There are a number of ways to change your guitar's tone on-the-fly, such as using effects pedals, but if you want to change your pickups mid-song, that's not so easy. France's Wild Customs is introducing a novel system at Summer NAMM in Nashville this week where up to six pickups can be mounted to revolving blocks and switched using levers.
The patent-pending pickup changer has been dubbed Gyrock, and most of the magic is hidden from view in a host guitar's body. The mechanical setup is operated using two levers, and each carousel-like block can take up to three pickups – all wired up and ready to rock.
That means you could have a humbucking pickup at the bridge position and a single-coil at the neck and, with a turn of the pickup shifters, two single-coils or two humbuckers could be at your disposal. The Gyrock system makes use of Seymour Duncan pickups, so usable tone shouldn't be a problem, and up to 15 different combinations are placed at the player's fingertips.
The Gyrock family is made up of eight Wild Customs guitars, and 10 pickups are supplied with each guitar, together with a hardcase and t-shirt.
Pricing for a Wild Custom guitar sporting the "revolutionary" pickup switching system has been set at US$16,000. Visitors to Summer NAMM this week can see the system in action. Everyone else can watch the demo video below.
Product page: Gyrock guitars