Relay Reef

What it is

Relay Reef puts two voice families in one body: a bridge humbucker and a two-pickup lipstick subsystem. It is not the Lipstick model with more lipstick pickups. The lipsticks are their own system, and each side has its own volume, so you mix the two families instead of switching between them.

Pickup interaction

Category: Subsystem.

A 3-way blade chooses the lipstick side: neck lipstick, both lipsticks in parallel, or middle lipstick. The bridge humbucker does not go through the blade; it is always available on its own volume. The two volumes meet at the output, so any lipstick choice can be blended with as much or as little humbucker as you want.

That continuous blend is Reef's defining feature. It matters more here than extra switching: the controls stay simple, and the contrast between the two families stays under your hands.

Controls

The blade points toward the lipstick it selects.

Lipstick volume — B1M linear. Sets the level of the selected lipstick voice.

Humbucker volume — B1M linear. Sets the level of the bridge humbucker. Turn it down for lipsticks alone, or turn the lipstick volume down for the humbucker alone.

There is no tone control. The body has room for two knobs and a blade, and Reef spends both knobs on the blend. Relay Reef Plus adds a tone for each side.

How it behaves

Relay Reef has not been built yet. These descriptions come from the Coupeville Reef prototype, which uses the same circuit with a master tone and a different bridge humbucker.

The bridge humbucker gives Reef its heavier voice: a thick, sustaining counterweight for driven sounds and for pushing an amp. The lipsticks provide the separate clean family, bright and open, with the two together as the widest, glassiest sound.

Because each side has its own volume, the blend is continuous. Either volume at zero leaves the other side playing alone; anywhere between mixes the two.

The volumes are linear and 1 MΩ on purpose. In this circuit, audio-taper volumes give an uneven sweep with a sudden drop near the top, and 1 MΩ preserves the lipsticks' airy edge. Use the parts list values.

Choose Reef if you want maximum contrast inside one instrument and want to mix it rather than switch it.

Who it's for

Indie, surf, alt-country, shoegaze, and studio players who want radically different clean and driven sounds without changing guitars. Reef makes the most sense when the contrast is the point.