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Author
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Topic: Question for Builders
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Jon Light
Member From: Brooklyn, NY
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posted 13 March 2005 01:29 PM
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This applies to any and all guitars, pedal, spanish, lap, etc...........How important to the overall tone, sustain, timbre is the mounting of the pickup. Do you care how well the pickup is tied in to the body vibrations? Does it matter if it floats, isolated from vibrations? Is the pickup/body relationship an important part of the overall sound of the amplified instrument? |
Rick Aiello
Member From: Berryville, VA USA
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posted 13 March 2005 02:46 PM
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My views are pretty much summed up in these two threads:From No Peddlers ... From Pedal Steel ... That first one was written before my first Dustpans were finished ... I ended up "hard mounting" the horseshoe pickup ... and will continue to do so in the future ... There is enough "tweaking" potential using Jasons adjustable pole pieces on the Rick style bobbins ... On the "Pole Piece-less" bobbins ... once they are set ... no tweaking will be needed. ------------------
Aiello's House of Gauss
My wife and I don't think alike. She donates money to the homeless and I donate money to the topless! ... R. Dangerfield
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Jon Light
Member From: Brooklyn, NY
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posted 13 March 2005 03:06 PM
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OK--no surprise that this has been "touched on" before. Jeez. I am not surprised by your view of the end signal being a summing of the string vibrations in relation to the magnets and the magnets' own cycle period against the strings.....it adds a level of complexity for sure and takes the argument well beyond the simpler statement that a pickup is just a string vibration frequency counter.
Thanks. |
Curtis Scarrow
Member From: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
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posted 22 March 2005 08:37 PM
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Personally I have owned at least 25 strats of various types, and I have always highly modifed them...One of my favorite mods, is to mount the pickups directly into the wood,using small allen screws and threaded inserts. Pickups are still adjustable thru the hole. It also makes servicing a non-routed guitar possible with strings on as the pickups stay in while the guard easily comes out.
Same thing works great on a tele when you just do the bridge pickup.I find it balances the tone better between the neck and bridge, by fattening up the bridge.
So yes i believe there is a resulting difference between mounting on wood, steel or plastic.
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Randy Reeves
Member From: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
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posted 23 March 2005 05:57 AM
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when building my lap steels I have found that hard mounting the pickup to be essential. |
Jon Light
Member From: Brooklyn, NY
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posted 23 March 2005 01:08 PM
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Curtis & Randy--thanks. You both express this in no uncertain terms. Unfortunately I am in an engineering bind because of the specific design of this guitar--a Melobar Skreemr---a strap-on 10 string. Due to the shape & angle of the neck/body piece (I have ditched the dopey squishy gumby body) there is very little wood to screw into. Don't know what I will do yet but one thing is for sure--this guitar needs all the help it can get and the pickup mounting thing looks like it will be an important part of the equation. Sure wish I had some machining skills. |
Bill Creller
Member From: Saginaw, Michigan, USA
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posted 23 March 2005 02:32 PM
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The frypan pickups are not really mounted solid, just sitting on compressed springs.
The springs will not offer much movement if they are stiff enough, which seems to work OK. It sounds like things could get scientific if the body sounds and the string sounds are both detected by the pickup, but Rick has probably tried everything, so he should know the answers.
( he probably has a graph/chart on how it all comes together!!) |
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