Tone Pod

Have you ever wanted to swap pickups in your guitar, but just hated the process. First is just picking the pickups. How can you get an actual sound of how the pickup sounds in your guitar without trying it out. Every guitar is going to sound different, so how do you know the pickups that sound awesome in your buddies guitar will sound the same in yours. Then there's the wait. Getting your pickups in, take it to the repair guy and wait a few days until he can find time to get it done. By the time it's back, you've got the old tone out of your head and really can't tell how much different it sounds. If this bothers you, YOU NEED A TONE POD GUITAR. Yeah I said it in all caps. With a Tone Pod, you can switch in 5 seconds, without unplugging, turning down, or even stopping your chord from ringing out (that does take a little skill to perfect.) If you don't like it, switch back. Or get a variety of pods and when your feeling like your tone isn't what you want today, change it.
How did I come up with the Tone Pod
The tone pod developed out of a unique problem I had with my original electric guitars. Since the Scorpius was rounded, the pickup rings didn't fit smoothly, plus I just didn't like the look of plastic on wood. So I direct mounted the pickup to the guitar. That chipped the paint if you took out pickups. So I mounted them to the cover plate on the back, then decided to come up with a quicker way to remove the cover. At that point you had pickups flopping around attached to the rest of the wiring, so I added in a quick connect. Then I thought it would be cool to make it where it was a simple operation to swap pickups.

What is it?

What do you get with it?

Unlimited versatility. A Tone Pod will accommodate any humbucker sized pickup and there are adaptors available for single coil, Tele(tm) sets, and P-90 sets. Almost any passive set will work with no modifications made to your pickups.

Oh, you mean like actual pickups?

You will get with your new Tone Pod guitar one set of Seymour Duncan Jazz/JB humbuckers, one set on Lace Sensor noiseless Tele(tm) pickups, and one set of Kent Armstrong P-90 pickups for three extremely different tones.

What if I want different pickups?

What if I already have pickups I like?

I have agreements with several pickup manufacturers to supply pickups. Link is below to find them. I can get their pickups and mount them to a pod for you, however, depending upon what you choose, the price may go up. I can only sell pickups from these manufacturers with your new guitar. I am not allowed to sell pickups aftermarket.

I will be happy to either sell you a pod with all the necessary wiring to wire it yourself, (it's only 5 wires, diagram on the pod) or I would be happy to wire it to a pod in my shop and ship back to you. The Pod itself with wiring is $50.00, my wiring fee to wire it for you is also $50.00. I will test it and make sure it is working in a tone pod guitar before I ship it back to you.

Can I get pickups from other pickup builders?

Yes you can. I can work with pretty much any passive pickup so if you find pickups out there, it's pretty much same as the above question, $50.00 for a pod, and $50.00 for me to wire it.

Can I coil split on a Tone Pod pickup system?

Yes you can. The circuit is designed to support 2 coil taps (upcoming tone pod triple will only have neck and bridge split-able). If you have a single coil set like P-90's or tele's, the coil split (push-pull pot on tone knob) won't do anything.

 I have a nice vintage pickup set, will it be modified?

Absolutely not. No pickups have ever been harmed in the process of mounting to a tone pod. The pickups are mounted to the same screw holes, just from the back, through the tone pod. The very end of the wires will be soldered to the connector interface on the tone Pod. Excess wiring will be discreetly mounted under each pickup

 Will a Tone Pod work with other guitars?

Only if it its Tone Pod compatible. I am currently the only manufacturer making Tone Pod guitars, however, I would definitely look into licensing it to other manufacturers if they wanted to add versatility to their product line. I do have 10 models currently available, and plan on adding dozens more.

 How hard is it to change a Tone Pod?

It only takes a thumb and a finger, insert one in each hole on the pod, squeeze together and pull out pod. It will unplug automatically. Set it down, grab another pod and reverse the process. The Pod is designed to go in only 1 way. When you look at the back of the guitar, the Tone Pod logo will be upright with the neck being up.

 Links to my pickup providers

 More Tone Pod info

jonkammerer@earthlink.net