Cryogenic treatment of guitars warning

[Rick Turner]

Chuck, you're confusing the concept of force with that of power. This is not semantic nit-picking, it's physics. I suggest that you do some reading of physics texts.

Here's a place to start: Force,wp.htm

Power is work per time.

In our case, the work is moving the string, the time is the cyclic motion. No motion in time, no power. It's really that simple.

[big_teee]

I would say, the signal is a sum of all parts.
The moving steel string over the magnet, that induces a signal into the coil.
Then the signal goes on to the amp.

[The Dude]

Possibly misstated, r.e. "power" (semantics), but my assumption/point is that while the magnet does not necessarily "power" the pickup per se, it is the magnetic source- similar to a speaker as stated above. Without the strings you still have a device that will convert sound waves to electrical energy. Without the magnet, you have nothing.

[Chuck H]

There is absolutely no AC potential in a pickup.

Everything after this statement must be suspected.

Is there power in a loudspeaker? Hmmm, a coil and a magnet, just like a pickup...or a dynamic mic. But no power; that comes from the amp or from vibrating air in the case of the mic.

A speaker is powered. A pickup provides signal. Semantics.

How many of you have put an air core coil under a string and then held a magnet over the strings to listen?

What's the difference if the magnet is over or under? There's still a magnetic field introduced to the coil that is interrupted by a ferrous element. All you've done is prove my point.

Just thinking about pickups and how they work can lead even intelligent people down many a dark, un-illuminating alley.

Indeed.

The magnet powers the pickup.

[Rick Turner]

Chucky, Chucky, Chucky....

Time for some remedial reading...you're not picking up on all the information here.

Did you see Mike and my comments re. magnetizing the strings and then taking the magnet AWAY with an air core coil underneath...Is that a powerless pickup?

And do read the referenced chapter on the definition of power vs. force. You still don't get it, and it isn't semantics, it's science.

And one more thing...actually the power that comes out of a pickup (work/time) comes from human (usually) hands and fingers. That power deflects the string and releases it. That simple act of push and release is power imparted into the stretched string. The string has a magnetic field imparted in it by a (usually) permanent magnet which may be there in the pickup, above the strings, or not there at all, as per previous comments. The moving magnet (called "the string") induces current in the coil. At each stage, one force (the string at it's apex before release) becomes power (the vibration of the string) which then acts upon another force (magnetic) becoming the power of the induced current. And it all goes back to harnessing forces and releasing them or modulating them in time...vibration whence cometh power.

Strings on their own are do not retain a magnetic field particularly well, so we generally use a permanent magnet to essentially magnetically bias the string.

No matter...power and force are not the same things. One has to use the vocabulary of physics and science to understand anything about motion and electricity.

[Chuck H]

I'm not arguing that the magnetized string can generate a signal in the coil as PART of the pickups output. But the magnet magnetizes the string. Ergo, the magnet powers the pickup.

The pickup puts out AC. Otherwise, nothing to amplify! The potential is only there because of the magnet. Cars don't run on explosions. they run on gasoline.

[Rick Turner]

Again, NO. The magnet is merely a force, whether it's in the coil, above the coil, or is simply the strings themselves. The power comes when the strings vibrate and modulate the force.

Please read some articles on the definition of power. The word means something very specific that you are resisting worse than a giant block of Teflon resists electrical flow.

Magnets have no power; they have force. I don't give a shit how other people degrade language to the point of meaningless blabber when confusing this stuff. You've bought into an incorrect usage of a very meaningful word. If this were on a high school or college physics test that you took, you'd flunk it. It's that simple. It's that definitive. You choose to use the word "power" incorrectly. Physics 101...failure...

"Powerful pickups" (ones with forceful magnets, a lot of turns, possibly an efficient magnetic circuit, etc.) only put out power when the strings are set into motion. Pickup magnets may be incorrectly thought of as having power, and many or most of us are guilty of misusing that word...this magnet is more powerful than that one, etc., but it's incorrect usage of the word "power", and you'll not see "power" ever used by magnet companies as a term in their specifications. They talk and write quite correctly in terms of magnetic "force". We should actually be talking about this magnet or that one having more force, NOT power.

