Reinventing the pickup. (Great title, eh?)

C

cortmarshall

New member
Idea for a pickup that could get authentic single coil and humbucker tones, or even some awesome new thing. System where a battery/something powers one or both coils to make an electromagnet that could simulate the magnetic field of either sc or bucker so you could get both tones. I haven't thought into it too much, but ik you'd have to mess with screws, slugs, winds, materials, etc. to get authentic tones but basically right now im just asking if it would be possible to make an electromagnetic coil create a field identical to a sc, and then when a second coil is magnetized, get a field identical to a humbucker. If so, could these coils also pickup a signal from the strings.

I'm not really expecting to get far, just asking for your thoughts as i don't know much about magnetisism in pickups and hoping some of you could help me with all this thinking.
Thanks for any and all thoughts.
 
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Re: Reinventing the pickup. (Great title, eh?)

Oh and since i came up with this at two in the morning, just ask if anything doesn't make sense.
 
Re: Reinventing the pickup. (Great title, eh?)

cortmarshall said:
The second coil in a humbucker just gets rid of the hum, that's why my strat can have a dummy coil under the hood to get rid of the hum and still sound like a single coil,
Click to expand...

Nope - the second coil in a humbucker also picks up string movement. The dummy coil in your strat lacks any magnet, so only picks up noise.

cortmarshall said:
The difference in tone between sc's and bucker's is because of the magnetic field difference due to extra screws/slugs that carry the field and the bigger magnet, right?
Click to expand...

Not right. Construction is different, more coil winds and other factors all contribute.

cortmarshall said:
this is why a split bucker still cant sound like a single coil?
Click to expand...

No. Primarily that's because each coil of a humbucker has a much lower output than a true single coil.
 
Re: Reinventing the pickup. (Great title, eh?)

You missed the point. The main part of the thread was about an electromagnetic pickup, the only comments i got from you were criticizing me telling me i was all wrong. I don't need that. I will now go edit my post to accomodate for those that do not think.
 
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Re: Reinventing the pickup. (Great title, eh?)

Something like the active pickups Les Paul used in the 70's or like the Elite models Fender had in the mid 80's.
 
Re: Reinventing the pickup. (Great title, eh?)

cortmarshall said:
You missed the point. The main part of the thread was about an electromagnetic pickup, the only comments i got from you were criticizing me telling me i was all wrong. I don't need that. I will now go edit my post to accomodate for those that do not think.
Click to expand...

Hey, it's not Sporky's fault if you've had it wrong. He was NOT criticizing you, he was correcting you in your wrong assumption of things and you get mad?

And to add insult to injury, you're accusing him of "NOT THINKING"?

You should include yourself into that last category, buddy... No emoticon.
 
Re: Reinventing the pickup. (Great title, eh?)

you wouldn't want electromagnets in a guitar anyways. they'd create too powerful of a magnetic field and just suck the strings down to the pickup meaning no vibrations or nuthin'.
 
Re: Reinventing the pickup. (Great title, eh?)

Imagine this
fig013.gif

The coil on the left is your electro magnet. The key is your on switch on. the coil on the right is your pickup coil. The phenomena of induction is going to impress a magnetic field in the Pickup coil, the end result being you will have massive overwhelming DC hum coming from your pickup. Also the strength of the field is likely to negate any field variance by the strings which is how the strings create the inductance for them to be heard.
Pretty much unworkable and if it was workable , some one else would have done it long ago.:cool2:

You'd do yourself a big favour if you found out how pickups actually work.
- http://www.guitar-repairs.co.uk/how_guitar_pickups_work.htm -
 
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Re: Reinventing the pickup. (Great title, eh?)

Hey, the OP is not entirely off. He's essentially thinking of a field coil magnet as used in the first speakers when permanent magnets were not available (or not economical) yet. However, it's true that the battery would drain mighty quick. The fix of course could be an adapter where you plug your guitar into the wall. Now it's getting complicated for nothing. There would be ways of dealing with hum, but again more complicated circuitry. Not worth it in the end.
 
Re: Reinventing the pickup. (Great title, eh?)

GV: i've got lot's of old video recorders.we could use the video heads in them to invent the rotating digital pickup and then everyone could fit it to their guitars~!!!:laugh2::laugh2::laugh2::laugh2:
Click to expand...
:d

now it's getting complicated for nothing. There would be ways of dealing with hum, but again more complicated circuitry. Not worth it in the end.
Click to expand...
pretty much unworkable and if it was workable , some one else would have done it long ago.:cool2:
Click to expand...
Where's Walters when you need him?:laugh2:
 
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Re: Reinventing the pickup. (Great title, eh?)

One thing I've learned in my 40+years of guitar playing is:
Whatever great, novel idea you come up with, you can be sure that someone else has thought of it already, and tried it.-
If it had worked, we would all be using it.
 
Re: Reinventing the pickup. (Great title, eh?)

marvar said:
One thing I've learned in my 40+years of guitar playing is:
Whatever great, novel idea you come up with, you can be sure that someone else has thought of it already, and tried it.-
If it had worked, we would all be using it.
Click to expand...

+1. Guitars and PU's are extremely low tech.
 
Re: Reinventing the pickup. (Great title, eh?)

I hate this kind of question, because it's engineering for the sake of engineering. It doesn't even begin to address this most important question: "What problem are you trying to solve?" That's got to be the starting point for every exercise like this.

Since we're talking about pickups, let's just look at a couple of the engineering exercises the guys on here have been through. First of all, we've got the hybrid coil thing. It solves the problem of there being too much uniformity in the sound or a lack of "that 3D sound." (I haven't done it. This is just hearsay.)

Secondly, we've got the whole magnet swapping craze. (And I don't mean this in a negative way. I'm one of the crazies.) This solves specific tonal problems. Don't like ceramic? Try A8. Don't like scooped mids or high output? Try A2. It's an engineering solution to A SPECIFIC PROBLEM.

Necessity is the mother of invention, but there's no necessity here. It's just kind of mental masturbatory silliness.
 
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