Before there were any Ridgewing prototypes, pre-amp experiments had to be done on the original Chrysalis guitar platform seen here. The Chrysalis bridge electronics were bare-boned – just a Fishman under-saddle piezo pickup, with all other circuitry off-board. Speaking from a highbrow design perspective, one could say that this was done so that it would never become obsolete. Closer to the truth was that when the Chrysalis guitar was being designed around 1998, I had no clue about electronics, so I punted with the pickup-only bridge design.

Customer feedback from the Chrysalis had made it very clear that tone and volume control had to be on the guitar. In keeping with the Ridgewing modular design imperative, this meant that ALL electronics had to be in the bridge – tone, volume, pre-amp and rechargeable power supply.

By October 2014 the overall mechanical bridge design for the Ridgewing was done, so Scott was able to start working on the bridge electronics. In this picture, an inexpensive surface-mounted piezo disc pickup from China is being tested with several different electronics packages. Scott’s Rev 1 circuit board design can be seen on the right side below the large syringe, with three bright lines of the output jack being visible. Between it and the guitar is the original Chrysalis pre-amp package can be seen with its cloth cover removed. This package consisted of a 9 volt battery and a Fishman Natural 1 end-pin pre-amp and was mounted with Velcro on the guitar strap, connected to the guitar with a 12” cable. In the center under the guitar is a Fishman acoustic guitar pre-amp with basic EQ. To the left is an LR Baggs pre-amp. In the end, nothing could make this type of pickup sound respectable, so an under-saddle piezo pickup was settled on.