It is currently Tue Mar 17, 2020 2:36 am

All times are UTC - 7 hours



Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 43 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next
Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next
Author Message
Post subject:
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 11:19 am
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star
User avatar

Joined: Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:52 am
Posts: 3840
Location: Colorado Springs
phuot wrote:
... if we take your exemple of the singer screaming in his guitar, it's probably acheived because the strings are vibrating and amplify the scream thru the pickups ...

I believe the guitar pickups in question are on a MIM standard. Is it possible this microphone effect is innate to the MIM's ceramic pickups?


Top
Profile
Fender Play Winter Sale 2020
Post subject:
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 11:49 am
Offline
Hobbyist
Hobbyist
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:19 am
Posts: 36
Phuot wrote:
Quote:
Now i don't know if screaming at a non-strung guitar would do anything..


Actually, you can scream in the pickup of a non strung guitar. The pickups wiring vibrates. But if the pickup is wax-dipped you'll have to scream louder.
The really hi-frequency hard-on-the-ears unwanted feedback is generated directly from the pickup's wiring. That's why pickups should be wax-dipped to dampen the vibration. I think all of today's quality pickups are wax-dipped. In the seventies I had to dip the pickups in hot wax myself (We played loud then...).

But I don't think this microphonic phenomen really affects the sound of the guitar. If you think that's the case, bolt the pickup to the peghead and see how much output you get when you play...


//Erik

Don't sell the skin before the bear is shot (Old Swedish saying)


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 6:53 pm
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2008 5:09 pm
Posts: 314
Location: Connecticut
I can remember just taling into my cheap $@! guitars way back in the late 60s and the pickups are microphonic and act just like a kind of microphone just as they pickup the vibrations of the guitar strings, they'll also pick up vour voice acting as a mic also.


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 8:32 pm
Offline
Hobbyist
Hobbyist

Joined: Wed May 21, 2008 12:02 pm
Posts: 86
Maybe it's not as simple as I'm making it out to be but, your pickups are sensitive to vibration, hence they transfer the vibration of the string to the amp. The sound of your voice, along with every other sound we hear are...yup, vibrations. So tapping on the pup is going to create a sound through your amp with or without strings.

Try this if you feel like it. With or without strings on the guitar, plug into your amp and turn it up loud, press guitar up to your chest with the pup over your heart, listen carefully.


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 3:02 pm
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:57 am
Posts: 13164
Location: Peckham: where the snow leopards roam
M. Brown wrote:
Maybe it's not as simple as I'm making it out to be but, your pickups are sensitive to vibration, hence they transfer the vibration of the string to the amp. The sound of your voice, along with every other sound we hear are...yup, vibrations. So tapping on the pup is going to create a sound through your amp with or without strings.

Try this if you feel like it. With or without strings on the guitar, plug into your amp and turn it up loud, press guitar up to your chest with the pup over your heart, listen carefully.


OK, I've tried it now.

Remember, we are talking about pickups detecting the voice with the strings off. So I have tested it on two guitars, destrung. The first has Lace Sensors - not a hint of my shouting voice coming through the amp.

Well, maybe that's just Sensors. So I've tried it again on a guitar with Tex Mex pickups. Not a sausage, no matter how high I crank the amp (Marshall TSL, in case someone needs to know all the factors).

M. Brown (above) is saying that pickups detect vibration. But that is just the point: magnetic pickups detect the minute current induced by the metal string moving within the magnetic field. They are not piezos; they are not supposed to detect physical vibration, as such.

And I can't get them to do it, so far as my own instruments are concerned. Anyone else got any experience of this?

A curious question - and definitely not a closed issue. Awaiting more info with interest.

Cheers - C


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 3:17 pm
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2007 9:44 am
Posts: 7282
Location: Washington
Ceri wrote:
Remember, we are talking about pickups detecting the voice with the strings off. So I have tested it on two guitars, destrung. The first has Lace Sensors - not a hint of my shouting voice coming through the amp.


