The Shapeshifter: Bass Guitar With Movable Pickup

US Experimental DIY build 07/12/21

Most electric guitars and basses have pickups set in place, with a switch to mix and merge their incoming signal - not in this case, as the'Shapeshifter' Bass Guitar has one single movable pickup! It's an experimental project by Brazilian Breno Juliano "Dot" who explains:

One curiosity I always had was about how much the mechanics of the instrument affects the sound. The specific aspect that I wanted to experiment on this time was the pickup position in relation to the bridge or the neck, so I came up with the idea of making the pickup move along two rods in a way that I could choose its position anytime I wanted.

He cut a hole through the guitar's body to accommodate the build, with the pickup being movable along the strings with further adjustments possible to bring the pickups closer or further away from them. He added a 3-position switch that lets you choose between different circuit topologies and another 3-position switch to choose between different types of capacitors.

With no videos or audio demos we can only speculate on how it sounds, what do you think?

More info on the project at Hackaday: https://hackaday.com/2021/12/05/bass-guitar-gets-shapeshifting-pickups/

About the author [midierror]: midierror makes nifty Max For Live devices, innovative music hardware, award winning sample packs and hosts a podcast speaking to people in the music world.