"stereo" guitar

[dpm]

There's some kind of freaky planetary alignment stuff going on in this thread!

Corvus and I have been chatting about single string pickups on and off for a while as we know each other from elsewhere on the net.

I actually worked on a Kramer Ripley last year (I think), though I'd totally forgotten about it. It was one with the (apparently) optional distortion circuit. Apart from the electronics they're a typical Kramer of the period, a quality superstrat. Everything still worked, which was a nice surprise. So often when you see an unusual instrument like that somebody has tampered with it, poorly 'repaired' it, or gutted it completely.

And I met Charlie Hunter a few years back, just briefly after a gig. Seemed like a really nice guy, and a monster player, of course.

Weird for all that to come together in one thread. I also have one of those 2" x 2" neo mags David mentioned, but I guess the majority of folks here do too...

Regarding the individual string output stuff, I'm testing a new construction method soon which I think might make that kind of thing come together nicely in a small package. I'll let you guys know if it looks promising for that purpose. I felt that crosstalk might be a problem with such a design, so it's nice to have that confirmed.

Ooo, I just found a place that sells some interesting magnetic shielding products in small quantities. http://www.lessemf.com/mag-shld.html

[shef86]

How did the ripley sound? Did it completely isolate each string or did it have the bleed over problem?

I've never heard of a pickup having a distortion circuit, I can't imagine it would sound that great. I can understand a boost circuit of some sort to increase the output.

I hope you can figure out how to make the pickup, I think it would make for a very cool guitar sound. I'm just interested in having the strings permanantly panned to one side and have it run from a stereo output to one of those stereo splitter boxes. That way I won't have to route my guitar or add anything.

[David Schwab]

And I met Charlie Hunter a few years back, just briefly after a gig. Seemed like a really nice guy, and a monster player, of course.

A friend of mine lives next door to him. She was talking to me about finding someone to take guitar lessons with, and mentioned "my Charlie neighbor is a jazz guitarist..." I said Charlie Hunter? She didn't know.. but next time I saw her she said "yeah that's him.. how did you know?" She never heard of him.

I'll have to get her to introduce me. Buzz Aldrin lives here too.

[dpm]

How did the ripley sound? Did it completely isolate each string or did it have the bleed over problem?

I've never heard of a pickup having a distortion circuit, I can't imagine it would sound that great. I can understand a boost circuit of some sort to increase the output.

I hope you can figure out how to make the pickup, I think it would make for a very cool guitar sound. I'm just interested in having the strings permanantly panned to one side and have it run from a stereo output to one of those stereo splitter boxes. That way I won't have to route my guitar or add anything.

From what I recall the isolation was very good. The distortion was terrible IMO, but I'm not one for getting my gain from stompboxes either, so I can't say how it compared.

Right now I'm focused on getting the latest mono pickups happening with the quality and ease of construction that I want, and getting some guitars finished. If I can at least help in some way with these single string pickups for Corvus that would be nice. If something comes of them we'll let you know.

A friend of mine lives next door to him. She was talking to me about finding someone to take guitar lessons with, and mentioned "my Charlie neighbor is a jazz guitarist..." I said Charlie Hunter? She didn't know.. but next time I saw her she said "yeah that's him.. how did you know?" She never heard of him.

I'll have to get her to introduce me. Buzz Aldrin lives here too.

lol, that's pretty cool. Charlie is kind of freakish to watch at first, but then you get an idea of how he separates the bass and guitar lines and places himself on the fretboard and it all starts to make sense. Geez, Buzz must be getting old! I imagine he'd be one of those guys who doesn't let himself feel old, keeps active.

[ubertar]

Would anyone else be interested in making these?

Is there really any other way of doing this besides using an active hex design?

I just made some hex pickups recently, and I'm offering them for sale. Here's a couple pics of two of them, a black one and a white one:



And here's a demo clip with every other string panned opposite:
http://www.ubertar.com/creot/stereo.MP3
One side was recorded direct, and the other through an amp and miked. There are no effects, compression, eq, etc. whatsoever.
The output on these is on the low side, but not unacceptably so... the signal to noise is very good, which makes up for that.

These are electromagnetic, not piezo-electric, so there's no bleed between strings. Each coil is height-adjustable.

They're $110 each. If you want more than one, I'll cut you a break. I also have an auction on ebay, starting for less.

I don't know if I'll be back here to check this thread, so if you want to contact me, please email. My email is listed on my website, www.ubertar.com.

Thanks.

I just posted the same thing in the "Single string pickups - 6 of 'em" thread... my apologies to anyone who saw it twice. It's just so much easier to cut and paste than to say it all again.

[rjb]

On the custom pickup I didn't have to build

That's an interesting idea Joseph, it reminds me of a boss pedal that can be set to have an "octave down" effect only up to a certain frequency, I really don't know much about it.

This may be of interest to fellow Luddites who play with clean tone and haven't kept up with current stompbox technology. At the risk of sounding like a Harmony Central review, the Boss OC-3 octave pedal is way more useful than online videos or discussion board reviews and comments might have you believe.

I play mainly acoustic guitar, often backup with separate bass & treble lines (think Merle Travis boom-chick, or walking bass line with syncopated chord stabs, or "Just My Imagination" bass line with "chinks" on 2 & 4).

For a long time, I've wished I could double "just the bass line" an octave lower.

Over the years, I've tried early octave boxes, harmonizers, multi-fx boxes, etc. and encountered their inherent "issues"- "iffy" triggering, fizzy sustained notes, drastic volume & timbre difference over pitch range, artificial synthesized sound with unacceptable delay, hissy hashy clocking noise, etc.

And none of them could separate a bass line from higher-pitched chords.

After reading bbsailor's posts, I decided to design a "triad" pickup to send the signals from the bass strings of my guitar to an octave box. On paper, it was a thing of beauty- 3 individual mic-level hum-bucking sensors, a 4-position selector switch (OFF, E, E+A, E+A+D) and a balanced LF rolloff filter, all in a shielded sawed-off Strat pickup cover. The balanced output was going to go to a mic preamp to... whatever.

Luckily, before entering serious construction phase, I learned that an accordion-playing buddy had purchased an OC-3, and asked to borrow it for a few days.

In view of my previous experiences and research, I wasn't expecting much. Online videos highlighted the OC-3's ability to produce god-awful distortion. HC'ers complained that it mis-triggered, sounded "artificial", dropped out on higher pitches, played out of tune, etc.

Boy, was I pleasantly surprised.
In polyphonic mode, the OC-3 does exactly what I've been searching for, with no need for a special pickup.

I tested with 2 guitars: a Martin OOM with LR Baggs I-beam Active pickup and a Fender Mustang with flatwounds.
The "Direct Out" went to a Fender Frontman guitar amp; the "Output" to a passive DI to the mic input of a powered speaker with 12" woofer & horn. I set the "Range" knob to produce a solid "octave-lower" for the guitar's 1st octave (up to E below middle C). There was a transitional range of about a 3rd where the octave-lower output got decreasingly weaker. From about A below middle C upward, no octave output. Just what I wanted.

I was duly impressed with the octave-lower signal. Couldn't get it to mis-trigger, even with snapping strings and rapping on guitar body. No fizzy release on sustained notes. No noticeable delay. Playing dynamics retained. Natural sound, retaining instrument timbre- acoustic guitar sounds like double bass (sort of); electric guitar sounds like electric bass; accordion left hand single notes sound like organ bass pedals. There must be something to dislike about this gizmo, but I didn't find it during my brief test.

YMMV,
-rb