Product Reviews

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Product ReviewPickup Tone Multiplier

AweSome Musical Instruments www.AweSome-Guitars.com

It started with an e-mail asking if my guitar’spickups gave me 35 pure virgin analog pickuptones. Nope, of course not. But that’s what Awe-Some Musical Instruments' Pickup Tone MultiplierTMwas claiming to be able to deliver to my guitar.With great skepticism I read on, trying to under-stand exactly what this “Hyper-ModTM” patentedPickup Tone MultiplierTM thing was supposed to do.I’ve been playing guitar for de-cades and over the years I’veowned, tested, destroyed andbeen frustrated by dozens anddozens of gadgets, all promisingsomething wonderful. Mostfailed to deliver. Some werecheap, most were not.I dropped a line to the propri-

etor of AweSome MusicalInstruments, a good-natured guynamed Thomas Wnorowski, anddesigner of the Pickup ToneMultiplierTM. To say that Mr.Wnorowski is enthusiastic abouthis product would be anunderstatement. He unabashedlyrefers to it as “The greatest in-vention since Les Paul createdthe solid body electric guitar”.With that kind of in-your-facebravado I had to try one out.A few days later the device ar-

rived in the mail. It was for astandard three-pickup Strato-caster (although other configura-tions are available - both forright-hand and left-hand players). Essentially it wasa white pickguard with a single volume knob andsingle tone knob. In place of the standard thirdknob and the five-way selector switch were six sil-ver switches. The first three switches are on-off-onswitches each controlling a pickup. Flipping aswitch one way puts the pickup coil in one phaseand thrown the other the coil is in the oppositephase. Using just these three switches will giveyou 13 different pickup tones from your three pick-ups - with all the pickup coils being in parallel.The next three switches are on-off switches and

connect select pickups in series. When down, allthe pickups are in a parallel circuit. Flip the fourthswitch up and you combines the bridge andmiddle pickup in series creating acompound/humbucking pickup tone, the fifth switchputs the bridge and neck and the sixth neck andmiddle. If you flip on the fourth and sixth switchestogether you get all three pickups in series. Seehow you can get to 35 sounds? There are videos

on the web site demonstrating all of the soundsavailable.Now, I’m clueless when it comes to electrical stuff

and I leave luthier stuff to my luthier so to behonest, installing this scared the crap out of me.However, I read the instructions and I felt like Icould manage it. Even if you cannot solder youcan install one of these pickguards. Awesome Mu-sical Instruments gives you everything you need todo the job without solder if you want. In additionto the pickguard (you supply your own pickups orthey have some of their own for sale) with theswitches, volume and tone pots with knobs al-ready installed, you get 12” each of red and black

wire, 4 solderless crimp connectorsin case you need to extend a wire,and two wire nuts to connect toyour output jack wires. One smallniggle is that the extra wire I wassupplied is of a smaller gauge thanon most pickups and output jacks.In the future Thomas says he is in-creasing the gauge of the wire be-cause others have mentioned it too.All the connectors on the mod forinstalling your pickups are push toopen spring like connectors so allyou have to do is stick in the wireand let the button go and thepickup is secured. Installing theHyper-ModTM and restringing the gui-tar took me a little more than 20minutes. I took my time and focusedon getting it right. After I installedthe last pick guard screw, I took adeep breath, plugged in a cable, andturned the volume knob. Nothing, nosound at all. Crap.I flipped switches, still nothing. Re-

minder to myself, always plug in apickguard and tap the pickups to make sure youare good to go before putting in all those screwsand restringing. Eventually I removed the pickguard and discovered I had done a lousy job con-necting two wires. I corrected my error and I putthe guitar back together. Once again I plugged inand turned up the guitar. Behold, there wassound.I sat there for the next 30 minutes flipping

through the six unfamiliar switches on my now"Hyper-Modded" 1994 Stratocaster. Wow, I now callit my “Supercaster” since the modification, be-cause what it has done to this guitar is nothingshort of amazing. Once getting the feel for howthe switching operated it became more natural.Most importantly was that I was hearing dozens ofnew naturally produced tones and resonance fromthe guitar that I had not heard prior to the mod.The tones ranged from tight and muted to raggedand jagged, depending on the volume of my amp.This modification is dynamite. Plugged in with a

For anyone who grew up through the 60's, therewas no guitar more iconic than the hollow bodyGretsch. Depending upon the part of the United

States you were in, you either gothooked on the image of Chet Atkinsor, perhaps more likely, GeorgeHarrison, with a big bodied Gretschonstage. Although Harrison's celeb-rity probably sold more guitars forGretsch, Atkins skill and influence inthe music business forever ensuredicon status for the Gretsch 6120. Inhis book, Gretsch 6120: The Historyof a Legendary Guitar, author EdwardBall does a masterful job detailingthe history of the Gretsch GuitarCompany with an eventual spotlighton the 6120 itself. The first two sections of the book

cover the cultural backdrop that cul-minated in the 1955 release of thefirst 6120. There is particular empha-sis on the Gretsch Streamliner, a one

pickup hollow body that in many ways, evolvedinto the 6120. Ball also takes great care to pointout the significance of the association that devel-oped between Gibson and Les Paul and how theircollaborative commercial successes led to Gretschseeking out a similar working arrangement withChet Atkins.Section III is the core of the book and is basi-

cally a year-by-year discussion of the 6120, withplenty of lovely color photos anddetails down to the differences be-tween specific production batches!The remaining two sections of the

book discuss the ups and downsof both the guitar business in gen-eral and the Gretsch Guitar Com-pany as it tried to cope with arapidly changing marketplace (andculture) through the 1970's and1980's.With this book, Edward Ball has

done a masterful job taking thereader through the life of theGretsch 6120 and the guitar busi-ness overall. With "Father's Day"on the horizon, this would seem tobe a prime choice for anyoneinterested, not just in the Gretsch6120, but in anything related toguitars and popular culture!MN

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processor and the potential of this product isstellar.To be candid, this isn’t just a casual “effect” to

use on occasion. If you drop a Hyper-ModTM intoone of your guitars, do realize that there is agenuine learning curve that requires a bit of atten-tion so that players understand how to get themost from the device. There is a method to howthe switching works to maximize the tones onecan extractfrom a moddedaxe. Since youhave to navi-gate sixswitches to geta tone it doestake some get-ting used to.I’ve fiddledwith mine for acouple weeksand while I’mfar from anexpert, I’vefound severaltones that I re-ally like thatI’m quitepleased with.My guess is most players won’t use all 35 tones,but will find a core of tones in addition to the tra-ditional Stratocaster five pickup tones that theywill use regularly and a few they use when thesong calls for it or as their unique "signaturesound".If I could only purchase one peripheral device or

make one modification to my guitar or amp, this,hands down, would bewhere I would put mymoney. The AweSome Musi-cal Instruments Pickup ToneMultiplierTM switching systemis nothing short of amazing.You can get them for a va-riety of guitars and basses,in addition to three pickupStrat like guitars, for around$130.00. They even havelow-cost assembled and kitboards versions for the DIYpeople to install in anyinstrument. I can’t imaginehow anyone wouldn’t bethrilled with the capability itputs into one guitar. For thegigging player, drop aHyper-ModTM in to one ofyour gigging axes and dragone or two less guitars to agig.The website features pages

of information about the de-vices as well as videos. Formore information on this re-ally impressive product visit www.AweSome-Guitars.comCA

Book ReviewGretsch 6120: The History of a Legendary Guitar

Edward BallSchiffer Publishing