Larry’s Lab: Fender Solderless Pickups

What’s Larry’s Lab?  Fender’s CEO Larry Thomas is a guitar guy.  It’s obvious when you talk to him the passion that he has for the history of the brand.  The visions he has for the future of the products are on display in Larry’s Lab, a very special room we were ushered into at NAMM 2012.  The guitars in this room have been commsioned by Larry to push the envelope.  They run the gamut from wild design studies to familiar Fender shapes with new manufacturing techniques under the hood.  These are all one-off prototypes; we got authorization from Larry himself to show them to you here.  

Here’s a concept that will make the leap from design studio to full production by the end of 2012: Fender Solderless Pickups.  This brilliant solution behind your pickguard allows pickups to be swapped out in seconds, without burning your damn fingers with the soldering iron.  And it’s not just pickups that will be plug-and-play, custom switching can be plugged in, and possibly even built in effects.  This will be in your new guitar soon.