Without the strings?!? I have seen guys yell into the pickups and get sound through the amp (it was an "alternative" kind of band), but I know they were cheap-o pickups in a cheap-o guitar, probably unpotted pickups.

I wasn't able to get the same effect (I was muting the strings).

_________________
Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Image


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 3:49 pm
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:57 am
Posts: 13164
Location: Peckham: where the snow leopards roam
orvilleowner wrote:
Without the strings?!? I have seen guys yell into the pickups and get sound through the amp (it was an "alternative" kind of band), but I know they were cheap-o pickups in a cheap-o guitar, probably unpotted pickups.

I wasn't able to get the same effect (I was muting the strings).


Exactly. But Synkronized was saying on the previous page that he can get the pickups to detect sound without the string there to act as a diaphragm:

Synkronized wrote:
Sorry to disagree with last post, pickups do receive body resonance directly ... if you dont put any strings on the guitar and still knock the pickups with your nails it will capture that.. even if you scream at it it will capture that.... I've actually recorded my voice through my guitars pickups which proved my point.... :P


Very curious, because that rather contradicts what we thought we knew about how magnetic pickups work. So I was keen to give it a try - though not quite keen enough to rip the strings off guitars before they were done!

Anyway, I can't reproduce the effect - but that doesn't prove it's not real. I have some old cheapy ceramic pickups sitting around on the shelf, but I can't quite bring myself to spend time fitting them into a guitar just to see if it will work with those ones. Anyone...?

Cheers - C


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 4:15 pm
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2007 9:44 am
Posts: 7282
Location: Washington
Ceri wrote:
Anyway, I can't reproduce the effect - but that doesn't prove it's not real. I have some old cheapy ceramic pickups sitting around on the shelf, but I can't quite bring myself to spend time fitting them into a guitar just to see if it will work with those ones. Anyone...?


You don't have to install your cheap-o pickups into a guitar to try it out. It's almost easier with the pickups not installed: Just connect the pickup to an instrument cable (use clips), plug it into your amp, and hold the pickup like a microphone.

_________________
Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Image


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 4:23 pm
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Mon Jun 30, 2008 10:47 am
Posts: 15336
Location: In a galaxy far far away
heard a friend mike himself through the pickups on a aria pro into a boss HM then a maxed jcm900. I heard him he didnt hear himself, he was too busy shouting.

_________________
No no and no


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 4:33 pm
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:57 am
Posts: 13164
Location: Peckham: where the snow leopards roam
orvilleowner wrote:
Ceri wrote:
Anyway, I can't reproduce the effect - but that doesn't prove it's not real. I have some old cheapy ceramic pickups sitting around on the shelf, but I can't quite bring myself to spend time fitting them into a guitar just to see if it will work with those ones. Anyone...?


You don't have to install your cheap-o pickups into a guitar to try it out. It's almost easier with the pickups not installed: Just connect the pickup to an instrument cable (use clips), plug it into your amp, and hold the pickup like a microphone.

nikininja wrote:
heard a friend mike himself through the pickups on a aria pro into a boss HM then a maxed jcm900. I heard him he didnt hear himself, he was too busy shouting.


Rats! Back to the laboratory, Herr Frankinstein!

No rest for the wicked - C


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 4:43 pm
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Mon Jun 30, 2008 10:47 am
Posts: 15336
Location: In a galaxy far far away
you gotta find someone mad enough to put their ear next to the amp on max. they were very old worn pickups on the aria and the amp and pedal were set flat out i mean the thing was screaming and my mucka shouted loud enough so i got it in stereo.

_________________
No no and no


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 7:38 pm
Offline
Professional Musician
Professional Musician
User avatar

Joined: Sun May 18, 2008 1:35 pm
Posts: 2303
Location: DC
Ok, I have atually taken the time to do a little experiment so I can prove my point here....
I have two loaded pickguards laying around here at my room they have EMG pickups which arent cheap at all and arent bad quality pickups at all....

