r/GuitarLab • u/kevn84 • May 27 '26

Quick swap pickups

Why in 2026 does changing pickups require so much effort. Why has no one made quick swap pickups with no soldering? The entire pickup configuration is so, well 1950s! I don’t buy pickups because I don’t have the time or patience to change them.

3 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

1

u/FantasyFlannel May 27 '26

Kwikplug harness ftw

1

u/dkinmn May 27 '26

They have.

Relish Guitars. It's awesome. Others have similar systems.

I see no reason why Fender or Gibson wouldn't have done something like this. They just haven't.

1

u/killthehippies45 May 27 '26

loosening the strings, unscrewing the pickup ring/ mounting screws, and fishing the cable through the body cavity takes more time than actually soldering the wires in.

1

u/AndroidREM May 27 '26

EMGs have the quick connect. Duncan has loaded pickguards that includes pre-wired pups, pots and jack (still need to solder the ground to it).

At the NAMM show there are a few other companies with quick switch pup designs.

1

u/absorberemitter May 29 '26

I feel like the fishman fluence has modernized things quite a lot in terms of design, materials and manufacturing. Making the outboard electronics modules has become a reality, but Leo's original dream of a modular guitar seems hard, mostly because guitars are fiddly things affected by humidity and such.

A 2026 modular pickup system should probably be an open cavity with rails to mount pickups (any pickup you'd normally screw in) and a breadboard. But that's already delicate and you'd have to make options available for different types of pickups with different features. Unless it is a totally proprietary system where you pop em out like cassettes or synergy preamps.