We’re arising on the a centesimal anniversary of the electrical guitar, and it has been fascinating to listen to how this easy instrument has altered the panorama of music in that point. It is principally simply wire, wooden, and a wee little bit of electronics that does not even want energy.
As music has advanced, guitarists’ want to have the ability to form their tone to create new sounds has grown. That is why musicians get all excited in regards to the newest gear that promise to unlock extra and totally different sides of tone, whether or not it is in a pedal, amp, or a pickup.
Shark Guitars, out of Antalya, Turkey, is the newest model on my radar attempting to shake issues up with an entire new method to the instrument. The corporate’s constructing a modular guitar with swappable components, and onboard electronics such as you’ve by no means seen earlier than.
Shark says its ‘Ocean Atmosphere’ platform lets gamers combine and match a variety of its guitar our bodies, necks, bridges, nuts, and results. That is true for whenever you’re customizing your construct, and likewise as soon as it is in your palms. The model guarantees these elements will all the time match collectively reliably, because of using precision-machined titanium.
Shark Devices
The platform and product catalog have been in the works since 2018, when founding companion and guitarist Cem Koksal began the corporate with an eye fixed on the high-end electrical guitar market. Shark has racked up six patents by means of its R&D course of, opened a manufacturing facility in Turkey that may craft 120 devices a month, and has now opened its on-line retailer to just accept customized orders.
Utilizing the 3D customized guitar builder device to specify your necessities provides you a way of simply how exceptional Shark’s enterprise is. You’ll be able to select from 4 totally different physique kinds, and pair it with a variety of necks – together with a fretless choice. For the reason that neck is modular, you may merely take away it for straightforward packing whenever you’re hitting the street.
You too can get a number of necks with totally different profiles and fretboard configurations to go on the identical guitar, and snap on whichever you want for a efficiency or recording session. That is nuts.
The platform additionally features a plug-and-play pickup system: you may mount any pickup you want with out the necessity for soldering, on the peak you like. Every pickup module will be swapped out at a second’s discover, with out the necessity for instruments and even any configuration.
Shark Devices
You’ll be able to alter the achieve primarily based in your pickups, so your output quantity stays degree between them. Which means you may drop in a twangy single-coil alongside a burly humbucker, they usually’ll work collectively as if they have been wired to take action from the beginning.
Shark Pickup Module | No Soldering, Any Pickup, On the spot Swap | Shark Guitars | Guitar v2.0
What you may’t see from the entrance is an in depth electronics system – accessible on a rear panel – that manages your pickups, sign processing, and onboard results. You should use its resistor and
capacitor adjustment system to form the pickup tone and fine-tune their loudness compensation through DIP switches. That permits for lots extra management over tonal variations, nicely past what you are able to do with customary quantity and tone knobs.
Shark Devices
There are two variations of this electronics system. The upper-end one helps ‘FX Playing cards’ – compact cartridge-like gadgets that every act as particular person results pedals with all of the management you’d get from an everyday pedal.
Three playing cards can go right into a guitar at anyone time, and they are often managed through 4 front-mounted buttons, and tweaked utilizing eight knobs. Shark already gives 12 of those in analog and digital flavors, together with overdrive, distortion, enhance, fuzz, speaker simulation, and delay and reverb. Having these proper in your guitar means fewer cables and fewer weighty gear to cope with – which will be particularly good if you happen to’re touring extensively.
Shark Devices
Shark additionally makes a detachable titanium nut that permits for fast neck modifications and fretboard upkeep with out restringing. This works with the tremolo and body-neck joint to can help you free the neck for whenever you wish to swap it for an additional, pack your gear and transport it safely, or get your palms soiled with fretboard upkeep duties.
The modular bit is not only a neat get together trick. It additionally means Shark devices will be disassembled and packed into manageable baggage, with out worrying in regards to the neck snapping in two in flight cargo maintain. You too can carry spares – like a complete further neck and ready-to-go backup pickups – extra simply than ever earlier than.
There have been different makes an attempt to craft modular axes; Savannah, Georgia-based Reddick Guitars has mounted pickup configurations and management techniques mounted on blocks that you may swap out and in of a guitar physique. However Shark has taken the idea a lot additional than any model earlier than it.
The corporate’s creations will set you again by someplace between US$4,000 and $6,000, relying on the elements you select. That’ll probably appeal to skilled gamers and seasoned lovers initially, at which level it’s going to compete towards main legacy manufacturers which have been round for many years. What Shark has going for it although, is a clear-eyed view into the long run.
Try the model and fiddle with the 3D guitar builder device on Shark’s site.
