Official Luthiers Forum!

I just saw this on ebay. Great idea and pretty simple. It suspends the test pickup over the strings. I wonder exactly how it is wired. It looks like a slider switch.

Here is the description:
AxeTrak® Pickup Tester / Sampler Patent Pending

Finally . . . A no hassle, quick and easy way to audition and test pickups on your electric guitar

Our Pickup Tester lets you test and audition guitar pickups on your guitar . . .
1. Without having to change, remove or even loosen your strings
2. Without needing a soldering iron to connect your pickup under test
3. Without having to remove your pickguard and pickup ring to access critical wiring
4. Without having to remove back plate plastic to access critical wiring
5. Tester mounts quickly and easily anywhere on the smooth finished surface of guitar
6. Lets you quickly audition series, parallel and split coil wiring configurations on mulit-wire pickups
7. Works perfectly with Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio, Fender, Gibson and all other manufacturers of standard size humbucking and single coil guitar pickups.
How does it work? This device works on the principle that it doesn't matter if the pickup is mounted under the stings or above the strings, as long as the distance between the pickup and the strings is the same, you will get the same results. Our pickup tester simply mounts the "pickup under test" upside down, like a bridge directly over your strings instead of under your strings. This device has special leveling feet with suction cups attached so that you can easily adjust the height of your pickup in relation to the strings. This unique design allows the user the same flexibility they would have if the pickup was mounted conventionally under the strings. The suction cups also provide a quick convenient way for the user to attach the tester anywhere on the smooth surface of the guitar. Then simply insert a 1/4" guitar cable into the tester and plug it into your guitar amp as you would normally to play your guitar. It's honestly that simple.

Swell, but won't it get in the way when picking?

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Someone posted that idea a couple of years ago in a thread about pickups. Probably fine for rough ideas, but bolting the pickup to the body will sound a little different. May not be enough difference for most people to hear.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Wont the magnetic fields from the pickups still in the guitar mess with the ones from the new pick up?

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Good point.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince