Pickup placement

[PierceOkken]

Re: Pickup placement

Sound alright to me. Just make them a bit narrower, put them inside a hollow aluminum neck, cover with a fretboard. This should yield a working full pickup range guitar.

The aluminum neck is a no, aluminium can't support the strain, is heavy, tonally flat and would be a pain in the butt to fret and maintenance. Did I mention it has basically no tone characteristics?

 

[Jacew]

Re: Pickup placement

First I want to make clear that I find this idea stupid.

But since you mentioned bridge pickup placement is "already a standard" and "ideal", what does that mean?

Strat has neck pickup on the position of 24th fret, ie. the octave. But are the other two pickups placed similarly? How does angling the bridge affect that?

I know that the closeness of bridge have really the tonal effect in the bridge side, but I'm curious if that has any effect the tone too...

 

[Plessure]

Re: Pickup placement

I understand where you are coming from and I have a fairly deep knowledge of music theory and octave and string vibration stuff. While this is scientifically a good idea, it is not going to work. Guitars have been made with bridge and neck pu's for about... ever since the electric guitar was invented. Change this now would be a massive leep in manufacturing. Also, puting a pickup in the neck is not a good idea becuase:
1. Your fingers while fretting would interfere (pushing the strings down right on top of the pickup creates unwanted noise, try it!)
2. Aesthetically and structurally this is a bad idea, the neck is not big enough to support an entire pickup and all of the necessary wiring
3. It would be expensive, guitars would probably jump in price quite a bit.
4. The rule "if you have thought of this, then someone else has"
-Chances are someone else has already tried, and it has not worked, so don't make the same mistake

That helps?

Thank you.

1. As said, it would be a matter of technique adjustment. Granted, the resulting piece of equipment would not only be more flexible but also less fool-proof. It's not a win-win or a necessary development, but a possibility worth consideration and probably worth realization for certain users/applications.
2. You may be right. However, i'm really not concerned with getting "hot" pickups, just getting a meaningful signal. I'm not so sure the dimensions of a neck would preclude a coil of sufficient size.
3. A feature well worth paying for in my opinion. Not everyone may care, but that's ok. The price and value range is already huge, on guitars just like on most products.

Provided you can get the pickups small enough, it really shouldn't be that expensive to produce. And of course, the introduction of this feature wouldn't mean that every guitar must have it.
4. Maybe someone has. Maybe the time wasn't right. Maybe the resistence of doubt, conservatism and ludditism was too strong.

 

[Plessure]

Re: Pickup placement

The aluminum neck is a no, aluminium can't support the strain, is heavy, tonally flat and would be a pain in the butt to fret and maintenance. Did I mention it has basically no tone characteristics?

Rick Toone does aluminum necks. He seems to know what he's doing.

 

[Plessure]

Re: Pickup placement

First I want to make clear that I find this idea stupid.

But since you mentioned bridge pickup placement is "already a standard" and "ideal", what does that mean?

Strat has neck pickup on the position of 24th fret, ie. the octave. But are the other two pickups placed similarly? How does angling the bridge affect that?

I know that the closeness of bridge have really the tonal effect in the bridge side, but I'm curious if that has any effect the tone too...

I meant simply that most guitars come with a bridge pickup that's placed pretty much as close to the bridge as practically possible - while the same isn't at all true for the other extreme pickup placement, in the middle of the string where the vibration is strongest and offers most fundamental and least proportion of treble harmonics.

Stupid why exactly?

 

[PierceOkken]

Re: Pickup placement

Angling the bridge is an EQ thing EVH did it to separate the bass and treble frequencies, it is pretty common. THe current bridge placement is ideal becuase:
Bridge: There are two spots on the guitar where the vibrations of the strings are the most pronounced, the bridge and the nut
this is why there is a pickup right by the bridge, it is meant to handle gain and make a clearer, sharper tone
Neck: Most neck pickups are placed where they are, somewhere between the 24th and 26th fret. This is because this is where the second octave happens on the guitar, where the string vibrates 4 times af fast as the open string (if fretted). This place is also where the string vibrates over the most distance when you pluck it. This gives the neck pickup its more dark and less sharp tone.

 

[Chris Pile]

Re: Pickup placement

The aluminum neck is a no, aluminium can't support the strain, is heavy, tonally flat and would be a pain in the butt to fret and maintenance. Did I mention it has basically no tone characteristics?

Actually, certain alloys of aluminum can certainly handle the tension of six strings. Also, are you aware that vibes (you know, like the marimba) have aluminum bars? Yeah. Aluminum can make music. You are on the money about it being a pain in the butt to fret.


And as for Mr. Plessure..... You remind me of a former client who used to come in my shop weekly with all manner of bizarre and strange ideas about how to improve guitars. After he seriously asked me to make him a wireless volume pedal he could put in his mouth.... I told him to bite me.

 

[Darg1911]

Re: Pickup placement

I can only tell what your response was to me, not how it compares to your internal frame of reference.

