A little thunder!!

ThorpyFX

I really like this idea, so much so I'm probably going to back it! , i really like the idea of super heavy low strings as well as normal remainder, it may sate my need for a seven string too. Plus no batteries and normal looks too. Check it out: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alittlethunder/a-little-thunder-pickup-add-bass-to-your-guitar?ref=discovery

ThePrettyDamned

That sounds excellent.  Must use a battery somewhere, surely? It's got a digital stage. 

ThorpyFX

ThePrettyDamned said:

That sounds excellent.  Must use a battery somewhere, surely? It's got a digital stage. 

Sorry, I meant external pp3. It has an inbuilt li-ion battery rechargeable.

ThePrettyDamned

thorpy6 said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

That sounds excellent.  Must use a battery somewhere, surely? It's got a digital stage. 

Sorry, I meant external pp3. It has an inbuilt li-ion battery rechargeable.

Still, pretty cool indeed.  

Actually, would be really useful for buskers. 

Andy_ALittleThunder

Hi All, Andy here with A Little Thunder. Thank you for your interest in the pickup! I'm here if you have any questions about how it works or etc! Really neat to see the pre-orders come in. I've been working on this for about 3 years (most of that was waiting for the patent to come through and simultaneously, doing the prototyping).

New here but happy to be on!

-Andy Alt

Founder of A Little Thunder

www.alittlethunder.com

ThePrettyDamned

Andy_ALittleThunder said:

Hi All, Andy here with A Little Thunder. Thank you for your interest in the pickup! I'm here if you have any questions about how it works or etc! Really neat to see the pre-orders come in. I've been working on this for about 3 years (most of that was waiting for the patent to come through and simultaneously, doing the prototyping).

New here but happy to be on!

-Andy Alt

Founder of A Little Thunder

www.alittlethunder.com

Welcome aboard! First round is on you. 

It looks really neat, and a nice solution for singer songwriter types.  I'm not sure it'll be very useful in a band context, what with a bass already being present, but it does have a place in the market I think - pedals like the POG affect all the strings.  

steamabacus

ThePrettyDamned said:

Andy_ALittleThunder said:

Hi All, Andy here with A Little Thunder. Thank you for your interest in the pickup! I'm here if you have any questions about how it works or etc! Really neat to see the pre-orders come in. I've been working on this for about 3 years (most of that was waiting for the patent to come through and simultaneously, doing the prototyping).

New here but happy to be on!

-Andy Alt

Founder of A Little Thunder

www.alittlethunder.com

Welcome aboard! First round is on you. 

It looks really neat, and a nice solution for singer songwriter types.  I'm not sure it'll be very useful in a band context, what with a bass already being present, but it does have a place in the market I think - pedals like the POG affect all the strings.  

I bet there'll be a few Jack White / White Stripes fans interested. Could work really well in a guitar/drums duo.

ThePrettyDamned

steamabacus said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

Andy_ALittleThunder said:

Hi All, Andy here with A Little Thunder. Thank you for your interest in the pickup! I'm here if you have any questions about how it works or etc! Really neat to see the pre-orders come in. I've been working on this for about 3 years (most of that was waiting for the patent to come through and simultaneously, doing the prototyping).

New here but happy to be on!

-Andy Alt

Founder of A Little Thunder

www.alittlethunder.com

Welcome aboard! First round is on you. 

It looks really neat, and a nice solution for singer songwriter types.  I'm not sure it'll be very useful in a band context, what with a bass already being present, but it does have a place in the market I think - pedals like the POG affect all the strings.  

I bet there'll be a few Jack White / White Stripes fans interested. Could work really well in a guitar/drums duo.

Oh yeah, and that.  I forgot about that particular guitar genius. 

ThorpyFX

Andy_ALittleThunder said:

Hi All, Andy here with A Little Thunder. Thank you for your interest in the pickup! I'm here if you have any questions about how it works or etc! Really neat to see the pre-orders come in. I've been working on this for about 3 years (most of that was waiting for the patent to come through and simultaneously, doing the prototyping).

