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  • #16
    I have backed away from the "active pickup" thing just because of the reliability factor. It's not that big a deal to have active electronics 6 or 8 inches away from the actual pickup, and if you're working at fairly low coil impedances, there's no audible difference. I expect that if one is familiar with the sounds from filters and EQ circuits, one could figure out what is going on in the Dialtone pickups without disassembling them. Ditto on reasonable non-destructive methods of sussing out the coil and magnet structure. Black boxes can turn fairly transparent with the right approaches to examination.

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    • #17
      And whatever circuitry is included will not be anything particularly earth-shattering. Clever, maybe, but not anything that isn't already out in the public domain.

      These days, protecting presumed IP on a simple product makes no sense. Sales will depend on providing a product that is consistent, convenient, easy to work with, flexible, and fairly priced. Industry secrets will never compete against that.

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      • #18
        Toss an induction coil on top, and test with the knobs at different settings. That'll show exactly what kind of EQ or filter circuit is in there. My money is on it being variable Q, variable frequency lowpass. Been there, done that, it works. I'd be more interested in the pickup side of the equation.

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        • #19
          Originally posted by big_teee View Post
          By the time the pots fail, We more than likely will have moved on to something else.
          Yeah, I have some instruments with pots from the 70s, and they work just fine. If they are sealed pots, they wont get dirty or oxidized. And it's not like you are constantly turning them.
          It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure. — Albert Einstein


          http://coneyislandguitars.com
          www.soundcloud.com/davidravenmoon

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          • #20
            Originally posted by big_teee View Post
            Hi Tory:
            Just do the best you can, with the best parts available.
            You will never please all of us pickup makers here at the MEF.
            The customer is who needs to be your main concern.
            You're not going to sell much here anyway, since most of us make and sell pickups!
            If you sell one to one of us, it will probably be for disassembly!
            Epoxy is better than Patents.
            Patents get looked at and scutinized, Epoxy if made permanent does not!
            At least not as easily!
            T
            Thanks Terry! We are planning on using a black epoxy.

            To the other folks suggesting that we not be as secretive about how they're made - we know it's probably a lost cause, but reasonably, just giving everything away from the beginning wouldn't do us any good. Sure - it's not earth-shattering, but it did take a lot of time to figure out, and getting everything to fit into such a small area took skills that John picked up while designing nuclear pulse shaping circuits during graduate school at MIT. So at the same time, the technology is not trivial. Either way, we think the functionality of the pickup is pretty cool, especially since it works alongside the true tone of the guitar vs. an after effect. It'll be a great fit for some players, but definitely not all.

            Have a good night everyone! - Tory

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            • #21
              I would like to suggest that we separate "the pickup" from "the preamp" from the "tone shaping circuit".

              Clearly there are three stages (minimum...and probably a 4th...a line driver), each of which is separate, and "the pickup" is only the first stage...no matter how much other stuff gets packaged in.

              It's like talking about a "guitar amp" which clearly has a preamp stage, a tone shaping stage, a driver stage, and a power amp stage. A guitar amp isn't one thing anymore than an "active pickup" is. You have to think in terms of circuit architecture, not packaging.

              I'm still putting my dime on a variable low pass filter. It's the best choice for sort of making a low impedance pickup sound kind of like various high impedance pickups.

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              • #22
                Originally posted by Rick Turner View Post
                I would like to suggest that we separate "the pickup" from "the preamp" from the "tone shaping circuit".

                Clearly there are three stages (minimum...and probably a 4th...a line driver), each of which is separate, and "the pickup" is only the first stage...no matter how much other stuff gets packaged in.

                It's like talking about a "guitar amp" which clearly has a preamp stage, a tone shaping stage, a driver stage, and a power amp stage. A guitar amp isn't one thing anymore than an "active pickup" is. You have to think in terms of circuit architecture, not packaging.

                I'm still putting my dime on a variable low pass filter. It's the best choice for sort of making a low impedance pickup sound kind of like various high impedance pickups.
                Hi Rick, this is John. Keep guessing! I think you might have a hard time figuring it out even if you did the resonant coil experiment. But if you do it I'd love to see the results! I'd be curious how well it matched my PSPICE model. At some point I would like to post some Bode plots so that you can see the modeled frequency response.

                I think your delineation is somewhat artificial. Everything can really be reduced to an equivalent circuit. What I'm doing now is going through the whole signal chain considering different amps and getting more of the complete picture of what the overall frequency response looks like for more of the signal chain.

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                • #23
                  Originally posted by David Schwab View Post
                  Yeah, I have some instruments with pots from the 70s, and they work just fine. If they are sealed pots, they wont get dirty or oxidized. And it's not like you are constantly turning them.
                  This is John. Thanks for reading this thread and commenting. I've been reading your posts in this and another forum for years! In general I've learned a lot from this place!

                  It took a long time to source the pots. I think people will be happy with them. They feel pretty smooth and solid as you rotate them- like good quality regular sized pots.

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                  • #24
                    Originally posted by David Schwab View Post
                    I have some instruments with pots from the 70s, and they work just fine. If they are sealed pots, they wont get dirty or oxidized. And it's not like you are constantly turning them.
                    Exactly!

