Relish Shady A Mary with Touch Control Black, 2018 (No Longer Available)

The Relish Shady A Mary is an innovative guitar built in Lucerne, Switzerland mostly using non-traditional materials. The body is formed around an aluminum frame that’s also built for a patented pickup swapping system, and the top and back attach to the frame with magnets. The optional circuitry used on this example is anything but traditional and features a 17-position touch pad to control and split pickups.

This particular Relish Shady A Mary features the aluminum frame, black Bamboo for the top and back, Canadian Maple for the neck and Indian Rosewood for the fingerboard. From the outside, it looks pretty normal for a single cutaway electric, except for the white touch pad; there are three rotary controls, one a push-pull, and a toggle switch. The bridge is a fixed model with individual saddles, but it also contains piezo elements.

The view changes when you pop the back off, which is quite easy to do – though not so easy that there is any risk of it falling off. The magnets are an ideal strength for this application. Looking at our third image with the back removed, you’ll see the two removable pickup housings, two standard 9v batteries (newer models use only one), and two small custom circuit boards. One is the touch control, connected via ribbon cable to the main controller board. The three standard potentiometers are mounted near the touch control and there is another sealed box, purpose unknown. Battery life is listed as 10 – 12 hours playing time.

The touch control offers 17 pickup combinations, including pickup splitting. It’s possible to run the Relish Shady A Mary in passive, ‘bypass’ mode via an internal switch. Only one pickup can be on in this mode.

This Relish Shady A Mary is in very good clean condition with very light wear. The original reddish coloured rectangular hard shell case is included, and contains the touch control manual.