New here but happy to be on!

-Andy Alt

Founder of A Little Thunder

www.alittlethunder.com

Andy was not expecting you to pop up here! Welcome (Google alerts must be working I guess!!) I have a question, what are the pickups going to look like, for me I'd live the pickup to look incognito , ie a chrome covered normal pickup. The one (cad drawing) seems to look like an emg, which is ok but won't suit the guitar I have in mind.

TTony

Looks interesting ...

Andy_ALittleThunder

So glad this came up. It's actually really useful with a drummer. Here's a video clip of an early prototype that features guitar + bass + drums: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4v4p2QItvY - Interested to hear what you think of that configuration!

ThePrettyDamned said:

Andy_ALittleThunder said:

Hi All, Andy here with A Little Thunder. Thank you for your interest in the pickup! I'm here if you have any questions about how it works or etc! Really neat to see the pre-orders come in. I've been working on this for about 3 years (most of that was waiting for the patent to come through and simultaneously, doing the prototyping).

New here but happy to be on!

-Andy Alt

Founder of A Little Thunder

www.alittlethunder.com

Welcome aboard! First round is on you. 

It looks really neat, and a nice solution for singer songwriter types.  I'm not sure it'll be very useful in a band context, what with a bass already being present, but it does have a place in the market I think - pedals like the POG affect all the strings.  

Andy_ALittleThunder

Great question. The actuals will look very plain with a silkscreen logo. Custom colors will be available but it will be very incognito unless you want to show it off. 

thorpy6 said:

Andy_ALittleThunder said:

Hi All, Andy here with A Little Thunder. Thank you for your interest in the pickup! I'm here if you have any questions about how it works or etc! Really neat to see the pre-orders come in. I've been working on this for about 3 years (most of that was waiting for the patent to come through and simultaneously, doing the prototyping).

New here but happy to be on!

-Andy Alt

Founder of A Little Thunder

www.alittlethunder.com

Andy was not expecting you to pop up here! Welcome (Google alerts must be working I guess!!) I have a question, what are the pickups going to look like, for me I'd live the pickup to look incognito , ie a chrome covered normal pickup. The one (cad drawing) seems to look like an emg, which is ok but won't suit the guitar I have in mind.

Unorthodox

Cool idea.

I think the same is possible with a Line 6 Variax. I'll try it out later.

littlethoughts

The old Boss oc-3 had a poly octave function that could be set to only work when playing in a certain range. It sounded really nice, although it didn't track chords which obviously this does since it aint pitch shifting! I'd be interested to try one, but I'd love to hear what it sounds like through a really poorly optimised amp. For example, my little fender Champion 600 5 watt amp...

I'd worry about the level hike and the small speaker struggling.

Andy_ALittleThunder

Hey Littlethoughts, A Little Thunder here  

We had a similar thought (using a $130 octave pedal) before embarking on A Little Thunder™ but here’s what made us want to fully realize our idea:

We were very disappointed with both the sound quality (all sounded like an 8-bit video game) and latency (tracking was horribly inaccurate, rendering it unreliable). When I looked at my mobile phone and thought "this is powerful and can preserve battery life OK" I wanted our engineers to accomplish something that was modern.. a very efficient FFT (fast fourier transform) with finite impulse response in DSP with as minimal latency as humanly possible. Also, paying heed to PMU (power management). The result is a very high sample rate (I think most pedals are around 8 bit depth) we're several times higher as well as quicker on the round trip latency.

SO back to the pedal... If there was a pedal that accomplished these two aspects well, it would still be hitting all the guitar strings… so it would sound like an effect rather than an accompaniment or another voicing. AND…You would lose the ability to have 6 guitar strings coming through the guitar amp. AAAND you’d definitely need to physically modify your guitar with extra input jacks and an extra dedicated pickup.