                    Once you get the desired tone dialed-in, those pots are NOT likely to be touched for a long time, if ever again, thinking the way your "average" player does but, even for a top-studio guy, dialing-in three different tones per song, times twelve for a project, times five projects a week, times forty-eight for a year, those same pots will see at least three fret-leveling and dressings, twenty-four setups, forty-eight string changes... just from the top of my head. They'll most likely outlive the guitar itself anyway.

                    HTH,
                    Last edited by LtKojak; 06-14-2014, 07:01 AM.
                    Pepe aka Lt. Kojak
                    Milano, Italy

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                    • #25
                      Originally posted by the great waldo View Post
                      Well Tory

                      Pots go wrong, and if you can't get at them to change them then you're stuffed. It might be worth a try having the pots as a plugin. I assume they are going to be mini pcb mounted pots.? These things are not the most reliable and not really designed for continuous turning. Maybe a better Idea would be to have screwdriver adjustable pots recessed in the pickup to have the possibility to set the tone and then leave it without fiddling around all the time. Just an idea. I'm a maker and repairer since the mid 70's and am on the sharp end of fixing peoples new inventions, maybe you remember the gizmo (A 120 GBPounds item that took 3 days to get to work! ) A nice idea but the designers never actually had to fit the things. These days so much stuff works on the computer screen and i'll be the guys designing never have to install or use the products they design in the real world. Any that's my thrupence worth, good luck with the pickups.

                      Cheers

                      Andrew
                      This is John. I totally get what you are saying about design! Mils on a screen do look so much bigger! I do design with calipers in hand for a reality check and get all my prototypes 3D printed to make sure things make sense in reality. It helps that I can do the circuit design, modeling, layout, and integrate it with the mechanicals. It's been a fun project!

                      I thought about having the pots be adjusted only with a screwdriver, but I wanted to make it more dynamic.

                      I'll have to look up the gizmo.

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                      • #26
                        Hi John

                        It looks like someone is daft enough to make it again. GIZMOTRON® OFFICIAL WEBSITE GIZMOTRON.COM - NEW GIZMOTRON® 2.0 COMING IN 2014! I hope no one asks me to fit one. Although I must say the idea wasn't bad.

                        Cheers

                        Andrew


                        Originally posted by DialtonePickups View Post
                        This is John. I totally get what you are saying about design! Mils on a screen do look so much bigger! I do design with calipers in hand for a reality check and get all my prototypes 3D printed to make sure things make sense in reality. It helps that I can do the circuit design, modeling, layout, and integrate it with the mechanicals. It's been a fun project!

                        I thought about having the pots be adjusted only with a screwdriver, but I wanted to make it more dynamic.

                        I'll have to look up the gizmo.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by the great waldo View Post
                          Hi John

                          It looks like someone is daft enough to make it again. GIZMOTRON® OFFICIAL WEBSITE GIZMOTRON.COM - NEW GIZMOTRON® 2.0 COMING IN 2014! I hope no one asks me to fit one. Although I must say the idea wasn't bad.

                          Cheers

                          Andrew
                          I thought that was defunked as well. Designed by Lol Creme and Kevin Godley of 10cc and used to effect on the Godley and Creme Consequences album.
                          Pat no. 3882754 is interesting.

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            "I think your delineation is somewhat artificial. Everything can really be reduced to an equivalent circuit."

                            No, I don't think so. I think the coil/magnet assembly has to be considered separate from any internal or external passive or active electronics. Certainly that's how things work in the microphone industry. Sure, condenser mics have internal electronics, but everyone is very clear about the differences between a certain mic capsule's performance with a tube front end and an FET front end. And that mental exercise of separating the circuit blocks even extends to electret mics...look up "Linkwitz Mod" for the Panasonic capsules. Ditto, too for how ribbon mics perform with different internal transformers.

                            You may prefer to think of it all as one piece, but that is only helpful if you're trying to muddy the waters and make it hard to understand what's going on. We here are even separating out types of steel and types of Alnico used within what I'm going to insist upon calling "the pickup". You can't just lump it all together.

                            And...it's very clear that just substituting one FET or IC for another in an active stage will affect what comes through from the source. So I'm not going for PSPICE accurately predicting the performance of a pickup/preamp/EQ or filter system and explaining everything we'd like to know.

                            I can tell you this...if you take the Alembic variable low pass filter circuit and apply it to an Alembic pickup and dial in a Strat pickup frequency response curve, it doesn't sound exactly like a Strat. Etc., Etc. Not that it isn't very useful, but if the coil/magnet assembly isn't that of a Strat, it won't sound like a Strat even if the curves predict it will. PSPICE may predict a lot of aspects of an electronic circuit's performance, but it doesn't do diddly for pickups unless you are way far ahead of everyone here with regard to understanding why pickups sound as they do and you've added some modules to PSPICE that nobody knows about.

                            The coil/magnet assembly is "the pickup", and what comes after that, wherever it's packaged, is the first stage of electronics in my book.

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                            • #29
                              In short, nobody has yet come up with an equivalent circuit that predicts pickup sound. Coil frequency response...which can be modeled...doesn't tell but half of the tale.

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                              • #30
                                Personally, I love the simplicity of the product.

                                <snark>
                                It's so simple a guitarist can use it.
                                </snark>

                                More seriously, it makes a lot of pickup swapping utterly irrelevant.
                                "Det var helt Texas" is written Nowegian meaning "that's totally Texas." When spoken, it means "that's crazy."

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