"stereo" guitar

[shef86]

Alright, so about a year ago I came across this guy who had an 8 (or 9) string guitar and had one pick up for the low strings going to a bass amp, and a pick up for the higher strings going to a guitar amp.

So this got me thinking about making a guitar that used a pick up for the three low strings, and one pick up for the three high strings. The main advantage would be more clarity for complex chords when using high gain, as well as d and g string harmonies.

The reason I'm asking this in the pick up forum is because I think this would be an easy mod to do cosmetically, although I'm curious how well it would work, and how "stereo" it would really be. I guess the basic question is how much sound from adjacent strings are taken up by a single pick up pole.

My idea would be to replace a humbucker with either two single coil pickups or two mini buckers, and remove certain poles.

Also, random question that has nothing to do with this, if you replace a magnet on a humbucker, do you need to magnetize (or remagnetize) the magnet.

[David King]

Interesting idea, you could simply demagnetize the 3 magnets at the opposite ends of a HB if it used A5 rods like a strat. An HP soapbar with bar mags would be tricky, you would have to cut the bar mag in half and move the halves to the outside of the poles but they wouldn't fit in the rout. you could cut the keepers in half and take out the 3 slugs and 3 screws from opposite ends while keeping the magnet in place but you would lose your humbucking status either way unless you recombined the signals in proper phase alignment later on.

[bbsailor]

Here is an idea that has a very good extended octave, and flexible bass level control. Read on!

A device called the JamBass applies a membrane keyboard to the back of the guitar neck to allow the guitar player to use the thumb to select either a MIDI note on the E or A string. That JamBass gave me the inspiration for the following idea.

Let's use two Neo type magnet .125" diameter X .375" to .5" long in two bobbins with a maximum diameter of .375" to .4" OD so the bobbins can fit directly under the E and A strings between the bridge pickup an the bridge.

Wind each of these bobbins with AWG36 to AWG38 wire to about 6 to 12 ohms and connect each coil to a stereo mini jack secured to the bridge or tailpiece with a common ground. Attach a two conductor shielded wire to a SPDT momentary footswitch so that in the up position the E string is active and when pressed the A string is active. Feed the output of this switch to a 4 or 8 ohm to 10K to 20K (or higher) miniature transformer to boost the output voltage to be in the range of about 50mv to 100mv (or more) output, or enough to drive an octive divider pedal. Check the octave divider specifications.

Octave dividers only like one note at a time and this footswitch allows only the selection of either the E string or the A string, but not both. When playing chords the player only needs to select which string has the root or the desired note that will be independently controlled by the octave divider. Another SPST normally open footswich can be optionally used to kill the output of both strings when the normal guitar bass notes are sufficient.

With this setup the player simply plays the guitar in a normal way except uses his/her foot to select which bass string is to be sent to the octave divider, giving the guitar a full octave lower range with minimal modifications to the guitar. The mental model of the guitar is retained with no need to learn a foot controlled, piano-type keyboard.

I hope this stimulates some more thinking or a refinement of this design approach. This would even make for an interesting new commercial product. New sounds come out of the footswitch string selector box.

Joseph Rogowski

[shef86]

That's an interesting idea Joseph, it reminds me of a boss pedal that can be set to have an "octave down" effect only up to a certain frequency, I really don't know much about it.

My main idea isn't really to add anything new frequency wise, I think playing octaved down notes into a guitar amp doesn't work quite as well as just having an actual bass player. I just think a stereo guitar would really help out metal players who play diverse chords instead of the standard power chord progression. Also, alot of metal songs require three guitars because of a two guitar harmony and backing track. If it would work, a stereo guitar could be used to play less complex harmony lines.

What type of tools would I need to cut a magnet in half? Also, I'll probably end up using minibuckers.

[David King]

You can just score the magnet on both sides with a dremel tool cutoff wheel and snap it in a vice with a pair of pliers. It very hard stuff but it's very brittle. Clinking it around the vise and pliers with demagnetize it somewhat so you might need to pump it back up with a good sized neo magnet. I have a neo 42 that's 2" x 2" x 1/2" thick that will pretty much zap anything within 2" of it. Allstar sells them for $24 ea.

[bbsailor]

K&J Magnetics has some neo .125" dia magnets both .375" and .5" long depending on the available string height over the body on your particular guitar.

The .125" magnets are better than thicker magnets because it allows more wire to be put on the limited space of the bobbins limited by the string spacing.

Making the small bobbins requires some creative scrounging for .125" plastic cocktail straws and .374" to .4" plastic discs or washers super glued to make two bobbins.

While this two bass string design may not be useful for all types of music, it does offer those willing to tinker a chance to extend the range of their guitar for doing solos and/or singer backups with minimal guitar modification. The output of the Boss OC-2 or OC-3 could be fed into a spearate small bass amp to keep the sounds separated and better controlled.

