Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

[cokemachine]

I'm looking for suitable pickups for a fanned fret guitar in which the pickups continue on with the same fanning orientation as the frets. I figure that a blade style pickup would be the best way to go, yet there doesn't seem to be a whole lot out there in the way of longer, blade style pickups. Nobody seems to even make a 7-string blade pickup. Anybody have any recommendations?

 

[lateralus]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

hmm... i think i know what you mean. Ive seen rusty cooley with a 8 string fan fretted guitar... and he uses emg's in that beast. Other than that, you could try an invader, they have a really wide magnetic field, like a blade pickup. Also as an afterthought, ring up Bill Lawrence, they might be able to do something for you.

 

[Imp]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

the EMG 707 is a 7 string rail blade pickup, sounds similar to the 85, according to them

tom

 

[cokemachine]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

the EMG 707 is a 7 string rail blade pickup, sounds similar to the 85, according to them

tom

Actually, the EMG-707 has pole pieces like the EMG-85. I did contact EMG to see if an EMG-81, which has rails, could be made into the 707 housing.

 

[cokemachine]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

I just talked to Rick Hunt at EMG and he suggested using the 35 Extended Series soapbars instead. According to Rick:

"The 35CS has steel inserts that change the coil inductance. This results in a warmer tone. The 35CS also uses ceramic mags like the 81. It may be a little bit darker, due to the tone modeling, but should work fine for your application."

I'm going to look into this a little more.

 

[tone4days]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

call MJ in the SD custom shop .. or someone at SD tech support ... they'll have good ideas as well

good luck

any chance you oculd post a pic of the guitar .. not sure i even know what a fan fret guitar is

cheers
t4d

 

[orbiter]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

well FWIW~~> the father of the fanned fret guitar swears by bartolini pickups ... and having played one just recently ..I will say, they work very well .. no dead spots ... truly versital instruments ... 3 strat pups .. 6 position chicken head roto switch .. standard strat set-up w/ added two outside coils as 6th option.

should be noted that the 8 strings he builds for charlie hunter run two sets of pups .. both bartolini .. one for the bass strings.. that runs to a bass rig .. and one for guitar and its rig.

you may also want to check out his bridge .. very cool ... has an individual "bridge" for each string ... mounted directly to the body seperatly ... pretty badass IMO.

www.novaxguitars.com in case you have not looked here already.

 

[tone4days]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

too bad they don't come with a trem

 

[orbiter]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

actually .. I dont see one on his site.. but one of my customers has a shred style strat w/ one of ralphs first necks ... has a modded wilk. trem from ralph.. works killer!

ps ~> I'll try to get pics of it next time he is here.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

The strings don't get wider...just the frets. Why wouldn't a regular 7 string pickup work fine? Lew

 

[Empty Pockets]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

Fanned frets = CRAZY!! yet so stylish it hurts.

Somebody call up Warmoth and tell them to figure out how to do this.

-X

 

[ErikH]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

WTF??? I have never seen anything like that before. I'd like to try playing one of those. Looks interesting.

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

I'm looking for suitable pickups for a fanned fret guitar in which the pickups continue on with the same fanning orientation as the frets. I figure that a blade style pickup would be the best way to go, yet there doesn't seem to be a whole lot out there in the way of longer, blade style pickups. Nobody seems to even make a 7-string blade pickup. Anybody have any recommendations?

Sorry, I don't have any advice for you ... but it's good to see another Calgarian on here!!!

 

[rmcfee]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

Dingwall guitars (in Saskatchawan I think) are amazing fan fret basses. The best sounding 5 string I've ever heard, in fact, and they look awesome too.
They tilt the pups for some reason and it makes them look cool because the pups match the fret angles. The spacing at the bridge doen't require the tilt though.
Do a search for these Dingwalls and maybe some info will be there about the pups. - Rob McFee.

 

[Zerberus]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

Fanned frets = CRAZY!! yet so stylish it hurts.

Somebody call up Warmoth and tell them to figure out how to do this.

-X

Nothing to figure out, the idea (necks w/ multiple scale lengths) has been around for decades if not centuries and Novax just actually did it and patented it. All Warmoth would theoretically have to do is license the system out... but even if that´s all I doubt that the demand for the necks is that great that it would be worth their time and money

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

Yeah, Zerb's right. Where the fan frets make sense are on those instruments Charlie Hunter plays with bass strings on the low end and guitar strings on the high end. The point of the fanned frets on the bass end is that the scale length becomes longer, allowing for better tone and better intonation from the bass strings.

Lew

 

[jeremy]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

i love that thing. id never be able to play it but it looks sweet and in his hands sounds great. id think a blade style 7 string pup would be perfect if one could be found

 

[orbiter]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

charlies bass thing was the impetus for building the fanned fret .. says ralph. he tried many other approaches first ... fretless on the bass side ... and then different frets and scale for the bass strings .. (I'd like to see that one!) and finally going w/ and wisely patenting the fanned fret system.

but the main dif to me on regular guitars is the intonation seems improved ...sorta like the earvana taken to a whole other level .. he swears each string sounds better at different lengths (like a harp or piano) and thats what makes the system sound good, and work well ... personally I dont know ... but they play and sound wonderful ... so who am I to argue!

 

[cokemachine]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

Dingwall guitars (in Saskatchawan I think) are amazing fan fret basses. The best sounding 5 string I've ever heard, in fact, and they look awesome too.
They tilt the pups for some reason and it makes them look cool because the pups match the fret angles. The spacing at the bridge doen't require the tilt though.
Do a search for these Dingwalls and maybe some info will be there about the pups. - Rob McFee.

I've known Sheldon Dingwall since the early '90's. He actually built my first custom guitar back in the day and I also have one of his fanned fret basses. Anybody looking for the ultimate bass should look no further than Dingwall. They are simply the best basses out their in my opinion.

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: Pickups for Fanned Fret Guitar

Depending on the how much of a difference there is in scale from your highest to your lowest string, I think this calls for a radical new pickup design.

Because a conventional coil (perpendicular to strings) would sense a proportionally smaller part of the lower strings than the higher ones (resulting in thin-sounding low strings), I think a pickup design with 6 coils (one for each string) running parallel with the strings (instead of one or two running perpendicular) would be the thing.

You could make each coil as long or short as you want, depending on how wide a sample of each string you wanted -- AND, you could VOICE each coil however you want via however much wind you put on it, the nature of the wind (scattered), e.g., the high E-string coil could be wound a little hotter than the G-string, etc.

The coils would be in series so they add up to the 8k or 13k or 20k or whatever you want -- though I suppose you could also wire it for options like some individual string coils could be wired in series and then this group could be wired in parallel with the other group(s).

Just a thought.