From the torrent of new products pouring out of NAMM this one caught my ear as something actually new, unique and possibly good. It’s Ernie Balls new “Reflex” guitar with it’s revolutionary new system it calls the “Game Changer”. They’re not just saying it’s a game changer, that’s the actual name of the system. I know, whatever.
But here’s an instance where the product could actually live up to it’s name. Essentially, the “Game Changer” is a switching system that gives you control over your pickup selection, all the way down to the individual pole pieces and allows you to store the combination as a preset. Apparently there are 8 million possible combinations which also includes the ability to reverse the phase as well. I imagine some of those would be configurations where not every string is amplified. Although, come to think of it, that could be useful too.
This goes way beyond the traditional 3 and 5-way switches. With the 4 coils of a 2 humbucker guitar you could have all kinds of crazy configurations never possible on a guitar before. You could have a preset where you are using the front coil of the neck pickup for the 3 low strings, the rear bridge coil for just the 3 high strings, and maybe all the poles of the front bridge pickup, but with the phase reversed.
All these different combinations are accessed by plugging your guitar into your computer and logging into the Ernie Ball website. From there you can change your pickup settings on the fly and listen to the changes instantly. You can also download other peoples presets.
And this isn’t digital. The signal from the pickups is not being processed in any way. The electronics are there just to rout the signal. It’s a really interesting idea and it will be interesting to see if this technology takes off. I also haven’t seen any prices posted yet.
Lots more info and video at the Ernie Ball Game Changer site.
Cool idea. Too bad they stole it.