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Wile I was at the convention I walked the booths and spent a little time at Gibson . They have a Solid Wood Mandolin there ( no laminates) with a "new" Pickguard Technology ". Now Im not a electronuics guy so I will explain in laymans term what I think he said . The pick guard is approx 3/16" thick , it has three thumbwheels on trailing edge and they are "pots" that are wired into the bridge . This is an Accoustic NOT electric . The Pots control dampening of each set of strings . so that u can control , base sets with one , trebel sets with another and actual overall volume with the third . The concept is to fine tune the decible range to get better harmonics from the instriment. As far as i could tell , its a battery situation , he didnt say that however there was no plugins anywhere . He did say it wasnt for distribution yet , and when available the mando as I saw it will be AROUND $800.00.

How well it actually works is yet to be seen , however in my "limited " ability , I could descern subtle diffrence in it when I adjusted the wheels .

_________________
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The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
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Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
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Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
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Probably an end jack? Don't know why anyone would intentionally dampen strings to balance the tone. I would be changing string guages instead. Since Charlie Derrington died, Gibson has been "reaching" to bolster their mandolin sales. Gimmicks are not the way to do it as Charlie brought the level of the F5 back to the Loar era by building a "correct" copy of the Master Model that Lloyd supervised it 1922-24. F5's are midrangy anyway.
I would say that the gimmick is $800., not the whole mandolin...

Nope No End jack , I checked . Its all self Contained . Like I said , has to be tested , And I may not have completely got it right , I am not an electronics guy. And I did ask , he said complete package mando and all $800.00

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

James: What is spbgma please...?

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Where the heck do they put the battery? Under the pickguard?

Westica, it's Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music Assoc.

Society for preservation of bluegrass music in america they are in nashville this weekend at hilltop sheraton , groups all over the place jamming in small clusters . All Bluegrass , and several rooms of show booths . the place is wall to wall , elbow to butholle people . I took vid yesterday I may post later . lil lady doing " rocky top" she was quite good .

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Yea, Merica,
Wow, CHEAP mando. Nothing like a MM. Like I said, they're "reaching"...

Not sure on battery placement , and the whole thing was maybe 5" long and 2" wide and curved like a pick guard would be. looked like a real thick pickguard.


Yeah I thought it was rather cheap as well . However it was a good looking , but rather plain mando . and it was all wood construction . No laminates . No " Body , Neck Frills " and it Is a F style

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Charlie and Lloyd are rolling over in their graves.

It sounds kinda cool... as an idea...

It seems to me to be a ploy at skirting the basic problem that has hounded Luthiers and Factories for maybe the last 10,000 years or so....

How do you build it so it sounds right?

The other thing it appears to be skirting is the Skill of the Musician at playing an instrument with subtle precision rather than just whanging away... Let me just turn this "Suck knob" down a bit and everything should straighten itself out...

So.. Do you put on some fancy "Auto-tune" deal to make up for the fact that the B-string is Dead and the G-string rings out like a Banshee.... or do you go sort out your Production Specs to make the instruments come out more or less how they should in the 1st place?

Thanks

John

I love the comment , Wish I had A Knob on mine that would change my ability as a Musican from suck to at least ok !

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

The kicker is that the batteries for this unit will be $8000.00.

Unfortunately, for me... the knob that finally makes me sound better says "Off"

Thanks

John

My guess is that it was built to compete with the myriad pac-rim mandolins, beat their price and sound half a$$ decent compared to theirs have the gizmo, plus carry the (oohh) Gibson (oohh) name with it. Will never hold a candle to any good builder's mandolins. May even be pac-rim itself...Nobody can build a good F5 for 800 bucks.

I suspect your probably right .

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/