Flat Poles vs Staggered Poles

[David Schwab]

Very nice looking guitar! And I'm sure that hard, efficient and relatively un-resilient materials are all the more revealing of these anharmonicities of thicker strings.

Thanks. Yes, you get interesting upper harmonics on materials like that. I use phenolic plastic fingerboards on some of my basses, and you can hear the tone they give with clear pickups. It has a chirpy attack.

I'd certainly like to hear the Song that Spawned the Shutdown...

Interestingly it features that lucite guitar! It was recorded direct, so you can hear its tone very clearly. No pun intended. It's has a generic looking DiMarzio copy pickup, which was 8K and used a ceramic magnet. I got a bunch of them once from some guy.

Do What Makes Your Heart Sing (Part I)

[fieldwrangler]

Thanks for sending the tune link. Excellent part arranging. And the string rattle on the bass part is an essential part of the sound.

Also, I'm a fan of clean dry bridgebucker rhythm guitar parts. Most people think the Strat thing is funky, but there are really some other cool ways to go.

Bob Palmieri

[David Schwab]

Thanks! I love the string rattle on the bass part. I'm a big fan of open strings buzzing, its almost like the buzz you get on an upright bass. I had to pick the strings really hard to get it to do that.

I'll take a clean bright humbucker on guitar anyway. I have switches on that guitar to switch the pickup to parallel and one that turns the coils with caps, so it can sound stratty and even like a neck pickup, which freaks people out.

The Dano neck is poplar, and you can bend it down a whole step!

[big_teee]

Thanks! I love the string rattle on the bass part. I'm a big fan of open strings buzzing, its almost like the buzz you get on an upright bass. I had to pick the strings really hard to get it to do that.

I'll take a clean bright humbucker on guitar anyway. I have switches on that guitar to switch the pickup to parallel and one that turns the coils with caps, so it can sound stratty and even like a neck pickup, which freaks people out.

The Dano neck is poplar, and you can bend it down a whole step!

Cool Tune.
What all instruments are in it, and what parts are you playing?
Terry

[David Schwab]

Cool Tune.
What all instruments are in it, and what parts are you playing?
Terry

Thanks. It's bass, guitar, and synth, and I'm playing everything. The drum parts were sequenced with samples on the computer. Everything was recorded direct, and digital, into Cubase XS 1. I made the bass and guitar. The synth parts were a software synth, but I forget which one. The bass was running though a plugin that emulates Craig Anderton's Quadra Fuzz, a 4 band distortion unit. I recorded that back in 2006.

[big_teee]

Thanks. It's bass, guitar, and synth, and I'm playing everything. The drum parts were sequenced with samples on the computer. Everything was recorded direct, and digital, into Cubase XS 1. I made the bass and guitar. The synth parts were a software synth, but I forget which one. The bass was running though a plugin that emulates Craig Anderton's Quadra Fuzz, a 4 band distortion unit. I recorded that back in 2006.

Cool!
I noticed your bio said that you liked Jack Bruce.
He's my favorite bass player, I also like John Paul Jones, and Andy Fraser of the old band Free. He had that Tuba sounding thumping bass. Oh I forgot, the bass player for Grand Funk, forget his name.
Later,
Terry

[David Schwab]

Cool!
I noticed your bio said that you liked Jack Bruce.
He's my favorite bass player, I also like John Paul Jones, and Andy Fraser of the old band Free. He had that Tuba sounding thumping bass. Oh I forgot, the bass player for Grand Funk, forget his name.
Later,
Terry

The guy in Grand Funk is Mel Schacher. That was one of the first bands I got into when I first started playing. Jack bruce was a big influence on me. The first song I learned to play was Sunshine of your Love, which was current on the radio at the time. Of course I loved the Beatles, but then my buddy brought over his brother's Cream albums, and the live stuff blew me away.

I wasn't that big into Zep for whatever reason. Andy Fraser did get a great tone. That farty Gibson tone. I also like Felix Pappalardi.

A little after that I got into bands like Yes and Gentle Giant.

[SonnyW]

I would lower the magnet under the low E so it is lower than the A. The ay you have it the outside strings would probably be louder.

I rewound an early Music Man Stingray pickup recently, and that's how they did it. The middle two magnets were higher, and the low E was lower than the G.

I think I might try that on the next one. It makes sense, especially for a more normal strat pickup, and also for different fingerboard radius. These were for a superstrat style partocaster that I put together a couple of years ago. The main reason I left the outside magnets taller is that I wanted to keep the top flatwork up higher so I could get in more wire. This design is the RWRP middle pickup and I wanted more wire to have a little more output to compete a little better with the humbucker in the bridge. I thought this might be kind of a compromise between flat poles and stagger, and I could get away with a little taller bobbin. The neck pickup is the same and I made them at the same time except I lowered the magnet on the B string a little to be more like the vintage stagger. No particular reason for that. It just seemed like the thing to do. I still have that guitar. I got it down off the wall tonight and played it some. I wasn't able to hear much difference in the loudness of the outside two strings. Maybe just a little but not noticeable at all. The pickups are set a little far from the strings though. It might be more apparent if the pickups were raised some more. The neck pickup is a little closer to the strings and I did hear a little difference on the Low E and A of that one. It is curious, on the neck pickup with the lower B magnet the high E seems to have less volume. One trouble I did have with the taller bobbin is that the covers don't go all the way down to the bottom flatwork, and the one lowered B magnet didn't come up flush with the cover, which looks kind of odd. The other trouble was the humbucker is still louder but there is only so much that can be done I guess. So if I am not going for the taller bobbin next time it would be better to lower the Low E. I bet this effect would be more noticeable on a 9 1/2 radius fingerboard as well.

[fieldwrangler]

The Dano neck is poplar, and you can bend it down a whole step!

Yikes!

You must've done an exceptional job of bolting it on to feel OK about leaning on it that hard, what with the softness of the wood 'n' all.