Pickup theory question

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

If you're trying to come up with a way of ranking pickup output, why bother stringing anything up? Why not use something other than a guitar string? It can be a tuning fork or something and be way more constant. That way you can have it suspended in air to avoid other acoustic interference. Sure, the numbers won't reflect what is actually coming out of the pickup in normal use, but it is the relative strengths that are important, not the actual numbers. That is an experiment simple enough that any of us with a good meter with a max/min setting could perform, right? Using the real strings would only be necessary if you're trying to recreate real-world applications of the pickups, but if you're talking about lathe beds then you've already given up on that. Or am I missing something?

[Rick Turner]

You are utterly and totally missing my whole point. Please go back and actually read what I've written.

Only by testing with vibrating strings will we ever get a handle on what happens in the real world. I'm tired of "measurements" that do not adequately describe what many people hear in the differences among pickups. I think we know a lot about coils. I think we know diddly squat about how magnets, coils, and strings actually interact.

Your suggestion is not quite as bad as testing microphones in a vacuum, but...it's close.

[CRU JONES]

Rick,
Hey man, I think you should start a new thread. Creating some standards I think is a great idea. We should all put some say in on them and agree and DO IT! But, Half this thread is about the permeability vs. Magnetic field strength Vs. A2 Vs. A5. I'm lost (among other things).
Peace,
Cru

[Mike Sulzer]

You are utterly and totally missing my whole point.
.......

The 3D variation of the magnetic field should be relevant only very near the string in the volume in which it vibrates. And even there it would appear that the three field components and their derivatives are adequate representation. Any more is up to you to show.

[Rick Turner]

Mike, that's the point...to show it. Enough people hear it, and what they hear doesn't seem to fall within your own scientific viewpoint. Do we know that inductance and coil resonance alone account for the differences observed in pickups when magnets are changed? I don't think we do know that beyond a shadow of doubt. Most of the pickup winders here on this forum have definite beliefs that tonal changes not attributable to voltage output occur when you change magnets. I myself have heard interesting differences among pickups with low impedance coils and featuring different magnet/coil configurations, so the tonal differences were not of the coil inductance/resonance nature. Therefore I think it is necessary to view the issue from a different vantage point. There seem to be phenomena going on that are not so easily explained.

And as for standards...I'm afraid it's too late in the game for a lot of it. It would take Seymour Duncan (whose Frank Falbo has stated that their color code is the standard in the industry...sorry, Frank, but it's not...a standard is something everybody follows...and they don't...) EMG, DiMarzio, WCR, Shadow, Bartolini, Rio Grande, Armstrong, Fralin, Lollar, etc., etc. to all agree, and that would mean that a number of them, practically all of them, would have to change their current color codes. One weird example...why would anybody NOT use green for the pickup lead meant to be grounded in a normal wiring scheme? Green is the universal standard color for ground in electrical wiring. It makes sense. But not to some pickup makers who evidently never wired any AC lines.

For meaningful sensitivity ratings, I think it is possible to standardize a test. There could be a standardized signal coil being driven through a known load by a standardized voltage at some reference frequency. Or it could be via string pluck of a known strength with the pickup at a standardized distance.

I'm going to look into that 80/20 aluminum. What I like is how easy it will be to attach various bits and pieces for anchoring strings, pickups, plucking mechanisms, etc., and it would be easy to fill the center of the 3030 beam with a damping material. It's like a lathe bed with much more convenience.

[Mike Sulzer]

Mike, that's the point...to show it. Enough people hear it, and what they hear doesn't seem to fall within your own scientific viewpoint.
...........

My scientific viewpoint is not a problem. First you have to see what people are actually hearing. Then you have to figure out why.

Green is the color for power grounds. Inside a chassis, some people used black for ground, and red for the positive power supply. (It was simple with tubes, only one polarity. Then there was purple for negative supplies, but it gets complicated fast.)

If a guitar is like a chassis, I would use black for ground.

[Rick Turner]

Well, Duncan uses green for ground, and since they make several many thousand more pickups a month than any of us do...I think I'll go with that. Which I have been doing since my early 1970s Alembic days before Seymour was in biz in the US.

One good reason not to use black for ground is that it's the color assigned to negative DC voltage wires, and in bipolar powered circuits, negative is not ground. Red for positive V, green for ground, black for negative V. You're not likely to get the makers of battery snaps to change away from red and black...

[Steve Conner]

This is the most interesting thread I've seen on here in a while.

I've exploded a few circuits thanks to the above green/black confusion. Nowadays, if it's anything expensive or troublesome to replace, I put little paper labels on the wires: Ground, -15V, and so on. I've built test jigs at work with 4 or 5 supply rails, and it's really important to remember which banana jacks go into what bench power supply.

