Relay Hammer

What it is

Relay Hammer is the high-gain concept in the Relay lineup. It uses rail pickups and is aimed at tight low end, high saturation, and controlled aggression.

Pickup interaction

Category: Concept - final interaction not finalized.

Hammer is not ready to be described as a primary-voice, augment-layer, subsystem, or shaper model yet. The pickup set points toward a dedicated high-gain instrument, but the switching and final behavior still need validation.

That matters because the model should not promise a control story before the bench work proves it. For now, Hammer communicates intent: rails, saturation, tightness, and control.

Controls

5-way Super Switch - Planned for position-specific routing. Exact positions will be finalized during validation.

Volume (push-push) - High-gain utility function to be defined during testing.

Tone (push-pull) - Attack contour to be defined during testing.

How it behaves

Hammer is meant to be direct rather than flexible. The target is a guitar that keeps the low end tight under gain, saturates easily, and stays controlled when rhythm parts get dense.

The bridge pickup should carry the main high-gain load. The neck and middle positions should support heavier music without becoming loose, cloudy, or overly polite. The final switch map will decide whether the middle becomes a primary voice, a specialized routing option, or part of another interaction strategy.

Choose Hammer if your use case starts with high gain and everything else is secondary.

Who it's for

Metal and hard rock players who want the Relay body and platform, but do not need the model to split the difference with clean, vintage, or roots-oriented sounds.