Typically, the Boss octave divider pedals prefer single bass notes for more reliable operation, counter to what the advertising says.

Joseph Rogowski

[David Schwab]

Alright, so about a year ago I came across this guy who had an 8 (or 9) string guitar and had one pick up for the low strings going to a bass amp, and a pick up for the higher strings going to a guitar amp.

Charlie Hunter? He lives down the street from me, though I've never met him.

I attached a picture so you can see how his pickups are arranged.

So this got me thinking about making a guitar that used a pick up for the three low strings, and one pick up for the three high strings. The main advantage would be more clarity for complex chords when using high gain, as well as d and g string harmonies.

The reason I'm asking this in the pick up forum is because I think this would be an easy mod to do cosmetically, although I'm curious how well it would work, and how "stereo" it would really be. I guess the basic question is how much sound from adjacent strings are taken up by a single pick up pole.

My idea would be to replace a humbucker with either two single coil pickups or two mini buckers, and remove certain poles.

I had a Vox Phantom XII that was stereo. It had three pickups about the size of a mini humbucker, and each had two offset coils like a P bass. The guitar had a stereo jack along with a Stereo/Moni switch.

It had three 3-way Strat switches for each pickup; Normal/Off/Reverse. It would sent the top 3 pairs to one channel, and the other three pairs to the other channel. Then you could reverse which pickup went to which output.

It was really cool to listen with headphones, and then turn on the neck and bridge and reverse one of them. Each half had very good separation and didn't pick up any of the strings from the other side.

The pickups were set up like humbuckers, with each half having reverse magnet polarity.

Have you ever seen the Ripley Stereo guitar? Kramer made it for a while. You could pan all six strings.

http://www.vintagekramer.com/ripley.htm

.

[shef86]

The kramer does look really nice, especially since you can selectively pan each string. I wonder if it's possible to find the pick up anywhere, although it doesn't seem like bartolini sells them.

It seems like it would be hard to get a good price on this guitar, especially since it has a decent amount of vintage value, and the fact that evh used them doesn't help.

I wonder why no one else has tried to replicate this.

[David Schwab]

Bartolini started out making only hex (and quad) pickups. I don't think they make them anymore probably because there was limited demand.

Probably the same reason they don't make the guitar anymore.

Without making a custom pickup, the only hex pickups on the market now are those skinny pickups used to drive guitar synths.

A really cool thing to do with a hex pickup is to run each string though its own distortion circuit. It has a totally different tone than when you distort the composite signal. It's clearer while still being fuzzy.

Wouldn't be had to make a hex pickup though.

[jason lollar]

I make alot of charlies pickups- youll find bleedthrough from the adjacent string is something youll have to invent a way to prevent and getting a small 2 pole pickup to sound like a larger pickup - ha ha- yeah.
so your looking at having to spend alot of time doing R+D and I wont tell you how to do it but there are the issues- just knowing that is going to save you time and get you pointed in the right direction- at least youll know

[shef86]

Thank you everyone for the help.

Jason, I'll probably just end up looking for an old ripley and see how it plays, I'm really just interested in playing a guitar harmony on one guitar.

Think there's any chance I can still have that pick up made?

[jason lollar]

I make those once in a whiule- there was a comapnmy several years ago that had me do weeks of R+D on it and I actually designed the whole thing with drawings and working prototypes but they never did anything with it- its expensive- email me direct. I am slammed at least until august and cant do any complicated custom work until around then but I have done them many times with reasonably good tone and descrete operation.
maybe someone else here knows how to achieve that and can do it faster or cheaper.
I am not super expensive but I dont work cheap either.

[shef86]

Awesome, I may email you in the near future, I have a bunch of projects I'm currently working on so august isn't so bad.

There's also the issue of finding...or having a custom guitar built for the wiring and installation of the six pan knobs.

Is it possible just to have the pick ups permanantly panned from one side or the other, so you wouldn't need the extra knobs and wiring?

Also, how would I go about finding one of those boxes that come with the ripley, or are those easy to find?

[Corvus]

I make those once in a whiule- there was a comapnmy several years ago that had me do weeks of R+D on it and I actually designed the whole thing with drawings and working prototypes but they never did anything with it- its expensive- email me direct. I am slammed at least until august and cant do any complicated custom work until around then but I have done them many times with reasonably good tone and descrete operation.
maybe someone else here knows how to achieve that and can do it faster or cheaper.
I am not super expensive but I dont work cheap either.

I'm extremely interested in buying single-string pickups from you whenever you have time to make some. :)

Should I email you again in August?

[shef86]

Would anyone else be interested in making these?

Is there really any other way of doing this besides using an active hex design?

