Grateful Dead Music Forum

New Swiss guitar, many of the Irwin/Alembic concepts in a 21st century format. Strange.... but interesting. Jerry was always pushing the envelope (no pun intended), would he have found this interesting or useful 25 years on down the road?

Saw that just the other day. Seems to me to be a bit of a gimmick. I'd think if a working musician who wanted to have guitars with different pickups they would rather have 2 guitars on stage. Taking the time to swap them out pickups seems kind of inefficient. That said, it's pretty ingenious and could be a cool studio guitar. Plus how much fun is it really to own just one guitar???

Very interesting. Steve Jobs would be proud.

There's a Touch Pad feature which at first glance seems very cool. However, I see poor execution. Check out the delay when making changes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b79NUTHzIHA

Curious how they play.

ace

I think they'd throw up a little in their mouths.

Sure...I've never played the actual Irwin guitars. But I've got several Alembics, a Resurrection Bolt and a beautiful Wolf made by the Forum's very own Bob Fishman. I sold my Scott Walker and my Tiger from Leo at Scarlet Fire. The single element that every one of these instruments shares is a remarkable organic quality...a warmth and beauty that can only come from a truly handmade instrument. Some are more polished than others, but they all possess the unmistakable sense of having been crafted by absolutely gifted artisans who put a little bit of themselves into each one. This Relish guitar is the complete opposite of that...it's cold and lifeless.

IMHO, quick change pickups are more of a cool gimmick than a useful feature. I had a 60’s Ampeg/Dan Armstrong plexi guitar that had a slide in pickup that only required loosening a thumbscrew to swap out with several other pickups they made. I currently have a Ramtrak that employs an interchangeable mid section of the guitar - I use it to test pickups I wind.

http://jedistar.com/ramtrak/

To me the Relish looks like a plastic guitar with a bolt-on neck for $4K! And I’m a little skeptical about the bamboo fretboard.

Bill, tgo

I absolutely get the aesthetic appreciation, I'm in that camp myself. I love the cocobolo, the hippie sandwich, the brass inlay, etc. It's a very functional piece of art. But I think Jerry was more a tools-of-the-trade guy than playing them because they looked cool. He and Parish were always hitting up the music stores looking for cool new stuff. He used the TBs for years between Wolf and Tiger (as opposed to a half dozen other possibilities that might have been more "beautiful"), and they were techy innovation guitars, not exactly beauty queens. At that time on-the-road stability was a high priority for him. So I don't see it so black and white.

Incredibly well executed design! He swapped the pickups while playing!

I'm usually a traditionalist but If I had the disposable cash I would buy that in a second. Really cool guitar imo.

john in san diego

I think it's pretty cool, I don't see it as something you would do a lot of pickup switching during a gig but the ability to swap them has some promise for someone who plays in multiple bands/genres that a different tone for each is helpful.

Speaking of Irwin, i saw an interesting picture on the intarwebs last night. It appears he's out of hiding