We tried everything and nothing satisfied like using A Little Thunder™ in a self-contained humbucker configuration. Did we mention we even got the patent on it too? We’re pushing ourselves to exceed what already exists in the marketplace but in this accessible format.

We're amazing with how quickly this is filling up www.bit.ly/ALTKickstarter 

littlethoughts said:

The old Boss oc-3 had a poly octave function that could be set to only work when playing in a certain range. It sounded really nice, although it didn't track chords which obviously this does since it aint pitch shifting! I'd be interested to try one, but I'd love to hear what it sounds like through a really poorly optimised amp. For example, my little fender Champion 600 5 watt amp...

I'd worry about the level hike and the small speaker struggling.

svejk

This looks great. I play in a two piece, and would love to try it out. Only problem I see is not wanting to drop it into an old 335. And would the normal pickup sound be up there with the best? Looks a great thing to try out in a beater guitar for gigging...

Andy_ALittleThunder

svejk said:

This looks great. I play in a two piece, and would love to try it out. Only problem I see is not wanting to drop it into an old 335. And would the normal pickup sound be up there with the best? Looks a great thing to try out in a beater guitar for gigging...

Hi Svejk,

Thank you for your interest in A Little Thunder. Since (A Little Thunder) pickup retains the 8K humbucker capabilities of whichever position you put in, the full guitar signal is preserved and add's a bass note for the two bottom strings as a separate signal (which you can route to a bass amp if you wish). The regular humbucker sounds great and very similar to a PAF with some enhanced clarity across the frequency range so we think it sounds great in both the neck position (more sustain) and bridge (more attack).

If installing A Little Thunder in the 335 you play sounds daunting, we'd share that it is very simple to place in (granted, the f-holes in a 335 are a real pain for any pickup replacement). It's simple, possibly moreso than a standard 4-wire humbucker in that there are 3 small connections to be made. The first two; where the old replacement was connected to and it's ground. The last, the bass pickup, goes directly to a special jack piece that screws around your old jack. That's it. We're still in R&D about this at the time of this post so you'll want to check our final manual for proper instructions.

We have also tested the sonic qualities of a STACK of guitars & even an inexpensive Fender with A Little Thunder in the bridge sounds great. Just be sure to pick up one that has a humbucker route already in-place!

Here if you have add'l questions.

Best,

Andy Alt

Founder 

A Little Thunder

ThePrettyDamned

Thanks for keeping us updated and actually answering questions.  Makes supporting you a bit easier! 

It sounds like an EXCELLENT idea.  Even for bedroom practice, I could get a 15 watt bass amp and jam out!

I'm not sure it'll be a huge seller, but it definitely has it's place in our world. 

svejk

Thanks Andy. I'm very curious, and wish you well with this, and I think it's great you're taking the trouble to answer on here. You know, you just need one artist to make a signature sound out of one of these and you'll have a hit on your hands. Good luck!

Andy_ALittleThunder

ThePrettyDamned said:

Thanks for keeping us updated and actually answering questions.  Makes supporting you a bit easier! 

It sounds like an EXCELLENT idea.  Even for bedroom practice, I could get a 15 watt bass amp and jam out!

I'm not sure it'll be a huge seller, but it definitely has it's place in our world. 

Thank you TPD. Right there with you. We don't has intense sales figures or gnarly projections-- we just like this, want to release it and see what can happen. Good news is there are many other products in-store with A Little Thunder LLC. I spend a lot of time thinking of ways for guitar to be more prominent in the world. I don't know exactly why but sometimes I feel it's slipping away from us from a cultural perspective. It might just be the area I live in but I do think there are millions of possibilities when it comes to our passion for guitar and how it can continue to evolve. I want to be a part of that so there will be other new products, perhaps ones that will find their way into our homes forever. That's one of my goals! Anyway, thank you for your support. I'm never far away just shout!