Humbuckers: To Direct Mount or Not to Direct Mount...

[LtKojak]

Re: Humbuckers: To Direct Mount or Not to Direct Mount...

your are way too serious and scientific for your own good

That's something more up your alley...

[jumble jumble]

Re: Humbuckers: To Direct Mount or Not to Direct Mount...

I don't feel like proving a thing to you.

Cool. I don't feel like believing unproven claims, so that works out great.

[jhale667]

Re: Humbuckers: To Direct Mount or Not to Direct Mount...

I agree with you in this; it's not going to be any closer to the real thing that what you did, and that's why I much appreciated the time and effort you put to answer the question.

Your opinion on the outcome is duly noted.

Yours very truly,

As is your appreciation.


Carlin rules, btw.

[Gypsyblue]

Re: Humbuckers: To Direct Mount or Not to Direct Mount...

Cool. I don't feel like believing unproven claims, so that works out great.

So prove it to yourself by trying it.

You're behaving like someone who says all apples taste the same when they've only ever eaten one type of apple.

[frankfalbo]

Re: Humbuckers: To Direct Mount or Not to Direct Mount...

Well, the new articles are made by our own Forumites for the "write for a p'up" program started last year. They're not professional writers, and their articles are NOT checked for accuracy by any Duncan rep.

Anyway, they're added-value to an already excellent Forum. It's not perfect, but as I say: it's always better to have 5% of something that 100% of nothing!

I'm sure as the authors get more confidence, the articles will get better.

Copied from another thread for relevance, this sums it up quite nicely. It's not Seymour or an engineer explaining the scientific principles, it's a forumite writing about his/her experiences in a way that reaches a wider audience. Not everyone is on this forum geeking out about this stuff. In the mean time, it's nearly guaranteed to lead to stuff like this quote below, because it is being dispatched by Seymour Duncan, and shared by Seymour Duncan employees:

Sorry, but an article published under the name of one of the biggest (if not the biggest) and most reputable pickup manufacturers that inaccurately credits EVH for popularizing direct mounted pickups, when in fact it was being done for decades before he was born is ripe for criticism. It's called name dropping.

With all due respect, it is marketing bullsh!t, because you are incorrectly associating Eddie's name with it. So the consumer looks at that and says "hmmm Eddie did it... Eddie Sounds great... Seymour is telling me about it.... I should go by a Seymour Duncan pickup and try this."

When magazines have guest writers they often put some kind of disclaimer when they credit the guest author. He/she gets a little thumbnail pic a the bottom with a brief bio and sometimes an explaination that their views may not represent the views of the publication. Maybe something like that would help smooth out the discord.

As for my experiences, I have converted guitars from rings to direct, and experienced the differences first hand. I have also had a unique experience I'll share below, but first my understanding of the science behind it: All pickups are microphonic to some degree. But I highly doubt the microphony of the typical wax potted humbucker is creating a substantial difference. Think about it like this: Screw the pickup to the back of the guitar; will you hear anything when playing a chord? Probably not. But even if you could faintly hear some sound through a cranked amp, that's how insignificant the microphony induced by the wood vibration in isolation is to the sound that actually hits the amp.

By contrast, barely touch your high E string. Can you hear it? Of course you can. Even when you can't see the string vibrating, its still enough to come out of the amp. That's how sensitive the pickup is to string vibration, in contrast with how deaf it is to microphonic vibrations.

But this is also exactly why these two things are related. Theoretically if you vibrated the pickup at 330hZ but held the string steady, you'd hear a high E pitch through the amp. The string wouldn't have to vibrate if the pickup was vibrating. It wouldn't sound the same as playing the guitar, but you would hear a high "E". So now, ask yourself, what affect does the pickup vibrating have on the way it hears the strings? With the pickup suspended in a ring, it's well isolated from the guitar vibrations of a solidbody. If it's direct mounted, the body drives the pickup. Again, this doesn't come through the pickup microphonically so much as it changes the way the pickup hears the strings. But it does so because of the vibrations of the body. So if one body is bright and tight, the next body is soft and loose, direct mount vs. hanging pickups will produce different results in both guitars.