[dpm]

There's some kind of freaky planetary alignment stuff going on in this thread!

Corvus and I have been chatting about single string pickups on and off for a while as we know each other from elsewhere on the net.

I actually worked on a Kramer Ripley last year (I think), though I'd totally forgotten about it. It was one with the (apparently) optional distortion circuit. Apart from the electronics they're a typical Kramer of the period, a quality superstrat. Everything still worked, which was a nice surprise. So often when you see an unusual instrument like that somebody has tampered with it, poorly 'repaired' it, or gutted it completely.

And I met Charlie Hunter a few years back, just briefly after a gig. Seemed like a really nice guy, and a monster player, of course.

Weird for all that to come together in one thread. I also have one of those 2" x 2" neo mags David mentioned, but I guess the majority of folks here do too...:D

Regarding the individual string output stuff, I'm testing a new construction method soon which I think might make that kind of thing come together nicely in a small package. I'll let you guys know if it looks promising for that purpose. I felt that crosstalk might be a problem with such a design, so it's nice to have that confirmed.

Ooo, I just found a place that sells some interesting magnetic shielding products in small quantities. http://www.lessemf.com/mag-shld.html

[shef86]

How did the ripley sound? Did it completely isolate each string or did it have the bleed over problem?

I've never heard of a pickup having a distortion circuit, I can't imagine it would sound that great. I can understand a boost circuit of some sort to increase the output.

I hope you can figure out how to make the pickup, I think it would make for a very cool guitar sound. I'm just interested in having the strings permanantly panned to one side and have it run from a stereo output to one of those stereo splitter boxes. That way I won't have to route my guitar or add anything.

[David Schwab]

And I met Charlie Hunter a few years back, just briefly after a gig. Seemed like a really nice guy, and a monster player, of course.

A friend of mine lives next door to him. She was talking to me about finding someone to take guitar lessons with, and mentioned "my Charlie neighbor is a jazz guitarist..." I said Charlie Hunter? She didn't know.. but next time I saw her she said "yeah that's him.. how did you know?" She never heard of him.

I'll have to get her to introduce me. :) Buzz Aldrin lives here too.

[dpm]

How did the ripley sound? Did it completely isolate each string or did it have the bleed over problem?

I've never heard of a pickup having a distortion circuit, I can't imagine it would sound that great. I can understand a boost circuit of some sort to increase the output.

I hope you can figure out how to make the pickup, I think it would make for a very cool guitar sound. I'm just interested in having the strings permanantly panned to one side and have it run from a stereo output to one of those stereo splitter boxes. That way I won't have to route my guitar or add anything.

From what I recall the isolation was very good. The distortion was terrible IMO, but I'm not one for getting my gain from stompboxes either, so I can't say how it compared.

Right now I'm focused on getting the latest mono pickups happening with the quality and ease of construction that I want, and getting some guitars finished. If I can at least help in some way with these single string pickups for Corvus that would be nice. If something comes of them we'll let you know.

A friend of mine lives next door to him. She was talking to me about finding someone to take guitar lessons with, and mentioned "my Charlie neighbor is a jazz guitarist..." I said Charlie Hunter? She didn't know.. but next time I saw her she said "yeah that's him.. how did you know?" She never heard of him.

I'll have to get her to introduce me. :) Buzz Aldrin lives here too.

lol, that's pretty cool. Charlie is kind of freakish to watch at first, but then you get an idea of how he separates the bass and guitar lines and places himself on the fretboard and it all starts to make sense. Geez, Buzz must be getting old! I imagine he'd be one of those guys who doesn't let himself feel old, keeps active.

[ubertar]

Would anyone else be interested in making these?

Is there really any other way of doing this besides using an active hex design?

I just made some hex pickups recently, and I'm offering them for sale. Here's a couple pics of two of them, a black one and a white one:
http://www.ubertar.com/creot/pickups.jpg
http://www.ubertar.com/creot/pickups2.jpg

And here's a demo clip with every other string panned opposite:
http://www.ubertar.com/creot/stereo.MP3
One side was recorded direct, and the other through an amp and miked. There are no effects, compression, eq, etc. whatsoever.
The output on these is on the low side, but not unacceptably so... the signal to noise is very good, which makes up for that.

These are electromagnetic, not piezo-electric, so there's no bleed between strings. Each coil is height-adjustable.

They're $110 each. If you want more than one, I'll cut you a break. I also have an auction on ebay (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=300241279668&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=020), starting for less.

I don't know if I'll be back here to check this thread, so if you want to contact me, please email. My email is listed on my website, www.ubertar.com.

Thanks.

I just posted the same thing in the "Single string pickups - 6 of 'em" thread... my apologies to anyone who saw it twice. It's just so much easier to cut and paste than to say it all again.