way of the pickup swapping.
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