Pickup placement

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Re: Pickup placement

I have blocked Plessure.... So I no longer see his posts. This gives me pleasure.....
 
Re: Pickup placement

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/m/photo?id=2592684:Photo:2291745

These should be shrunk to about 44 mm along the long side to function as neck-mounted pickups for a guitar the size of my strat.

It should be doable. They are not bad pickups, though there are few demonstrations available. However, if i'm looking at it correctly this pickup is even wider than my strat single coils. Almost 80 mm is my estimation from just knowing what must be the short side at 32 mm.

An alternative would be to widen the neck in order to accomodate for more normal sized pickups. This could even be a feature in itself to some players, with extended vibrato ranges for the top and bottom strings. The common trade-off between fretboard space and small gripping size isn't carved in stone.
 
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Re: Pickup placement

There was some multi-effect or synth processor back in the '90s which had an option to simulate the sound of placing pickups along the neck or even on the headstock.
 
Re: Pickup placement

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?

Well, for one thing guitar is extremely unfit instrument to achieve what you're proposing here.

What exactly are you trying to achieve with that design that cannot be done in sensible way? Three pickups parallel already sounds mushy, and strat neck pickup is on the edge of being usable already? What's gain with yet another pickup further up the neck?
 
Re: Pickup placement

Why not build a system that can sense a string across the entire length? You would be able to pick certain 'points' and send that to a switch. Who says a pickup has to be straight across the strings? Actually, the Variax and some Boss units can sort of do this virtually. As far as making hardware that does it, that might be harder.
 
Re: Pickup placement

Well, for one thing guitar is extremely unfit instrument to achieve what you're proposing here.

What exactly are you trying to achieve with that design that cannot be done in sensible way? Three pickups parallel already sounds mushy, and strat neck pickup is on the edge of being usable already? What's gain with yet another pickup further up the neck?

We disagree. I love the strat neck pickup. Any sound is usable. What i want is simply pickups to cover the full range of fundamental nodes, i.e starting at the open string fundamental which is the octave, and going all the way to the bridge.

While using many pickups at once would certainly be possible, it's not the purpose.
 
Re: Pickup placement

Why not build a system that can sense a string across the entire length? You would be able to pick certain 'points' and send that to a switch. Who says a pickup has to be straight across the strings? Actually, the Variax and some Boss units can sort of do this virtually. As far as making hardware that does it, that might be harder.

This sounds even more advanced and complicated, FWIW.
 
Re: Pickup placement

We disagree. I love the strat neck pickup. Any sound is usable. What i want is simply pickups to cover the full range of fundamental nodes, i.e starting at the open string fundamental which is the octave, and going all the way to the bridge.

While using many pickups at once would certainly be possible, it's not the purpose.

I like strat neck pickup too. I'm just skeptical you would find much usable difference in tone of those pickups.
 
Re: Pickup placement

This is slightly late in the conversation, but a lot of people on this thread mentioned how the neck pickup sounds like it does because of the magic location right under the 24th harmonic node. This is simply not true, as the harmonic nodes change when a note is fretted.

But I always thought was interesting is that on a lot guitars there is a point where the neck and the bridge are in the same position. For example, if you had two Customs in a Les Paul set to the same height and fretted a note on the 24th fret, the only tonal differences you get between the neck and bridge pickup would be the mechanical tolerances.
 
Re: Pickup placement

Instead of a guitar, how about using a sitar? Pleanty of room between the frets to mount pickups.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk
 
Re: Pickup placement

Instead of a guitar, how about using a sitar? Pleanty of room between the frets to mount pickups.

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

Great suggestion. This could be done without even having to build anything besides mounting and connecting electronics.
 
Re: Pickup placement

Using laser technology you can pickup string vibration from the nut to the bridge and convert to audio signals...but as others have stated, pointless, twix neck and bridge is more than enough territory.
 
Re: Pickup placement

This is slightly late in the conversation, but a lot of people on this thread mentioned how the neck pickup sounds like it does because of the magic location right under the 24th harmonic node. This is simply not true, as the harmonic nodes change when a note is fretted.

But I always thought was interesting is that on a lot guitars there is a point where the neck and the bridge are in the same position. For example, if you had two Customs in a Les Paul set to the same height and fretted a note on the 24th fret, the only tonal differences you get between the neck and bridge pickup would be the mechanical tolerances.

Very good point. So I wonder if there's some "magic" points on fretboard where octave is right above certain pickup. Can it be found by ear? Or is it just a myth...
 
Re: Pickup placement

But even with any fretted note making this supposed 'mythical' octave position irrelevant, the movement of the neck pickup even to the SG/24 fret location immediately makes it less flutey and attractive for practically everyone into neck pickup tone. And this is with fretted notes too.

So I think its more about the position in relation to scale length than anything else.
 
Re: Pickup placement

The problem, as I see it, is that the strings are fretted during play. 12th fret is the midpoint for an open string only. The pickup's placement relative to the center of the vibrating section would change drastically as you play up the neck, and a 12th fret pickup would be completely useless for notes played above the 12th fret.

Ever notice how a neck pickup's tone becomes somewhat brighter for notes played way up high? It's because the pickup is now much closer to the endpoint on the active portion of string. With conventional placement this becomes sort of an advantage on high notes. But you wouldn't want the same effect to come into play when you're playing at the ninth or tenth fret.
 
Re: Pickup placement

The problem, as I see it, is that the strings are fretted during play. 12th fret is the midpoint for an open string only. The pickup's placement relative to the center of the vibrating section would change drastically as you play up the neck, and a 12th fret pickup would be completely useless for notes played above the 12th fret.

Ever notice how a neck pickup's tone becomes somewhat brighter for notes played way up high? It's because the pickup is now much closer to the endpoint on the active portion of string. With conventional placement this becomes sort of an advantage on high notes. But you wouldn't want the same effect to come into play when you're playing at the ninth or tenth fret.

Now why you dragging common sense into this discussion? lol
 
Re: Pickup placement

Then what happens to the notes now playing behind where you are fretting.....all the oddly dissonant stuff sounds terrible. If you don't know what I'm talking about, try playing Satch's Midnight on an acoustic.

Bad idea
 
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