So what exactly is needed to make this graph?

[belwar]

I've been looking into documenting some of changes that I make when designing a new pickup.. I love statistics, and charts like the one below just blow my mind.. LOVE IT. Problem is I have no idea how to make these!

Can someone tell me what is involved with making one, what tools are needed, and or a process? The existing tools I have are a a good Fluke DMM, Extech LCR Meter, Audio Oscillator (20-20,000hz), and I just bought a USB oscilloscope but havent received it yet.

Also, does anyone have insight as to how to read these charge... Use the one below for an example.. Can you tell me how some of these peaks or valley represent changes in tone...



...and dont worry spence, I know its not nessesary, and I still go by the tone first.

[shane1b4u]

Huh?

What chart? Where? Below what? Am i missing something... I haven't gotten my new glasses yet, but they're on the way.

[shane1b4u]

Nevermind...

some kind of glitch.. it wasn't there a min ago...

[tedmich]

maybe one of these?

Freeware: How Frequency Analyzer Works
YmecStore (Yoshimasa Electronic Inc.)
Real-time plot. Universal software oscilloscope graphical user interface GUI DLL library for data acquisition modeling debugging

[Possum]

...

Fuzzmeasure, its free.
Your chart shows a single coil that is very bright with a 10khz resonant peak, looks like ice pick tone to me. A handwound single coil would show a smoother slower curve up to 10khz. This may be an impedance curve and I don't know much about those....

[Possum]

....

This is what Fuzzmeasure puts out, its actually designed to measure speakers and rooms but it works perfectly for pickups and does a sweep from 20-20khz, this is an old comparison I did of two Little Charley prototypes. The free version will do 2 comparisons, if you want more you have to pay the license fee. Pretty simple to use and gives you a good picture of whats happening....

[Joe Gwinn]

some kind of glitch.. it wasn't there a min ago...

I saw that too. For some reason, it took a long time to load, although the file isn't large.

[Joe Gwinn]

This is what Fuzzmeasure puts out, its actually designed to measure speakers and rooms but it works perfectly for pickups and does a sweep from 20-20khz, this is an old comparison I did of two Little Charley prototypes.

How did this pickup sound, man? Curves look like it should be pretty bright.

[JGundry]

I think the more interesting test would be to use real time frequency analysis software. If you cold figure out how to input white noise rather that a frequency sweep into the pickup you could see how changes react in real time. Cover material, screws, distance from the driver, heat.... could all be seen in real time.

I have used Signal Scope for real time frequency analysis for tap tuning and Helmholtz resonance measurements for violin making.

[Possum]

...

Yes the pickups are bright, these are blade pickups with not alot of wire on them. I don't think it makes a huge difference what software you use as long as you use it and only it for everything you measure. Fuzzmeasure will do a log sweep, MLS and MLS pink noise filtered. I'm using a 50 ohm drive coil the way Lemme shows and just the standard Mac in/out's. This was one of the few times I found any use for frequency analysis, I had two prototypes that sounded similar and I needed to know something about what was going on...

[David Schwab]

Your chart shows a single coil that is very bright with a 10khz resonant peak, looks like ice pick tone to me.

It's probably a bass pickup. Maybe a Lane Poor? They have a very zingy top end.

[ModulusMK]

It's probably a bass pickup. Maybe a Lane Poor? They have a very zingy top end.

Yes, it is the Lane Poor. David King posted it in my topic.

Also I do not know how to achieve the valley at 6KHz, the peak could be somehow done, but that valley... (I guess the valley is for to lower the 'chunky sound' when you hit the strings harder but with the peak at 10KHz you still keep the smooth crystal high end.)

You need a coil with somewhere 80pF of capacitance and about 3H of inductance to get the peak at about 10-10.5KHz.

Is there any possibility for a passive circuit inside the pup? :/ (maybe if it is two strand wire at the ends where they connect there is any cap in series...?)
It is strange for a coil to have that kind of curve without anything else... maybe if it is humbucker two coils with different wire gauges...?

[David Schwab]

They didn't design that to have that valley... it just happened. There's some examples like that in the book Animal Magnetism for Musicians.

One of the sidewinders in the book got a funky dip like that from having 4 poles, and another from having a thick aluminum cover, which produced eddy currents.

So it could be the result of phase cancelation due to the coil arrangement.

You really can't design for that kind of response IMO.

[ModulusMK]

It might be the valley of those factors but if so every LP pickup design must be the same if they have that kind of response curve.

I would really like to know the MMs' curve how it looks like. But if that is the signature sound for the pups I think the curves must be similar to each other.

Is there e-book version of the book? I've read reviews about it and it received very positive critics. If there isn't any can you scan all the pages about making pickups and make it as pdf?

[David Schwab]

It might be the valley of those factors but if so every LP pickup design must be the same if they have that kind of response curve.

Not really, because they had different models of pickups.... wide & narrow aperture, single coils, side winders, etc.

You would have to test each model to make that determination.