Tweaking your tone by changing the pickups on your six-string studio workhorse isn't the easiest of tasks and can be a real time sink. Australia's Pratley Guitars has designed a quick change system that could have you rocking new pickups in as little as 30 seconds, without removing any strings.
The P-Link Pickup Interchange System is the result of four years of research and development. It's designed as a direct replacement for humbucker mounts, and essentially allows a player to take a bunch of different pickups to a studio, rehearsal room or gig and swap them out between songs, significantly changing the tone without changing the guitar.
The system is made up of an ABS plastic mount that's installed in any host guitar with a pre-routed humbucker-sized cavity and a cradle that holds the pickups. The P-Link system doesn't come supplied with any pickups, but can accept single coil/P-90 pickups as well as classic or modern humbucking pickups. The mount is home to five metal contacts which line up to those on the cradle to ensure the signal flows.
Once the mount is installed in the guitar and a pickup secured in the cradle, Pratley reckons that it should take around half a minute to clip in a new pickup. No tools required. And you can leave the strings on the guitar, though you will need to loosen them before new pickup install and tune them up afterwards.
Pratley Guitars is due to launch the system on Kickstarter on August 19. In the meantime, the short video below shows the super quick installation process.
Update August 19: The Kickstarter campaign went live today. Pledges start at AUD 110 (about US$85), and if all goes to plan, shipping is estimated to start in February 2017.
Source: Pratley Guitars