Could an aluminum pickguard change pickup sound?

[freefrog]

Re: Could an aluminum pickguard change pickup sound?

Hey greekdude,

Sorry for the delayed answer: my Sunday has been busy.

As a matter of fact, EMG's are far less microphonic than most pickups because they are epoxied: http://music-electronics-forum.com/attachments/417d1172596783-003.jpg

I shouldn't have wrote that "IME and IMHO, good guitar pickups are precisely those slightly microphonic": let's just say that I prefer vintage speced humbuckers and that I use them unpotted (I've other means than wax to avoid feedback). I appreciate their microphonic "vibe". )

Regarding the subject discussed here, I've noticed a couple of times in three decades some cases of apparently stifled high frequencies and/or shortened sustain after having changed Strat pickguards (while the pickups, their wiring harness an their height settings were the same under the same strings). I've checked once this apparently absurd feeling by counting the seconds of sustain with each pickguard. Since this experiment, I tend to avoid those with a thick soft shielding foil - even if IME, they didn't make any perceptible difference in many other cases.

In the same way, someone that I know complained one day about his Ibanez coated with a layer of varnished blue jean, claiming that this guitar sounded dead - while other folks don't notice anything special with this kind of custom finish...

Guitars are "holistic" objects and their constitutive components can work against each other in some situations for obscure reasons. Fortunately, swapping parts is doable in most cases. )

Have a nice day!

 

[greekdude]

Re: Could an aluminum pickguard change pickup sound?

^ I agree!

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Could an aluminum pickguard change pickup sound?

so.... did anyone move forward with the aluminum and see how everything responded?



I'm still wanting to see someone try nickel/silver and brass pickguards.

 

[esandes]

Re: Could an aluminum pickguard change pickup sound?

I own an oddball guitar, a 1978 or so Gibson Marauder. It has an all-maple bolt-on neck and a solid mahogany body. The pickups mount in a pickguard, which then mounts to the face of the guitar just like a Strat.
I bought this beast for next to nothing a long time ago and modified the snot out of it. One of those mods was to make an aluminum pickguard so I could reposition the controls and put a nice chunky humbucker in the bridge position.
The guitar has always had a slightly grating aspect to the tone. No one hears it but me, but it is there.
The thread about base plates and eddy currents got me to wondering: is it possible the aluminum pickguard is altering the tone of the pickups? I had this same pickup in two other guitars and in those guitars this pickup did not have that spike somewhere in the EQ that bothers me sometimes.

Would building a plastic pickguard potentially alter the tone of the pickup?

I have a jazz master with an aluminum pick guard and SD pickups with a single 1meg volume pot. All jazz guts removed.

It even sounds tinny and bright acoustically. Alder body I believe. Rosewood fretboard. Mastery bridge.

 

[Obsessive Compulsive]

Re: Could an aluminum pickguard change pickup sound?

I firmly believe that WOOD AFFECTS TONE. But this does not happen because of any pup sensing the wood vibration, but rather because of the way the wood affects string vibration. Still puzzled of why the pups act like microphones in the vid tho...
maybe those pups are .... just microphonic ?

hmm thinking about it, maybe the pups that the guy used to debunk the "anti-wood" conspiracy are extremely loose or of bad quality. By tapping the wood, some metal parts in the pup (wire, bobbin, plate, etc..) are made to vibrate. The better the pup the more immune to those conditions, IMO. So yeah wood contributes to the tone, but not because pups are microphonic or of bad quality.

What are you talking about? Pickups even the highly regarded ones will react if you tap the guitar. Have you changed the pickups of your guitar? To test if it's working, you tap them right?

As a matter of fat, I have put a cellphone over my pickups and the sound indeed get amplified.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Could an aluminum pickguard change pickup sound?

What are you talking about? Pickups even the highly regarded ones will react if you tap the guitar. Have you changed the pickups of your guitar? To test if it's working, you tap them right?

As a matter of fat, I have put a cellphone over my pickups and the sound indeed get amplified.

I believe the cell phone trick works because the cell phone speaker magnet is interacting with the pickups magnetic field, far more than speaker air pressure striking it like a microphone. But pickups are microphonic and do pickup tapping vibrations.

 

[greekdude]

Re: Could an aluminum pickguard change pickup sound?

What are you talking about? Pickups even the highly regarded ones will react if you tap the guitar. Have you changed the pickups of your guitar? To test if it's working, you tap them right?

As a matter of fat, I have put a cellphone over my pickups and the sound indeed get amplified.

Have you tapped the pups with wood? Then with your screwdriver? Any difference? This has been explained to death already. I don't wish to lose more time with this.

 

[Obsessive Compulsive]

Re: Could an aluminum pickguard change pickup sound?

Have you tapped the pups with wood? Then with your screwdriver? Any difference? This has been explained to death already. I don't wish to lose more time with this.

With a metal object. Screwdriver, trem arm. Am I missing something? Please explain.