Re: humbucker mounting: how did he do it? (Roman content)
Oh, please. If you're going to correct someone, do it well. A microphone doesn't 'detect' or react to changes in sound pressure, but in changes in AIR PRESSURE.
That's brilliant, you're correcting me by saying microphones don't pick up sound, but air pressure changes. Let's see:
mi·cro·phone
n.
An instrument that converts sound waves into an electric current, usually fed into an amplifier, a recorder, or a broadcast transmitter.
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Because, you know, underwater microphones are still microphones?
Let me get this straight: I have to admit that a guitar pickup "is a" microphone, even though speaking into a guitar pickup has no effect - but if I mention "sound waves" you're going to correct me on that and insist I talk about changes in air pressure instead? Even though microphones can be made to pick up sound waves through any medium, so it wouldn't even be correct to limit it to air pressure?
I mean, if I have to accept "a guitar pickup is basically a microphone", can't you manage to accept "a sound wave is basically a change in air pressure"? That's what sound
is - the word "sound" is just shorthand for that concept. "Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing." There's no way of pickiing up "sound" that doesn't involve picking up compression waves because they are
exactly the same thing.
[Actually the only reason I didn't say "changes in air pressure" was because I didn't want some smart-ass to come along and point out that you can get underwater microphones.]
Not to mention the fact that now you've described what a microphone does - picking up compression waves in some medium, usually air - you've basically proved that a pickup isn't a microphone, because it doesn't do that. It picks up magnetic field disturbances.
Ok. and conversly, a pickup IS a microphone. It works the same. It's like saying a diesel engine isn't an engine because it reacts differently with the fuel than a petrol engine. Or a motorboat isn't a real boat because the means of propellant aren't muscle power or wind.
Your analogy is flawed. It's more like you're saying a rowboat is basically a motorboat, because they both float and carry people.
By all means, though, carry on insisting that a magnetic pickup is a microphone. Because they "work the same". A condenser microphone doesn't work like a guitar pickup. Carbon mics don't work like guitar pickups. Piezoelectric microphones don't work like guitar pickups. See also: fiber optic microphones, laser microphones.
If we're deciding that what makes something a "microphone" is the use of electromagnetic induction, then all those types of microphones I just listed are now no longer "microphones" but something else. Gets awkward. Can we not agree that a microphone turns pressure waves into and electric signal, and a pickup turns magnetic field disturbances into the same?
Or to put it another way, a guitar pickup shares some characteristics with some types of microphone, without actually being a microphone. Like how a rowboat shares some characteristics with a motorboat, without actually being a motorboat.