What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

[Gearjoneser]

Some things I'd like to see would be...

Organic colored bobbins that would mate well with all the translucent finishes out there, like Burnt Sienna dark orange, tan, olive green, gray, charcoal, and navy blue. Unlike all the bright colors, these colors would go great with all the flametops and natural finishes.

I'd like to see pickup leads with a 4 connection plug about 2 inches from the baseplate, so you could swap pickups without picking up a soldering iron.

I'd like to see more pickup combinations on guitars than just HH, SSS, HSS, or HS. Maybe SSSSS, or HSSH or combinations of P-90's/Soapbars/Singles/Hums/Tele pickups/lipsticks/Piezo systems.
Also, more hybrid pickups like humbuckers that switch into a P-90 etc.

Lets hear your thoughts on a breakthrough pickup innovation!

 

[Artie]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

Electro-magnets: Go from A2, to A5, to Ceramic or anywhere in between at the turn of a dial.

Modular design: Individual coils and magnets would plug into a universal baseplate. You could mix and match any coil, resistance and/or color.

Active electronics powered through the cable: Built-in mixers, EQ's, etc. All powered from the amp. Its an "electric" guitar. It already plugs into an AC powered device.

Modular cam selector switches: You always solder, (or plug), your pups into the same points. Selection sequence is determined by the plastic "cam" you insert into the switch.

Thats all for now. Its early.

 

[Imp]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

standardising everthing - having SCs, 'buckers, and trembuckers having the same screw and fittings.. making hybridisation easier

and companies selling the different types of polepeice, experimentation is the way forward!

 

[Simon_F]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

I'd like to see pickup leads with a 4 connection plug about 2 inches from the baseplate, so you could swap pickups without picking up a soldering iron.

That one gets my vote! :fing2:

Plus intelligent pickups that can correct bum notes.

 

[Kommerzbassist]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

I'd like to see pickup leads with a 4 connection plug about 2 inches from the baseplate, so you could swap pickups without picking up a soldering iron.

Yeah I also thought abou that very often...

 

[JammerMatt]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

A son of one of my coworkers is a Mechanical Engineer. For his Master's he created an "Optical Pickup", which used a laser (I think) to pick up the vibrations of the string. The thinking being that less string energy would be lost since there would be no magnetic field. In the end, he did get his pickup to produce a sound. However, the real world came knocking so he had to go and get a real job that paid.

Still, I wonder if it could've panned out.

 

[tone4days]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

A son of one of my coworkers is a Mechanical Engineer. For his Master's he created an "Optical Pickup", which used a laser (I think) to pick up the vibrations of the string. The thinking being that less string energy would be lost since there would be no magnetic field. In the end, he did get his pickup to produce a sound. However, the real world came knocking so he had to go and get a real job that paid.

Still, I wonder if it could've panned out.

i'd be interested to know if that was useful in transferring all of the tonal properties linearly or not ... seems like it would work well for determining the fundemental frequency for a high quality guitar synth driver or feed to some other modeling device (variax, etc) ... it might produce some completely new musical device even if it wouldnt improve the quality of what we know as electric guitar ...

i meant to ask seymour this exact question (about the future) at UGD but didnt get a free moment to do so ... woul dhave been interesting to hear his answer ... then again, for competitive reasons, i can see why someone in the business might not be able to be fully candid

t4d

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

IMO, a bridge humbucker that sounds perfect with vintage style Strat single coil neck and middle pickups. The 59 Trembucker is my fave, but I know Seymour could come up with something even better. Maybe a humbucker with one coil overwound so that coil sounds great when the humbucker is split and when the two coils are in series, maybe that hotter coil could be tapped so that the two coils were reasonably balanced when used as a humbucker. Lew

 

[ranalli]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

Instead of makign that stupid variax guitar Line6 should have just made a pickup modeling retrofit kit. I'd love to be able to switch from an EMG to a JB to a Classic '57 on my Les Paul at any given time....it would be the ultimate in guitar versatility.

