Go for it. Would be great if it would work on an acoustic guitar also, but don’t let that hold up the launch date
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I built two, one for myself and one for someone who paid for both 3d prints. Being able to see my picking in very slow motion helped almost immediately. Wish I had more time to practice!
(Shapeways seemed very expensive for this project, but I understand it provided a great way to protect your IP and also handle the logistics of shipping and kitting.)
I also built a ghetto version from some spring loaded plastic hardware clamps just to help out someone overseas who was having a rough time in general.
The first thing is relatively easy to fix- the outlines for the rubber pads don’t actually line up that well with the magnet’s intended mounting surfaces. I had to modify them to get them to fit as intended. So two approaches here- 1.) adjust the outlines to fit better and have adhesive backed rubber/foam die cut by a “converter,” or 2.) “over-mold” the rubber parts onto the plastic during injection molding (like a toothbrush handle). Over-molding is almost certainly a more desirable end product- and probably more expensive but a lot depends on quantities.
A second thing is that the hardware assembly could be simplified by sourcing parts from the right types of suppliers. (ie not mcmaster carr, though they are great for many things!) Knowing what to call certain types of fasteners is almost half the battle.
The third thing is $75k seems high for what you want to do, but I’m unsure of what exactly that amount covers. Will the magnets be pre-assembled? Will there be an option for a full kit with hardware included?
FWIW I am a consumer/medical product designer. I’ve developed many plastic parts for injection molding, and would love to help in greater detail if possible.
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This is a cool idea- add BT module, mini arduino, and battery and you could stream to your phone or computer. It does complicate things a bit but not crazy to consider. On the other hand, this is basically a go-pro… lol
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Yeah def feel free to share here! Or by email if you prefer.
Cool idea and seems fun to hack around with! But for a consumer product I think makes more sense to just use the phone camera b/c so many people have them already. A camera in the Magnet itself would make it way more expensive I’m sure…but if anyone wants to experiment with that, go for it!
Nice! Yeah I saw mention of some pro video apps that support it, wonder if they’ll bring it to the build in standard iOS camera app at some point. None of us have the new phone yet either but we may have to get one to play around with this.
Yeah definitely! We use on acoustic a lot. It fits up to seven string (prob not eight string though). And if we stick on thicker rubber pads also works with smaller instruments e.g. mandolin.
Awesome! And yeah Shapeways prints are expensive but we found the quality way better than consumer level 3D printers.
And yes for the production run we’re looking into, it’d definitely be fully assembled so you wouldn’t have to worry about fiddly parts, applying the rubber, etc. We are looking into overmolding for the rubber actually. Partly why the upfront costs will be high, but the $75k estimate (may end up a bit less) would include all the tooling for molds, initial production of probably a couple thousand units, shipping, Kickstarter fees etc.
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Heck yes, I’m super interested in getting a magnet, I always thought the idea was fantastic and would be a really easy way for me to get a good perspective on my picking to see what’s going on. It would be fantastic for teaching as well and showing people what’s going on with my picking here if I’m struggling with something.
Count me in!
I’m unfamiliar with the design though (and this is probably already considered), but would these be able to accommodate bigger phones like the iPhone Max’s, etc?
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I am also interested (was in the initial Kickstarter). But there is a similar product out:
https://thehomemusician.com/shop?olsPage=products%2Faxecam-mount
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I would definitely support you guys and buy one. I mean anyone who likes to analyse their playing needs this!
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Awesome, glad to hear you’re interested! Agree it’d be a great tool for teachers.
Yes it should fit basically any size phone. The expandable clamp mechanism is super flexible, so phones in cases work too. Main constraint would be extra weight = less likely to stay secure. We haven’t tested much with extra large phones but will be sure to do that at some point just to be sure.
Thanks! Yeah we’ve seen that one, looks pretty good and nice use of 3D printing at similar total price to the DIY Magnet. I think it’s cool we’re starting to see competing devices, that’s a strong signal there’s demand for this sort of thing which is great!
There are a number of possible alternatives, from DIY clamp mechanisms to GoPro arms (many discussed here: Magnet alternatives). But we think a mass manufactured Magnet will get us both a nice price point and a simpler / overall more attractive product than anything else out there.
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Here is a video of Levi Clay using it:
Levi also talks about the Magnet !
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I’ll chip in via Kickstarter, cuz with my OCD, I gotta get close-up video of my picking to analyze and fix stuff!
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Yes,if you sell it fully assembled ,i 'll buy it right away .
