Top Sound from Pickups

[frankfalbo]

The production of sound occurs because the string vibrates across a stationary magnetic field, right? (I can neither confirm nor deny experiments with these sorts of things) Magnets moving within the coil can produce "noise", murmurs, basically non-musical artifacts, especially if they are in opposition to the disturbance required to interpret string movement and deliver it to the amp. (I say opposition, because the implication is that they are somehow being moved by the string vibrations) Remember in the Taylor Expression system there's no "string" vibrating against that field. It's more like they turned the acoustic guitar top into the string. Keep those things in mind if you start messing with the "mobile pole piece" thing. Now that said, an acoustic top produces noise, too. The "woof" of the top under heavy picking pressure, the forearm pumping the top, the hand kneading the bridge, it's all technically non-musical.

[jwendt2003]

Gawd, I remember the Paul's of the 70's, weighed a ton and sounded like a dead brick. A friend brought a 90's Studio over for me to try and it was real dead sounding too, those kind of guitars are real hard to play for me...I suppose though if you put EMG's on them and a big pedalboard full of overdrive pedals into a loud gainy amp it could work for that kind of music....

..or maybe a battery powered pignose.

[Ronsonic]

I agree with Possum wholeheartedly but would say it is a matter of taste. I like solid body guitars with some life to them, my 50s style strat is surprisingly loud acoustically and it translates to a wonderful electric sound. I've also noticed a strong correlation between good, pleasant acoustic resonance in Les Pauls and the tone that I like. But, I've had a lot of people tell me they love the heavy, dull, dead sounding les pauls for their long sustain and compressed sound, that seemed to be a big characteristic in the 70s.

If you're playing with transducers, K&K makes a variety of different shaped transducers that can be fun, and aren't that expensive. Heck, I have a little Peterson clip on transducer meant for tuning up acoustics with an electric tuner. If you plug it into an amp, it can be educational, if bad sounding.

David, what aluminum bridges have you tried and liked? I've only seen aluminum on base plates for Floyds, and oh boy is that a bad idea. Those intonation screws strip out in no time. Of course I've seen aluminum tail pieces, but no bridges aside from that floyd yet. I worked for a while with a builder who's idea of good sound was to dump as much steel into a guitar as possible for physical stability and to eliminate hot spots, and it just took all the nuance out of the tone, I think. Suddenly small design changes (or even big design changes) like different tone woods were barely a drop in the bucket. Again, this is just my opinion - I've always been a touch skeptical of the whole Callaham rage, too.

Just a few comments on bridge materials. Paul Reed Smith bridges are typically aluminum. IMO it is distinctive and part of the tone, with the slightly nasal resonance. The Hipshot Baby Grand was originally available in different materials, mine is aluminum and distinctly different from the brass bridge that was on the guitar.

I have no doubt that on a resonant structure like a guitar you're going to hear and feel differences in bridge materials. The Callaham may be expensive for a slab of mild steel, but it really has to be different from any other material choice.

And no doubt that back in the "sustain block" brass fetish days a lot of perfectly good guitars were somewhat killed by added chunks of metal.

[David Schwab]

Just a few comments on bridge materials. Paul Reed Smith bridges are typically aluminum. IMO it is distinctive and part of the tone, with the slightly nasal resonance. The Hipshot Baby Grand was originally available in different materials, mine is aluminum and distinctly different from the brass bridge that was on the guitar.

I have no doubt that on a resonant structure like a guitar you're going to hear and feel differences in bridge materials. The Callaham may be expensive for a slab of mild steel, but it really has to be different from any other material choice.

I was using fairly heavy zinc and brass bridges on my basses, and recently switched to Hipshot aluminum bridges, and it made a huge improvement in the tone. Now I find brass to sound muddy, which brings us to...

And no doubt that back in the "sustain block" brass fetish days a lot of perfectly good guitars were somewhat killed by added chunks of metal.

I had a cheap Les Paul copy guitar back in the 70's. It was my first decent electric. It had a T-o-M bridge with nylon saddles. I replaced the bridge with a Starz brass bridge. It was made just like the Alembic bridges at the time. It totally ruined the sound of that guitar! It made it dark and took all the snap out of the notes. I put the original bridge back on and stuck the brass bridge in my parts box. I still have it too.

Alembic's idea with the inertia (sustain) block was to isolate the strings from the body.