 

[Imp]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

i think the full-size 4 rail pickup is overdue

ibanez have made a 3-coil active bass pickup, which sounds dumb to me since it wouldnt be hum-cancelling - steven carpenter from the deftones has like bridge and middle humbuckers, its not too far from what we have now

plus, with coil splitting, you could have any combination of strat tones, in/out of phase, the works :laugh2:

tom

 

[theodie]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

I am still waiting for duncan to make a 10-12K bucker in their standard production lineup. I think a 4 rail bucker might be cool though.

 

[Low_fidelity2100]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

A pickup that makes even the untalented sound excellent. Seems like that could be useful to some people.

The snap connect thing (ala emg) everyone else likes too. That would come in handy.

A new type of magnet that produces the same tonal characteristics as an A5 (or A2) but has virtually no magnetic pull.

More "double screw bobbin" Buckers. (not an innovation. Just would be nice)

Possibly magnetic baseplates, or at least base plates made out of a material that magnets will stick to (ferrous?). I mean A tele pickup with a baseplate always seems to sound substatially better to me (more bass, and mids) Imagine what that same sorta thing could do for a humbucker, or a strat single coil, or p-90, etc...

A "tapped" humbucker (kinda the same idea as a tapped 1/4lbs single). SO you could have both vintage, and High output in the same pickup. It seems do able to me. So why not do it aleady?

Thats all I got for now.
Please excuse me if these sound sorta dumb. I've been up for 48 hours without any caffine. So I'm getting kinda weird and dumb.

Ed

 

[zionstrat]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

Good news is that componatized swapable pups and configurations already exist if you are willing to buy the gtr- Check this out:
http://www.musicianshotline.com/builder_profile/Mercurio_guitars.htm

 

[Pierre]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

Well EMG makes it. They use that quick connect thing. How about having it for ALL wires and adapt the switches and pots to it? I don't see why it'd be so complicated. It'd save time, money, no need for a soldering iron, and it's a very simple system. You wired something wrong? 2 minutes and it's repaired.

 

[Loserchief]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

i like the idea of a modeling pickup and the modular pickups would be nice ,too. has everyone ever thought about a active P90s?

 

[YJM_Rocks]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

A humbucker made from two P90 coils. If this is done already, who makes it?

 

[YJM_Rocks]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

I'm gonna wire up all my guitars with connecters soon. Probably can find something suitable at radioshack.

 

[Artie]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

IMO, a bridge humbucker that sounds perfect with vintage style Strat single coil neck and middle pickups. The 59 Trembucker is my fave, but I know Seymour could come up with something even better. Maybe a humbucker with one coil overwound so that coil sounds great when the humbucker is split and when the two coils are in series, maybe that hotter coil could be tapped so that the two coils were reasonably balanced when used as a humbucker. Lew

That gives me an idea: How about a big single-coil in the middle, flanked by a small split-coil on either side. The two small coils equal, electrically, the single for humbucking, but when "split", the big single comes into play.

We'll call it . . . The Trifecta: :laugh2:

 

[ErikH]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

The connectors in the cavity would be great but the problem comes in to play when contacts get dirty and don't carry the signal as well as they should. Since the amount of signal flowing from the pickup to the output jack is so small, it doesn't take much to affect it. With the current magnet/coil passive type of pickups, a good clean solder connection is the only sure fire way to make sure that it will work as it is designed. Imagine a connector coming loose during a gig. That would suck. What's worse, you have to open the guitar to fix it (not so much fun on Strats). A solder connection will hold through all the tossing around and vibrations better than any connector.

I've also thought about the powering of active electronics through the guitar cable but that's not possible. While the amp takes AC for its power, active electronics use DC, and a very small amount of it, so that means an AC to DC converter in the amp and then a step down transformer to get it to 9 volts. The amp would have to be modified to supply the correct amount of DC power not to mention the jack changed on the amp for a dedicated DC line, then you have to have a special cable. Here's where the problem lies. You can only play the guitar through the modified DC supplying amp, not any others. Good idea, but not worth it in the long run.

One thing I would like to see is further improvement on the Lace Sensor type of pickups that have minimal to no string pull yet provide excellent tone.

 

[JammerMatt]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

Instead of makign that stupid variax guitar Line6 should have just made a pickup modeling retrofit kit. I'd love to be able to switch from an EMG to a JB to a Classic '57 on my Les Paul at any given time....it would be the ultimate in guitar versatility.

What an interesting idea.