Here's one of my experiences: I had an Ibanez 442R, which is Alder body, Maple neck and board, small trem, direct mount humbuckers. I had a Custom Custom in it. The low end was reeeally good! Better than you'd expect of any CC. I was/am thoroughly convinced the direct mounting was the cause. Later, I got another 442R, and swapped the pickups over to that one. Both direct mount, and I'm talking about the exact same pickups, not the same model. There was less low end in the second 442R. The guitars were more "identical" than JHale's, yet the identical pickup sounded different. I don't say this to take away anything J said, in a way it reinforces it. And I've had that specific CC for over 15 years. I even traded it to a music store once and traded back for it later! It has been in countless "mounting ring" guitars of all different wood combinations, none had the low end of these two direct mount guitars. Even though one had more than the other, they both had that "direct mounted humbucker" sound.

[SAVAGE DISTORTION]

Re: Humbuckers: To Direct Mount or Not to Direct Mount...

That's something more up your alley...

dude really you need help! and thanks for the carlin clip he rules unlike you!

[ratherdashing]

Re: Humbuckers: To Direct Mount or Not to Direct Mount...

When magazines have guest writers they often put some kind of disclaimer when they credit the guest author. He/she gets a little thumbnail pic a the bottom with a brief bio and sometimes an explaination that their views may not represent the views of the publication. Maybe something like that would help smooth out the discord.

You mean like this?

[jhale667]

Thanks!

Copied from another thread for relevance, this sums it up quite nicely. It's not Seymour or an engineer explaining the scientific principles, it's a forumite writing about his/her experiences in a way that reaches a wider audience. Not everyone is on this forum geeking out about this stuff. In the mean time, it's nearly guaranteed to lead to stuff like this quote below, because it is being dispatched by Seymour Duncan, and shared by Seymour Duncan employees:


When magazines have guest writers they often put some kind of disclaimer when they credit the guest author. He/she gets a little thumbnail pic a the bottom with a brief bio and sometimes an explaination that their views may not represent the views of the publication. Maybe something like that would help smooth out the discord.

As for my experiences, I have converted guitars from rings to direct, and experienced the differences first hand. I have also had a unique experience I'll share below, but first my understanding of the science behind it: All pickups are microphonic to some degree. But I highly doubt the microphony of the typical wax potted humbucker is creating a substantial difference. Think about it like this: Screw the pickup to the back of the guitar; will you hear anything when playing a cord? Probably not. But even if you could faintly hear some sound through a cranked amp, that's now insignificant the microphony induced by the wood vibration in isolation is to the sound that actually hits the amp.

By contrast, barely touch your high E string. Can you hear it? Of course you can. Even when you can't see the string vibrating, its still enough to come out of the amp. That's how sensitive the pickup is to string vibration, in contrast with how deaf it is to microphonic vibrations.

But this is also exactly why these two things are related. Theoretically if you vibrated the pickup at 330hZ but held the string steady, you'd hear a high E pitch through the amp. The string wouldn't have to vibrate if the pickup was vibrating. It wouldn't sound the same as playing the guitar, but you would hear a high "E". So now, ask yourself, what affect does the pickup vibrating have on the way it hears the strings? If the pickup suspended in a ring, it's well isolated from the guitar vibrations of a solidbody. If it's direct mounted, the body drives the pickup. Again, this doesn't come through the pickup microphonically so much as it changes the way the pickup hears the strings. But it does so because of the vibrations of the body. So if one body is bright and tight, the next body is soft and loose, direct mount vs. hanging pickups will produce different results in both guitars.

Here's one of my experiences: I had an Ibanez 442R, which is Alder body, Maple neck and board, small trem, direct mount humbuckers. I had a Custom Custom in it. The low end was reeeally good! Better than you'd expect of any CC. I was/am thoroughly convinced the direct mounting was the cause. Later, I got another 442R, and swapped the pickups over to that one. Both direct mount, and I'm talking about the exact same pickups, not the same model. There was less low end in the second 442R. The guitars were more "identical" than JHale's, yet the identical pickup sounded different. I don't say this to take away anything J said, in a way it reinforces it. And I've had that specific CC for over 15 years. I even traded it to a music store once and traded back for it later! It has been in countless "mounting ring" guitars of all different wood combinations, none had the low end of these two direct mount guitars. Even though one had more than the other, they both had that "direct mounted humbucker" sound.

You rock.

[frankfalbo]

Re: Humbuckers: To Direct Mount or Not to Direct Mount...

You mean like this?

Yup, that sort of thing seems to be excluded from many of the others.

[ratherdashing]

Re: Humbuckers: To Direct Mount or Not to Direct Mount...

Yup, that sort of thing seems to be excluded from many of the others.

It's a simple fix. You just add some bio text to your Wordpress profile and it gets automatically added to that nice bio box on your articles.

I think Orpheo has one on his as well. Not sure about anyone else.