Les Paul / The Log

[SpareRibs]

Hello,
Would anyone know anything about the pickups Les Paul used on the guitar he built called The Log ? I have searched for information and or better
photos. The guitar is referenced in a few books and articles but not much attention paid to construction or electronics.

[tedmich]

a good view of the PU of the log is at 00:30

likely they were something not too special pulled off an Epiphone, since he'd given up on the phonograph needles by then...

[soundguruman]

The electronics were developed by Seth Lover, inverter of the humbucking pickup.
The log was used to determine the exact position of the pickup poles.
The pickup poles were carefully positioned over the harmonic points of the strings. (based on the length of the string)

This is the difference between other electric guitars (like Fender) and the Les Paul.
This is one of the reasons that the Les Paul is unique sounding, compared to to other designs.

The log eventually had a sliding pickup, that could be moved to any position, to test the tonal characteristics.

Other important attributes included:
The angle of the neck...this is critical.
The shape and material of the carved (dished) guitar top.

[tedmich]

Umm, no. Seth Lover didn't start working on pickups until 1955, while the Log was born in 1941. In 1941 Lover was testing EH-125, 150, 185 amps that Gibson bought from a Chicago company, prior to going into the Navy. The pickups are obviously single coils as well

[jonson]

Can't say a lot here but apart from it being a big fat single coil it is very reminisent of the pickups used on the EH150 lap steel and the pickup that appears in the Les Paul tailpiece patent 2737842. I've seen them both with dark red or brown bakelite flatwork and tortoiseshell flatwork. there are othe pics of this same guitar with other pickups fitted. I would say it's a Les made job but no patent done.

[Rick Turner]

Of course, the whole thing of putting pickups at harmonic nodes or anti-nodes on a string is complete rubbish, but what the heck...

Also, Les Paul is often thought to be the inventor of the electric guitar, and he himself promoted that idea, but not so. The first commercially sold electric was a Kay archtop in 1928. Some think that Lloyd Loar was working on pickups at Gibson in 1924...Seth Lover believed it. Loar did come out with a solid body electric guitar (and archtop, mandolin, viola and violin, bass, and keyboard) in 1933 under the ViViTone brand. I have one of the archtops from '33.

[SpareRibs]

Hello,
Thanks to everyone for their replies. I can see from the video they are unusually tall single coil pickups, they also seem to be blades. Now I am wondering if the blades are magnets or if they have a magnet on the bottom like ceramic single coil strat pickups.

[SpareRibs]

Hello,
I looked into steel guitar pickups. Apparently 1939 steel guitar pickups were very similar to P90's, with a blade and two magnets underneath. I'm thinking that may have been Les Paul's starting point as opposed to reinventing the wheel. Anyway it was interesting reading.

[Rick Turner]

I beg to differ. The two most successful "steel guitar" pickups were the Rickenbacher "Double Horseshoe" from 1933 and the National/Supro pickup. Both were "strings through" designs...a mixed blessing. It makes for a unique tone and very efficient pickup, but it also covers the strings. The next really successful pickup was the so-called "Charlie Christian" which did indeed have a coil wound around a blade, but it had a very large cobalt steel magnet underneath. In the early days of pickups, they did not have the magnet materials we now have, and the magnets had to be large and the magnetic circuits efficient. Alnico didn't come in until 1940.

[SpareRibs]

Hello,
You are correct Rick and thank you for that response. I had forgotten about the Alnico not being available until after 1940. It was on another forum as I was searching steel guitar pickups. It only showed the one post pertaining to steel guitar pickups. Sorry to have almost started a rumor or misstating something as fact.
Maybe that could be why the Log pickups look so tall, because of the possibility of using a cobalt steel magnet.

[David Schwab]

The electronics were developed by Seth Lover, inverter of the humbucking pickup.
The log was used to determine the exact position of the pickup poles.
The pickup poles were carefully positioned over the harmonic points of the strings. (based on the length of the string)

WRONG!

Les Paul Guitar Innovations

"THE LOGIn 1941 Les built "The Log" working Sunday’s at the Epiphone factory in NY. It was one of the very first solid body electric guitars. Initially it was just a 4x4 piece of wood with an Epiphone neck, a couple of homemade pickups and a bridge with a Vibrola tailpiece. Les took the “guitar” out to a club where he usually jammed with a trio and nobody paid much attention. He then added wings to give it a guitar shape, went back to the club and everybody started talking about the sound and asking questions about the guitar. That’s when Les came to the conclusion that people hear with their eyes."

Les built this himself for his own experiments. Gibson had nothing to do with it. It was not used to determine the exact position of the pickups, and you do not need, or really want to place pickups at harmonic nodes. Les designed the pickups.

Also, Strats and Les Pauls mostly sound different because of the scale length. Longer scales are twangier.

On to the pickups, they use two of these bobbins now:



It used bobbins Les made himself originally. The story is that he took a coil from an electric clock, and squashed it into an oval shape.

Those are the bobbins from a Les Paul recording guitar. It's a stacked humbucker. Each coil has an alnico magnet in it, with the same poles facing each other, and a steel plate between them, like this:



The pickups are wound with 24AWG wire.

You can see them in this photo also.