did the pickup tester guys, email u guys this same thing too?

[pupoholic]

Good Day, There's a new service that our company is offering for free on our web site that you may be interested in. We've created a database of pickup performance info using a custom designed electronic instrument. We measure and record the frequency response and other data of the pickup and our web page allows the user to hear the difference between pickups. The web page also plots the frequency response for technically inclined pickup users. The page is here: http://www.aqdi.com/cgi-bin/database.cgi We have about 100 pickups of various types there now, and are visiting guitar shops to round out our selection, as well as writing manufacturers to request loaner samples to test. We thought we would offer to include your pickups in our database. If you sent us some pickups, we'd scan them and include the information in the database, then send the pickups back to you. Our database is intended to be unbiased, and we do not build or sell guitar pickups. If you are interested, let us know. You may send as many different models as you like. Sincerely, Chad Barbour R&D Technologist Atlantic Quality Design, Inc. cbarbour@aqdi.com 540.966.4356 (voice) 540.966.4358 (fax)

[pupoholic]

I just don't see this working across the board unless we all made the same pickup - like a 7.2k Al-5 Tele bridge or something - other then us all doing that what good would this "custom test machine" be to us or any of the customers we all share in this trade???????????/

[Possum]

...

I don't see much value in it either, its just too hard to get a sense of pickups from such a brief sample and specs. Its kinda like the shootout thing, do customers really buy based on stuff like this?

[ken]

I got it early last week too.

I went to the site and there was no boutique makers on it at all. I was kinda wondering if it wasn't the same deal as the 'humbucker shootout' that you were talking about.

Ken

[kevinT]

http://music-electronics-forum.com/t13344/

[ken]

I have to admit I'm wondering... what's in it for them?

Are they planning to position themselves as some kind of all in one informational source for our potential customers, or is there possibly some other reason why they are doing this?

I get two or three requests every week from people wanting pickups who say they are running high end guitar weblogs, sites, malls, etc. and 'just want to test your pickups for a few days'. I tell them all the same thing - a nice thank you for your interest and your finding worthiness in my pickups.

I find it strange that I have seen no other mention of these people in any of the guitar forums I frequent, and I belong to many of them too.

Am I being yer usual paranoid jerk or is there something here that just kinda sorta doesn't quite pass the 'smell test'?

Ken

[Dave Kerr]

I have to admit I'm wondering... what's in it for them?
Ken

Click their products page, they sell guitar related stuff.

[ken]

Lots of people sell guitar related things. I do too.

What I'm saying is that I have never seen any mention of this site before in any of the major web forums or in any magazines such as VG, GP, Premier Guitar, or even MMR. It's true that a site like this would be of great benefit to the musician trying to comparison shop between brands and models of pickups, so it just seems to me that one would think that if this site was 'real' there would be much more advertising in any of these places long before they asked for freebie pickups from makers like us.

Ken

[Dave Kerr]

You wondered about their motives. I like to think that they're an honest outfit trying to have a useful source of consumer information drive traffic toward buying their expensive buffer/cable assemblies. That's not to say that if I was in the business I wouldn't do some legwork before parting with an expensive pickup set.

[ken]

Fair enough.

It's true that a site like this would generate traffic for their main site, and also that a good quality cable set would tend to highlight any differences between pickups. Possibly the two could go hand in hand.

Perhaps I'm a little leery because of all the other people who want free stuff.

I have no problem with known sites (like this one) that want to set up marketplaces for us, in fact I think letting tboy do this for us is a great idea.
There are others however that I would not think of sending anything to because their cred is possibly doubtful at best.

Just my 2c

Ken