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 .