The power comes from you and me when we play. The string/pickup/preamp stage/power amplifier chain is all transducing, transforming, and amplifying the power to drive the speakers. The basic power comes from human muscles (a force, if you will) moving in time (that's real power...force in time), the rest merely transforms and then amplifies that power. No static magnetic force ever made a guitar string move and sing.

BTW, this kind of splits off into another misuse of a word "amplify" as applied to, for instance, acoustic guitars. The sound box of an acoustic guitar is not an amplifier. The electronic analog is a transformer. The acoustic guitar box is an impedance matching device like a passive electrical transformer.

And acoustic guitars also have no power in them. The hand powers the string...etc.

So what about piezo pickups? They kick ass and can have much greater voltage output than magnetic pickups, but they have no power until force is applied and released, usually in a cyclic (time based) manner. Once again, the hand imparts power to the strings which is converted into an AC voltage swing. They don't even have a magnet in them...what they have is an electrically unstable structure that just loves to kick off and capture back extra electrons. Once again, you cannot use the word "power" with piezos unless you wrap in the power imparted to a vibrating string.

Why do I give a shit about this stuff? Because after 44 years of designing and making magnetic pickups, many of which have been played by some of the most iconic musicians of my lifetime (I can provide a list if anybody cares), I still have a lot to learn. This happens to be the only place on the whole Internet where I find I can learn anything beyond what I've discovered on my own or working with some truly gifted engineers on this subject. It's important to me that these discussions be based on a commonly accepted vocabulary in order to not be led or to lead others astray. That vocabulary is based in classic physics, and I expect people here to be at a level where they'd actually pass college physics courses if they took them. A lot of us started as "shade tree mechanics" in this endeavor, and we've either progressed or gotten stuck not understanding the physics or language used at a higher level. Some of us have real "book learning" and training in physics and electronics. It behoove us to all be "on the same page" when discussing this stuff, and the basic language of physics is a good place to start. Otherwise we are guilty of passing on misinformation.

[big_teee]

It's important to me that these discussions be based on a commonly accepted vocabulary in order to not be led or to lead others astray. That vocabulary is based in classic physics, and I expect people here to be at a level where they'd actually pass college physics courses if they took them. A lot of us started as "shade tree mechanics" in this endeavor, and we've either progressed or gotten stuck not understanding the physics or language used at a higher level. Some of us have real "book learning" and training in physics and electronics. It behoove us to all be "on the same page" when discussing this stuff, and the basic language of physics is a good place to start. Otherwise we are guilty of passing on misinformation.

Here we go again! Good Luck with that.
If vocabulary and nomenclatures are important, I think you will be shit out of luck with most of us!
You're going to have a very small table of Colleagues.
I just hang out around here hoping some of it will rub off.
Everyone has to grasp things at their own pace.
None of this is life or death, let's please try to keep an element of fun to it!
So everyone can participate.
T

[Mike Sulzer]

The lynch pin the any contrary argument is that there is absolutely no AC potential without the magnet.

The lynch pin the any contrary argument is that there is absolutely no AC potential without the vibrating string.

The coil provides a very small amount of power to the circuit connected to it. This power comes from the vibrating string, and it helps reduce the amplitude of vibration. (Mechanical factors are larger, though.)

Does the circuit connected to the pickup take energy from the magnet? Do you have to put energy back into the magnet every now and then because you have been playing the guitar?

[Rick Turner]

I think it starts to be real fun when we use a common language and understand that the science is important to understanding what we hear. Then we can actually move forward...even in better understanding why so many folks like pickups designed sixty years ago. It's not enough to say that 1020 "sounds better" than 1018. If it does, then why? and can you measure it? Etc.

No, not absolute life or death, but some of this is a big part of my chosen lifestyle. I don't know how many of you depend on pickup making and instrument making to earn a living, but I do, and so continued acquisition of knowledge is important to me and those who depend on my staying sharp and a little bit ahead of the market. I would hope that the pros and truly experienced among us are not being asked to dumb it down here. Or do we need a "pro and serious amateur pickup makers forum"?