And likewise, I don't care what colo(u)r the wires coming out of my new pickup are, as long as the maker provided an instruction sheet telling me what they're for, as Duncan does. I'm quite capable of figuring it out myself, but I appreciate the courtesy.

[LtKojak]

How in earth this thread have not yet produced name-calling and mud-slinging?

How come everybody's behaving so nicely to each other? You're no fun no more!

I'm speechless...

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

I read what you wrote, but I'm saying that you can either get measurements that are "real world" or measure the efficiencies/strengths/sensitivities of a pickup. If you're doing the first, only use a lathe bed as a guitar neck if you planning on playing guitars made out of lathe beds. If you're doing the second, then you want something that will vibrate consistently.

If "real world" applications involve amps that clip, guitar tone woods and hardware that cancel frequencies through sympathetic vibrations, and guitar cables that provide capacitance, then why eliminate those things in an experiment? If you want to develop a system of charting the ability of a pickup to reproduce a FIXED physical impulse into current, then you need to eliminate these things. It only seems logical to use a starting vibration that will be consistent.

So, which are you trying to accomplish? That was my original question. And no... "real world controlled lab results" is not a valid answer.

[CRU JONES]

How in earth this thread have not yet produced name-calling and mud-slinging?

How come everybody's behaving so nicely to each other? You're no fun no more!

I'm speechless...

Hahaha!

You missed the reply where I called everyone "bitches"!

Cru

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

Hahaha!

You missed the reply where I called everyone "bitches"!

Cru

Oh no he dint! *finger snap*

[CRU JONES]

I thought that was the case, but I wasn't sure. I had seemed to remember reading that someone once though.

This thread is getting tangled!

ScottA must be talking about alnico2 vs alnico5 in the case of a single coil in order to have measured factors that high. However, those factors can't be used for all single coils because the inductance is the square of turns multiplied by the inductance factor (L = N^2 * Al). The permeability of the magnet (core) will control the inductance factor.

A humbucker reacts differently to the entire core equation because there will be slugs, screws and Keepers that dominate the inductance factor. Additionally, and most importantly the permeability of the bar magnet has a large affect on the coupling of the two coils (humbucker)and less of an effect on the inductance factor, which can be observed by calculating the mutual inductance. All this can be derived by measuring inductance.

The effect of the bar magnets permeability can be seen in spectrographs as affecting the bass region to a great extent (supporting David Schwabs observations), which I assume to be from coupling.

If you don't use science and look at methods of scientists (like Mike Sulzer)... Well, sounds like a great way to waste a bunch of time. The thing is, pickup makers exist in this niche market that is directly related to technology that was cutting edge in the fifties and sixties. The difference is: we have much better equipment to analyze it with (but don't). On the other hand, a conversation with someone who designs switching regulators made me think he probably knew alot more about pickups than I do. I don't get a lot of this theory stuff and I am mediocre (at best) with calculus, so Maxwells equations escape me for the most part. But, I do what I can and make a lot of graphs, record and annotate sound samples, etc. I think it would be fascinating to observe the data that I have, if I was educated like Mike Sulzer, Steve Conner, Joe Gwinn, and R.G. Keen. Those guys won't suffer from delusions because they are scientists! But, anyone can use the scientific method. Unless you want to waste time, and be a hippy, you need to look at scientist as really creative people that love to be objective.

peace,
Cru

[salvarsan]

...you need to look at scientist as really creative people that love to be objective.

Depends on the scientist.

Scientists, being human, are as deludable and vexing as the rest of us,
but are particularly prone to believing that competence in
one area confers competence in others.

Of William Lipscomb, chemistry Nobel Laureate 1976, they say
he plays the clarinet well ...for a chemist (to be fair, the man
is humble about his musical ability and honest in his enjoyment of it).

So, for a computational chemist, I know a lot about pickups.

A particularly vexing behavior is irresponsible contrarianism where
the putative scientist simply says "no, it's not" to every idea not his own
without advancing alternative ideas.

Us grown-ups lump it in with "Narcissism".

Another scientific delusion is that if something can't be measured,
then it doesn't exist.

Us folks with natural reason call it "pathological solipsism",
but "assholery" works just as well.

Intellectual honesty says that
IF the effect is reproducible
AND it can't be measured,
THEN the test method is wrong.

...so here we stand, casting about for better test methods.

Instead of playing "Where's Waldo?" in characterizing pickups,
Rick Turner seeks to minimize all extraneous influences on the
string+pickup system, like photographing an object on a black background.

IMO, that's a good thing.

[ScottA]

ScottA must be talking about alnico2 vs alnico5 in the case of a single coil in order to have measured factors that high. However, those factors can't be used for all single coils because the inductance is the square of turns multiplied by the inductance factor (L = N^2 * Al). The permeability of the magnet (core) will control the inductance factor.

That is correct. I'm measuring the inductance difference when AlNiCo X is the core.