magnetism affecting pickups?
Music-Ian
it seems to me, where/how the pickup is placed greatly affects tone.
So why be limited to wherever the rout is or wherever the screw holes
are? I thought that if the pickups were instead mounted via magnets in
one of those universal type of routs, then the pickups would be able
to be placed in practically any way you want. You know, like instead
of a neck middle and bridge pickup, you could have a neck middle-ish
bridge and bridge pickup, or whatever else you want. hell, you could
even tilt it as much as you want so the higher stings sound more like
a middle pickup and the bass strings sound like a bridge pickup. Only
thing is, pickups work using magnetism so would all this extra
magnetism get in the way or possibly interfere with them? I would
guess not, but I'm not entirely sure why. Another thing is that the
magnets would have to be pretty strong to hold the pickup in place
without it moving all over, so that could interfere with the strings
moving and kill your sustain. I know basically nothing about
electronics and the like, so i don't know if this is a totally stupid
idea or not. It is just surprising to me that I've never heard of
something like this before. This is mostly just in the hypothetical,
although I may get the chance to build my own guitar soon, so I'd like
to have a better understanding of things like this. Thanks in advance
for any comment. Any and all help is appreciated.
Bruce Morgen
Movable pickups, good idea,
done about forty years ago
by Bill Lawrence for the
Dan Armstrong clear plastic
solid-bodies using a sliding
rail mounting system. Doing
it with magnets, bad idea
for the obvious reason that
any magnet strong enough to
be a stable pickup mount
would be strong enough to
disrupt the pickup's
performance. Making a rail
system shouldn't be too hard
-- with a little thought,
even an amateur could come
up with something feasible.
Tony Done
"Bruce Morgen" <edi...@juno.com> wrote in message
news:62r7k5hppotv154nb...@4ax.com...
Interesting experiment though. A steel plate in the bottom of the route and
a couple of RE magnets glued to the bottom of the pickup. I sure it would
affect the pickup tone, but I wouldn't like to guess how. - I've had
successes and failures with unusual magnetic fields.
Tony D
Squier
Inherently I would say that a strong magnet holding
the pickup wouldn't be a good thing. The magnet wouldn't
have to be physically big (you could get some little neo magnets
which have an amazingly strong pull to them) but I think that magnetic
field is going to affect the pickup. It would work but it's going to
alter the tone. I don't know if there is any physics/electrical or
mechanical science to what would seem to be true to me though.
I do have MIA Strat from the early 1990's with the 'swimming pool' route
and it's a great guitar. No routing to force you into a particular way
to install pickups (I could install 3 humbuckers in there if I wanted).
But all i do is get custom pickguard cut for it and mount pups wherever
i want. You can mount 2 single coils close to one another and have them
in series (rather than usual parallel) and then the "in between" selection
takes on a whole new character. And believe it or not the slight difference
in location (neck and what would be the middle but is now much closer to
the neck pickup) makes a noticeable difference when using the single coils
separately. Anyways, the easiest thing is to just get some custom pickguards
cut and you can try out a few variations on pickups and locations.
And btw... no matter what anyone tells you - the older Fender Strats with
the swimming pool route sound just as good as bodies with regular individual pickup
routing. In fact this one might have even more resonance to it when played
then most other Fender strat bodies. heh. every strat player should have
an older pre 1997 strat body with the swimming pool route to play around with
all sorts of pickups/locations. The one caveat is that the route itself
is not that deep so sometimes with humbuckers that have that long mount plate
you may have to get out a small drill bit and just go a little deeper into the
route to let the mounting tabs/screws sit in there. No biggie. easy to do.
Monster Zero
"Squier" <squ...@strats.net> wrote in message
news:050120102324299500%squ...@strats.net...
I once had one of these http://www.westone.info/rail.html years ago.
Arlowe
I found this some time ago
http://tinyurl.com/yld84ya
I like it..in spite of it looking like some sort of router attachment.
Monster Zero
"Arlowe" <bare....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:mn.38127da1d...@gmail.com...
I actually had the bass guitar. Didn't look just typed in "Rail guitar" and
that link I posted was the first link I saw. It was pretty cool and did what
it was advertised to do. I remember getting an insane slap funk sound out of
it.
boardjunkie
>
> - Show quoted text -
Nice idea in theory, not so good in practice. Kinda makes it hard to
checnge it on the fly. They coulda put some user defined mechanical
preset system in there like the old car radios used to have.
But....still kinda useless really.....
Arlowe
>>> have to be physically big (you could get some little neo magnets
>>> which have an amazingly strong pull to them) but I think that magnetic
>>> alter the tone. ￜ I don't know if there is any physics/electrical or
>>> mechanical science to what would seem to be true to me though.
>>> I do have MIA Strat from the early 1990's with the 'swimming pool' route
>>> to install pickups (I could install 3 humbuckers in there if I wanted).
>>> But all i do is get custom pickguard cut for it and mount pups wherever
>>> in series (rather than usual parallel) and then the "in between" selection
>>> difference
>>> in location (neck and what would be the middle but is now much closer to
>>> the neck pickup) makes a noticeable difference when using the single coils
>>> pickguards
>>> cut and you can try out a few variations on pickups and locations.
>>> And btw... no matter what anyone tells you - the older Fender Strats with
>>> the swimming pool route sound just as good as bodies with regular
>>> individual pickup
>>> played
>>> then most other Fender strat bodies. ï¿œheh. ï¿œevery strat player should have
>>> an older pre 1997 strat body with the swimming pool route to play around
>>> with
>>> is not that deep so sometimes with humbuckers that have that long mount
>>> plate
>>> you may have to get out a small drill bit and just go a little deeper into
>>> the
>>> do.
>>
>> I once had one of thesehttp://www.westone.info/rail.htmlyears ago.- Hide
>> quoted text -
>>
>> - Show quoted text -
>
> Nice idea in theory, not so good in practice. Kinda makes it hard to
> checnge it on the fly. They coulda put some user defined mechanical
> preset system in there like the old car radios used to have.
> But....still kinda useless really.....
A wonderbar guitar.
Music-Ian
happen. when it was a little off to the side (like on the screw that
you use to raise/lower it) the difference was barely noticeable. keep
in mind the magnet was probably twice as strong as it would need to be
in order to hold the pickup in place. it was one of those rare earth
magnets where if two get stuck together, good luck trying to get them
apart, because they won't let go in a hurry. however, when i put the
magnet between the strings and the pickups (literally directly sitting
on top of the pickup), the was a pretty noticeable difference. more
treble, bass was cut. mid seemed about the same. kinda nasally. it
seems like it just shifted the frequencies over (so like however much
bass there was, thats how much mid there is, and however much mid
there is, that's how much treble there is, etc.) but since you would
have two magnets off to the side when you use them anyway, i'm not
sure they'd actually make a huge difference. well, nothing you
couldn't get almost completely rid of by tweaking the eq a bit.