What I object to is the refusal of some to learn here...the unwillingness to accept terms and vocabulary that are basic to even high school physics. There is a strain of anti-intellectualism that is odd for folks interested in building what is basically an electrical device that is based on 19th century electrical physics. It's one thing not to understand...nor accept...21st century physics; it's another to totally ignore and reject 19th century physics! What's next? Pyramid powered pickups? Or do pickups because the strings disturb the power of the aether?

Is gravity a force or is it power? Do we here even try to understand and accept 17th Century physics? For whom is the world round? Flat? Yeah, it's getting that basic in the misunderstanding of what's going on with this stuff. Kind of disappointing to me... But then I do expect too much of my peers, and I freely admit that I have a lot to learn.

[Rick Turner]

Thanks Mike, but I have a feeling we're pissing into the wind here.

The misunderstanding of the very concept of "power" is so strongly held (read "ego") that there may be no turning this around.

The old saying was,

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

Dorothy Parker, upon challenged to make a pun upon the word "horticulture" famously modified that truism to,

"You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think."

We've got something like that going on here...

[big_teee]

I suggested a theory and design category when we got the B/H forum category.
The best I recall, this thread started out a light hearted conversation, because a pickup failed when the whole guitar was Cryo treated.
How It got to this point, Is beyond me.
Some of the guys participating in this thread are dedicated Amplifier Techs.
Like Chuck and Dude, they just got envolved because they thought it was interesting.
They are not pickup builders, but are no dummies either, just a bit out of their fields.
Go talk Amps with them, and you'll find out.
Until this is MIT, or some exclusive category, I think you can keep your high level of coversation, without making it where everyone has to level up!
T

[Rick Turner]

I think I'll bow out of this discusson until there is some more experimentally derived data available. I'm tired of uninformed and untested opinions. Opinions are like rectal spincters; everyone has one. Big deal. Prove it. Or disprove it.

And if there's a field of musical manufacture that has more smoke and mirrors than pickup design or violin building, it must be amplifier manufacture. The Reagan era ushered in "Voo-Doo Economics"...the boutique amp era ushered in "Foo-Doo Electronics" with it's hoity-toity cousin, high end hi-fi. Talk about snake oil and the "Journal of Irreproduceable Results"!

Since nobody other than Big Tee and Mr. Zex have taken me up on real research involvement (WTF?), I'll go buy a humbucker (maybe a Seth Lover) from Seymour and do that one. I'll have a Strat, a small Zex coil and magnet, an industry standard '58 humbucker clone, and some of my own stuff...which has no permeable steel pole pieces nor Alnico, so they'll be interesting...just copper and ceramic. I'll do these with wax potting but no epoxy...yet.

Good night, folks!

[The Dude]

You're right T, this is a bit off the beaten path for me, but I do have an electronics degree, have been a tech for over 30 years, and am fully capable of understanding what's being said here. I found the thread interesting initially because it was about cryo treating an entire guitar. It has definitely taken some turns. I'm still finding it interesting and I do agree with Rick that it would help if everyone used the same terminology. The way I read it, most of the "issues" in this thread are with vocabulary. I think when broken down to nuts and bolts, most are in agreement, principally, with the concept of how a guitar pickup works. It's not really that complicated. The bickering is certainly off-putting and I don't really see a need for it. It's not that difficult to make a point without being insulting and offensive.

[Rick Turner]

Dude, most orchestras tune to an octave above 220 now...so it should be the 440 panel, right?

OH, so soooorrrrry. I didn't understand the difference between Volts and Hertz. Well, who cares? Oi vey, I'd better study-o upp-io. It's too hard to keep track of all those Germans anyway...they live on the Volta? Or is it the Volga? Oh, Volta was an Itralian? Well, could-a fooled-a mio! They're all old school EuroTrash to me...

Who cares?

Beam me up, Scotty...the dilithium crystals are getting too hot down here...