INNOVATION

Game-changing gear that’s surprised and intrigued

SAM SYSTEMS IM12 £107

Here’s another idea so clever yet so simple you wish you’d thought of it yourself. Close mic placement at gigs and in the studio is always a bit of a faff and many readers will be familiar with the fiddly process of getting a stand-mounted mic pointed at the sweet spot of a speaker cone. What neater solution, then, than mounting a high-quality mic inside your cab, on a frame that attaches to your cab’s speaker mounting points? The IM’s microphone (functionally very similar to an SM57) terminates in a flush-mounted plate with an XLR chassis plug that can easily be fitted on the rear of any speaker cabinet so it’s always on the spot and ready to go. It’s a tidy and effective solution that helps reduce both set-up time and feedback problems to boot. Genius. www.samsystems-uk.com

EMG RETROACTIVE FAT 55 PICKUP SET £159

Like vintage tone but want the advantages of an active pickup? Look no further than EMG’s ingenious Fat 55s. We said of this best-of-bothworlds design: “Imagine Seymour Duncan ’59s but with zero noise and volumes that adjust level without altering the voice, plus no capacitance roll-off or loading on the way to your pedalboard or amp. It creates a set that seems hugely versatile – clean, classic no-mush jazz voices to ringing clear jangle, woody overdrive without high-end ‘tizz’ or fizz, and a pretty classic output that doesn’t fry the front end of your amp.” Even better, the pickups come with push-on connectors that require no soldering, so even complete beginners can mod with them. www.emgpickups.com

DIGITECH FREQOUT £149

We’re sticking our necks out here – a wildcard exception as it’s still awaiting formal review. But we felt we couldn’t avoid giving a nod to one of the most intriguing effects we’ve played all year, the FreqOut. Launched at Winter NAMM 2017, it cleverly reverses the function of a feedback suppression circuit, generating controllable, natural feedback without the amp being cranked. But it’s the expressive interface that makes the FreqOut so usable – you can set the footswitch to momentary (on as long as you hold your foot down) or latching operation, and also kill your dry signal altogether so you’re ‘playing’ pure feedback overtones. Overall, it pulls off the difficult trick of transforming a potential gimmick into a powerful and novel musical tool. digitech.com