Been thinking about buying the “axecam” because i want something i can use right out of the box,i am not very good at puting parts together 
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Oh yeah, absolutely — we’d ship it fully assembled and ready to go out of the box!
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Did you mention the color? (If so, I missed it.) I was thinking that white would be great. Other than that, I’ll be happy to get one of whatever it is that you make, and this is really exciting.
Oh, it would also be nice if you had your branding and URL on the magnet itself (perhaps that would help future sales?). I know beautiful boxes are expensive so I leave that to you.
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I made one but it’s all clunky since I couldn’t find the exact screws etc.
The idea of the tiny camera embedded in it is in principle great, even better if combined with a sd slot to directly save the videos. Well I do realize this would be waay more complicated and pricey (also needing batteries or at least usb power).
In any case: day 1 buyer here 
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If you can get them to the uk i’d buy a few!
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Most likely we’ll just do one color, at least to start, probably something close to the red we’ve used for all our prototypes. Possible we may be able to do more options later on. And yes to some kind of simple but nice packaging!
@Bentley.Smith I see your post was deleted but addressing a couple things anyway — too early for an exact timeline, but I think ideally we’ll aim for a Kickstarter early next year, and have it in production mid-2020, shipping in time for Christmas next year. We don’t expect it to have major functional changes from the current prototype, just will work better in a handful of little ways. And yeah I agree Kickstarter bundles are a great idea!
I will buy one no matter what color you use, but I suggest white because I think it will sell the most units. The difference will not be large at first (people here will all want one), but as it spreads out to “regular” people I think the photography and aesthetics will become increasingly important. Red is actually not very popular, look at car colors (basically white or gray, then black), the colors that Apple uses for dongles/earbuds (white), etc. But you can probably escape from red any time you want with no cost, so they might become collector’s items. I only comment on color just so you are confident to stick with an unusual color like red.
Will the new magnet still work with the gopro adapter? Will the gopro adapter still be available to order from Shapeways?
Maybe, hard to say! I think the red is kind of iconic, and also matches the classic horseshoe magnet that inspired the name 
Also white I think would get dirty / scuffed a lot more easily. If it turns out to make a difference we could definitely reconsider or add more colors in the future. Guessing most won’t care all that much.
We originally made a GoPro adapter several years ago that fits I believe the GoPro 3 and 4, but after that the shape changed and we haven’t made a new one to fit more recent GoPro models. We actually removed the link from the Shapeways instructions because we didn’t want to confuse people.
This is another thing where, if we discover there’s tons of interest in a newer GoPro adapter, we can consider making it happen. May be a bit of a moot point, given how many people have smartphones with high quality cameras now (not necessarily the case ~5 years ago). We hardly ever used our GoPro, and we find the phone just works so well for this, probably the way to go for like 99% of Magnet users!
First of all we need to understand what the magnet actually is. Yes, it’s a phone mount for a guitar….but reallly it’s only a part of a tool.
Tool to understand and build your playing technique. Noone said that it will be easy, but the reality comparing to the Cracking the Code videos is really different.
Open any of the cracking the code videos and compare it with the experience when using magnet. Video shows us the ideal workflow for practicing when we see everything without a delay. Reality shows us that between filming a few second lick and watching it on a computer we need to struggle for about a minute. It’s not much but if we’re practicing - we need to see our every try to analyze it.
If wee have a 5 second long lick that we want to practice: It takes less than a minute to play it 10 times, but it would take more than 10 minutes to film every try of it,export every try to pc or mac, open it and actually analyze.
At this point i hope that you’re getting my idea.
The ideal magnet bundle should be:
1-The Magnet
2-iOS / Android Camera Client Software
3-PC/ Mac Camera server software
+(optional) small stomp box with usb interface just for shortcuts
1- i already explained
2- there are a lot of apps which allow you to use Phone as a wireless webcam.problem is that they just stream 30fps video. Magnet app should film slo-mo video(triggered by the server sofware ) and send it wirelessly to a computer app as soon as filming is finished.
And that’s basically it.
3- Computer server software is more complex.
Basic features:
-it sends start/stop recording command to a phone.
-automatically imports and opens the slo-mo video as soon as recording is finished.
Advanced features:
-Integration with Cracking the code series. All the lessons will contain video practice files specially for the magnet app. You can watch and compare your video with any other magnet footage in splitscreen mode or by merging 2 pictures*
*App should allow you to fine tune the beat and to fine tune the picture perspective.
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