What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

[Gearjoneser]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

Here's something I've thought of, and it's incredible that they aren't already made.....

A piece of metal about the size of a penny that's shaped like a hand bent at the wrist.
You simply solder the 'wrist' to the back of your volume pot, then all the ground wires get soldered to the fingers. They would cost about a penny to make, and would create a better surface to solder ground wires to, without overheating the pot.

Crap, I'm giving up all my potential inventions!! LOL

 

[Artie]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

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.

I would disagree with this only a smidgen.

Microphones are a more fragile signal than a guitar, and they have been phantom powered for years. I don't think its a big deal. It would take a slight rethinking, but not insurmountable.

 

[rocketsoul]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

A piece of metal about the size of a penny that's shaped like a hand bent at the wrist.
You simply solder the 'wrist' to the back of your volume pot, then all the ground wires get soldered to the fingers. They would cost about a penny to make, and would create a better surface to solder ground wires to, without overheating the pot.

That sounds like a seriously good idea. I would buy them. Soldering grounds has always been messy for me.

 

[ErikH]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

Ahh, but with active microphones, before the phantom supply came about, you needed to put a battery in them. Still today, you can either use a battery if the board doesn't supply phantom power or use phantom power if it does. Also, mic cables already had the extra pin to supply the power so there was no need to make special cables and they were still universal across the board.

With a guitar, you have a two conductor cable. The only reason active electronics use a stereo jack is so that when you unplug the cable, the battery is taken out of the circuit and won't get drained. Pretty much every stompbox on the market today works the same way but with a stereo jack on the input.

It would be cool if phantom power could be used to supply active electronics but it would take a lot of redesigning to get it to work with current and vintage equipment.

Oh yeah, and with stompboxes in the chain, how would the phantom power get from them to the guitar? Again, same issue with the cables connecting each one and the jacks. Too messy to mess with.

 

[Artie]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

Ahh, but with active microphones, before the phantom supply came about, you needed to put a battery in them. Still today, you can either use a battery if the board doesn't supply phantom power or use phantom power if it does. Also, mic cables already had the extra pin to supply the power so there was no need to make special cables and they were still universal across the board.

With a guitar, you have a two conductor cable. The only reason active electronics use a stereo jack is so that when you unplug the cable, the battery is taken out of the circuit and won't get drained. Pretty much every stompbox on the market today works the same way but with a stereo jack on the input.

It would be cool if phantom power could be used to supply active electronics but it would take a lot of redesigning to get it to work with current and vintage equipment.

Oh yeah, and with stompboxes in the chain, how would the phantom power get from them to the guitar? Again, same issue with the cables connecting each one and the jacks. Too messy to mess with.

I agree with this completely.

In retrospect, it would be near impossible to implement. If Leo had thought of this in the beginning, all effects, and the guitar would be 3-wire, powered off the amp . . . the one device that plugs into the wall.

 

[WITH FULL DISTORTION]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

There should be a Metal King pickup
that could fit 90% of the guitars/wood combinations.
like 4 different models
1 - for highs
2 - for middles
3 - for bass
4 - balanced.

 

[Quencho092]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

more horse shoe magnet pickups! It can't be too hard!

Just put the single coil horseshoe pickup mount over the neck pickup adjustment screws, and drill a hole on the bottom side to run the leads for the pickup. So you can have a neck single and a humbucker at the same time, or a single, or a humbucker alone.

So you can have an H S H pickup config, with a horseshoe single coil over the neck position, so you have a slick dual humbucker guitar that can also achieve strat quack.

 

[DeadSkinSlayer3]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

I just had a cool idea...

Could you take a Hot Rails and a Classic Stack, or any other lil bucker/single coil combo, and put them in one humbucker ring? You'd have a humbucker sound from the lil bucker, and then an actual single coil right next to it. but, would the coil's and magnets being so close **** things up?

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

I just had a cool idea...

Could you take a Hot Rails and a Classic Stack, or any other lil bucker/single coil combo, and put them in one humbucker ring? You'd have a humbucker sound from the lil bucker, and then an actual single coil right next to it. but, would the coil's and magnets being so close **** things up?

Nah, I think your idea, or a modified version of it, would work. If you could have a humbucker that in actuality was two single coils, you could use that pickup as a hotrails or a an SSL 1. They just wouldn't sound good being on at the same time. If you could toggle between the two coils using a pullup tone pot, it would be a great idea. I'd like the Hotrail side on the inside, and the screw coil (vintage A5 strat) on the outside. If you had a covered humbucker, it'd look just like ANY covered humbucker. The two sides could possibly be on at the same time for a more funky tone. Ultimately, you'd want to choose either of the two, though. Great idea!!!

 

[Willis]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

For the phantom powered active pickup idea, instead of having the power come from the amp, it could come from a pedal, like this:
http://www.till.com/articles/PreampCable/

 

[TheGZeus]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

Ask AGI-Lace.

 

[TheGZeus]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

There should be a Metal King pickup
that could fit 90% of the guitars/wood combinations.
like 4 different models
1 - for highs
2 - for middles
3 - for bass
4 - balanced.

Then they could come out with the 'Good tone' line.
Give them all the same names as above.

Please tell me this post is a product of your skills with this language, because it makes no sense.

"I want pickups that rock and have tonal qualities."
HUH?

 

[TheGZeus]

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.

Been done.
Sounds like an acoustic, basically.

 

[TheGZeus]

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

Been done many times over.

 

[TheGZeus]

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

Tapped humbuckers have long been available, a pickup would need to be re-designed for it to habe both little to no string pull and still have decent output, make yourself a baseplate, it's not that complex, yo.

 

[TheGZeus]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

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

You can do it now.
Buy two P-90s and wire them in series.

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

Bump. and....

So, GZeus, what pickup innovation idea do YOU have?

 

[ErikH]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

For the phantom powered active pickup idea, instead of having the power come from the amp, it could come from a pedal, like this:
http://www.till.com/articles/PreampCable/

Better, but that's more of a buffer. Besides, active pickups already have the preamp built in to them. That may work if the buffer/preamp is removed from the plug but then the correct amount of current would have to get to the pickups themselves. Then you have to deal with isolating that power from the pickup selector switch, popping noises, voltage drops. Ok, now I'm getting a headache thinking about it.

 

[\m/(00)\m/]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

i still like idea of mixing differnt coils from pickups

like mixing an invader with a jazz
or a distortion with a stag mag
or whatever

 

[TheGZeus]

Re: What Should the Next Pickup Innovation Be?

Bump. and....

So, GZeus, what pickup innovation idea do YOU have?

None, I'm more concerned with improving the mechanical function of the guitar.