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Vintage threads from the first ten years

Giordano Mag7

9/12/2002 7:15 PM
Mark Hammer	Giordano Mag7 I wasn't sure where to post this, but since it is about a product that is intended to get rid of the nasties that come with mag pickups, I figured here was as good as any. A buddy of mine sent me a clipping today from the Sept2 issue of Electronic Engineering Times, profiling a Renato Giordano and the Mag7 line of pickguard/pickup-assemblies. Giordano is a former military engineering guy who specialized in antenna and RF systems and formed the company recently with a bunch of other consulting engineers. The corporate website is http://www.gsignature.com I had never heard of them before today. Interesting product line, though pricey for a pickguard ($190). It's a 7-layer pickguard, with signal paths in the layers. The sample you'll see at the website shows a pickup/pickguard assembly from the underside, with 3 SC-sized Duncan pickups in it. You can see that the leads from the pickups seem to disappear ino the pickguard and the electronics in this Strat drop-in are SMT. To quote from the aricle, " Despite all the shielding added to the signal path, the wiring harness that links the parts combines with the nature of the transducers on the electric guitar to create a 'marvelous antenna effect'. The instrument can pick up any possible noise around you, from electric motors, neon signs, transformers, electrical appliances, TVs, even sunspots......In our board, each signal path is isolated from the other, and the selector terminations are carried on different layers with distributed capacitance. All the signal paths are isolated by ground planes connected together only at one common point to avoid undesirable loops." As has been found many times in the past, engineering solutions studiously applied to solve individual problems can sometimes generate instruments which are deficient for other reasons. Ladies and gents, I give you the Travis Bean guitar (aluminum neck that froze your hands) and Dan Armstrong guitar (lucite body that improved the fortunes of chiropractors) as examples. Still, I'm curious about this approach and wonder what others may have heard or what they think. You have to admit, it's an interesting approach.

9/12/2002 7:15 PM

Mark Hammer

Giordano Mag7

I wasn't sure where to post this, but since it is about a product that is intended to get rid of the nasties that come with mag pickups, I figured here was as good as any.

A buddy of mine sent me a clipping today from the Sept2 issue of Electronic Engineering Times, profiling a Renato Giordano and the Mag7 line of pickguard/pickup-assemblies. Giordano is a former military engineering guy who specialized in antenna and RF systems and formed the company recently with a bunch of other consulting engineers. The corporate website is http://www.gsignature.com

I had never heard of them before today. Interesting product line, though pricey for a pickguard ($190).

It's a 7-layer pickguard, with signal paths in the layers. The sample you'll see at the website shows a pickup/pickguard assembly from the underside, with 3 SC-sized Duncan pickups in it. You can see that the leads from the pickups seem to disappear ino the pickguard and the electronics in this Strat drop-in are SMT.

To quote from the aricle, " Despite all the shielding added to the signal path, the wiring harness that links the parts combines with the nature of the transducers on the electric guitar to create a 'marvelous antenna effect'. The instrument can pick up any possible noise around you, from electric motors, neon signs, transformers, electrical appliances, TVs, even sunspots......In our board, each signal path is isolated from the other, and the selector terminations are carried on different layers with distributed capacitance. All the signal paths are isolated by ground planes connected together only at one common point to avoid undesirable loops."

As has been found many times in the past, engineering solutions studiously applied to solve individual problems can sometimes generate instruments which are deficient for other reasons. Ladies and gents, I give you the Travis Bean guitar (aluminum neck that froze your hands) and Dan Armstrong guitar (lucite body that improved the fortunes of chiropractors) as examples. Still, I'm curious about this approach and wonder what others may have heard or what they think. You have to admit, it's an interesting approach.

9/12/2002 7:34 PM
Mark Hammer	Forgot to mention The electronics are what seems to be a non-custom dual opamp and a "convertor" to adapt the signal for wireless purposes. Apparently, they are working an an Atmel low-power DSP unit for the NAMM show next year.

9/12/2002 7:45 PM
SK	Re: Giordano Mag7 I've seen it, talked to others, and the general concensus is it's an idea that will flop. IMO it's a decent idea but only marketable to a small percentage of players. Not enought to float a company. No-one's liscensed it from him and making guitars to sell it on won't help either. The piece is expensive, service is probably a major pain as a minimum. The average player couldn't/ wouldn't feel comfortable even swapping pickups. What about custom switching and all the other tweaking guitarists love to do? what about a shorted switch, or some other normally minor issue? And finally, when it comes right down to it, an effective shielding/wiring using "star grounding" and shielded leads is about as effective, much more "accepted" and user friendly, and a hell of a lot less costly.. Besides, guitar players still insist on using vintage pickups because they are "it"....

9/12/2002 7:45 PM

Re: Giordano Mag7

I've seen it, talked to others, and the general concensus is it's an idea that will flop.
IMO it's a decent idea but only marketable to a small percentage of players. Not enought to float a company. No-one's liscensed it from him and making guitars to sell it on won't help either. The piece is expensive, service is probably a major pain as a minimum. The average player couldn't/ wouldn't feel comfortable even swapping pickups. What about custom switching and all the other tweaking guitarists love to do? what about a shorted switch, or some other normally minor issue?
And finally, when it comes right down to it, an effective shielding/wiring using "star grounding" and shielded leads is about as effective, much more "accepted" and user friendly, and a hell of a lot less costly.. Besides, guitar players still insist on using vintage pickups because they are "it"....

9/12/2002 9:10 PM
Dr. Strangelove	Although the Mag7 is probably too hi-fi sounding and impossible to service for the lot of us, don't count Giordano's dingus out _yet_. Gibson has a new MIDI successor that runs on 100Mbit ethernet; their MaGic spec is a few years old and they've been shipping MaGic speakers and mixers for a year now. <http://magic.gibson.com/thisismagic.html> Giordano's Mag7 will make an excellent front end for Gibson's MaGic network interface and you can bet Henry Juszkiewicz is looking hard at it since their current developer kit is about $3000, has prototype hardware and a somewhat buggy C-compiler library. As a MIDI guitar successor, Giordano's $190 pickguard is a steal. -drh --

9/12/2002 9:10 PM

Dr. Strangelove

Although the Mag7 is probably too hi-fi sounding and impossible to service for the lot of us, don't count Giordano's dingus out _yet_.

Gibson has a new MIDI successor that runs on 100Mbit ethernet; their MaGic spec is a few years old and they've been shipping MaGic speakers and mixers for a year now.

<http://magic.gibson.com/thisismagic.html>

Giordano's Mag7 will make an excellent front end for Gibson's MaGic network interface and you can bet Henry Juszkiewicz is looking hard at it since their current developer kit is about $3000, has prototype hardware and a somewhat buggy C-compiler library.

As a MIDI guitar successor, Giordano's $190 pickguard is a steal.

-drh
--

9/12/2002 10:19 PM
Frank DeSalvo	PCB pickgaurds lack the tone of Point-to-point models... Had to jump on this one! ~F

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