Granted. But your having to dig so deep in order to interpret (or invent) hatred from my reply ... that's on you.
Sarcasm may not be a particularly nice form of expression but that's a far cry from sarcasm necessarily equating to an expression of hatred ... contrary to whatever snowflake psychobabble there may be on the topic.

 

[PierceOkken]

Re: Pickup placement

Compared to wood, aluminium has no tone... But this can be good if you want a blank canvas for your pickups, but almost all pickups are designed to complement the woods of a guitar. But on the vibes, the aluminium is what vibrates and wood or other medals hold the bars, on a guitar the wooden neck holds the strings which are what vibrate. The aluminum would switch spots if the neck was made like this.

Dang it we have started a tonewoods debate

 

[Plessure]

Re: Pickup placement

Here is another example of flat pickups. There's even a measurement: 1/5" high. Sounds like a pickup.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hp2yiefLbpo

A bit too wide to fit inside the neck. Can't imagine making it slightly narrower would make it sound not like a pickup.

Apparently the coil is horizontal instead of vertical. Never knew that could work.

 

[Plessure]

Re: Pickup placement

Compared to wood, aluminium has no tone... But this can be good if you want a blank canvas for your pickups, but almost all pickups are designed to complement the woods of a guitar. But on the vibes, the aluminium is what vibrates and wood or other medals hold the bars, on a guitar the wooden neck holds the strings which are what vibrate. The aluminum would switch spots if the neck was made like this.

Dang it we have started a tonewoods debate

I'm not one to say tonewood is entirely a myth, but i think you're vastly overstating its importance. Listen to some demos of Rick Toone instruments. Clearly an aluminum neck is no impediment to great tone and expressive responsive playability.

 

[PierceOkken]

Re: Pickup placement

And I'm not saying Aluminum can't be used as an instrument, I'm saying it is a bit unconventional and not really heard of. I also am pretty sure aluminium is one of the sound absorbing elements while wood projects sound. I guess that doesn't matter for general usage as an insturment.

 

[Demanic]

Re: Pickup placement

I understand where you are coming from and I have a fairly deep knowledge of music theory and octave and string vibration stuff. While this is scientifically a good idea, it is not going to work. Guitars have been made with bridge and neck pu's for about... ever since the electric guitar was invented. Change this now would be a massive leep in manufacturing. Also, puting a pickup in the neck is not a good idea becuase:
1. Your fingers while fretting would interfere (pushing the strings down right on top of the pickup creates unwanted noise, try it!)
2. Aesthetically and structurally this is a bad idea, the neck is not big enough to support an entire pickup and all of the necessary wiring
3. It would be expensive, guitars would probably jump in price quite a bit.
4. The rule "if you have thought of this, then someone else has"
-Chances are someone else has already tried, and it has not worked, so don't make the same mistake

That helps?

I have to say it: this is not the kind of thinking that leads to advancement and innovation.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk

 

[PierceOkken]

Re: Pickup placement

I have to say it: this is not the kind of thinking that leads to advancement and innovation.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk

I am not discouraging trying it, I was simply explaining why I am sceptical of the idea

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: Pickup placement

You might as well make it a twelve fret guitar. What happens when you play on the 12th fret and above? You want to pick up the sound of the portion of the string that is not even vibrating or in tune?

 

[Demanic]

Re: Pickup placement

I understand that. Nevertheless, most people, at one time or another, were skeptical of the ideas that have resulted in all of the technology that we have now. If not for a handful of people who were daring enough to both envision and develop new things, we'd still be in the stone age. Such development involves a LOT of mistakes and setbacks.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk

 

[PierceOkken]

Re: Pickup placement

When you play on the 12th fret you begin playing in another octave.

ex:
Open first string is a "E"
The first fret would be an E sharp
Then the 12th fret on the first string is also an "E"
the 13th fret is also an e sharp
The 24th fret is a "E"

The reason for having frets above the 12th is so that you can play the same notes on different ranges.

All of the notes in the entirety of music:
A B C D E F G + (sharps and flats)

Even with these few note, we have an endless supply of music.
Why? Becuase we play them over a span of 1-10 octaves

 

[Plessure]

Re: Pickup placement

You might as well make it a twelve fret guitar. What happens when you play on the 12th fret and above? You want to pick up the sound of the portion of the string that is not even vibrating or in tune?

I've already responded to this criticism.

In short: With more flexibility comes less fool proof. The regular pickups would still be there for playing higher up the fretboard.

 

[Plessure]

Re: Pickup placement

When you play on the 12th fret you begin playing in another octave.

ex:
Open first string is a "E"
The first fret would be an E sharp
Then the 12th fret on the first string is also an "E"
the 13th fret is also an e sharp
The 24th fret is a "E"

The reason for having frets above the 12th is so that you can play the same notes on different ranges.

All of the notes in the entirety of music:
A B C D E F G + (sharps and flats)

Even with these few note, we have an endless supply of music.
Why? Becuase we play them over a span of 1-10 octaves

Why are you dropping all this tangential information?

 

[PierceOkken]

Re: Pickup placement

What happens when you play on the 12th fret and above?

I thought he was asking why we needed more than twelve frets in general