Image

Ok so I grabbed it and first Soldered the jack to the cables without mounting it on a guitar ....


Image

And a little closer....

Image

Then I plugged it to a guitar cable that goes directly in the input of my Marshal mghdfx Head and then the emulated ouput directly into my M-Audio computer interface device... then I opened SONAR and started Recording... This is what I got.......

Image


Ok and This is the same wave with a little zoom to show the peaks...


Image

ALL of this with NO strings on and not even being mounted on a guitar.... So there you go.... I WAS able to capture the nock of my fingers and there's the pics to prove it.... I don't know how pickups work but I certainly understand that once something works in practice then in theory it must say so too ......

For those of you who still have some doubts...... here is the audio file if you wanna take a listen :P peace out!


http://www.supload.com/music/Synkronized-Proof-Pickups-Capturing-Knocks-ringtone-download-8YIEEWJH3NLH.html


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 7:56 pm
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jul 19, 2007 6:50 pm
Posts: 395
Location: Alabama
It's easier to pull off on my active pickups on my bass, but I can get the same effect from my Strat or Tele.

Sometimes, if I'm wearing a watch with with a ticking second hand, and not a sweeping (the 'ticking' is one that "pops" from mark to mark, the sweep is a sweeping steady motion) on my left hand, if I hold my arm down over the guitar, the watch ends up being near the pickups, and if the volume is turned up, you can hear the "TIC TIC TIC" of the second hand through the amp.

I always imagined it was just the electromagnetic energy from the watch being transferred through the pickups, but if you listen REALLY closely to the watch, the same tone you hear from the gears releasing and "ticking" are the same tones that are coming through the amp. I would assume if it were just electromagnetic interference, the sound would be different?

Just a thought to throw into the conversation.

_________________
Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet - Maj. Gen. James Mattis, USMC


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 7:31 am
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:57 am
Posts: 13164
Location: Peckham: where the snow leopards roam
ThatGuitarGuyAL wrote:
It's easier to pull off on my active pickups on my bass, but I can get the same effect from my Strat or Tele.

Sometimes, if I'm wearing a watch with with a ticking second hand, and not a sweeping (the 'ticking' is one that "pops" from mark to mark, the sweep is a sweeping steady motion) on my left hand, if I hold my arm down over the guitar, the watch ends up being near the pickups, and if the volume is turned up, you can hear the "TIC TIC TIC" of the second hand through the amp.

I always imagined it was just the electromagnetic energy from the watch being transferred through the pickups, but if you listen REALLY closely to the watch, the same tone you hear from the gears releasing and "ticking" are the same tones that are coming through the amp. I would assume if it were just electromagnetic interference, the sound would be different?

Just a thought to throw into the conversation.


How interesting. That is presumably the effect of moving metal parts within the magnetic field of the pickups inducing current in the coils. Strangely, my divers' watches don't do that - perhaps they are shielded by the thick pressure casing?

And we all know that tapping / scratching on the pickups is audible, without any need to crank the amp.

The issue here is pups reproducing sound without the strings there to act as a diaphragm. Because of the bearing of that on the popular notion that pickups can collect sound directly from the body wood, as well as from the main source, the strings.

From the accumulating evidence, it seems it can happen, however miniscule the effect. So the next question is - how?

Presumably, a strong direct sound source is causing the poles to vibrate and so induce a tiny current into the coil. Remember, there has to be interference in the magnetic field to create a signal: these are not piezos. Given the microscopic movements involved - wow!

In the end, we need to remember that, if it occurs at all, this is never the less an absolutely tiny effect, and will be utterly lost beneath the main source, string vibration. So timber cannot be influencing tone by direct contact with pickups to any significant degree. That happens because different timbers absorb certain frequencies faster than others, and the reciprocal relationship of that to the decay of the vibrating string. As discussed on the previous page, that is how wood colors tone.

Excellent contributions from everyone on this fascinating thread! It's great when we all put our heads together on something, isn't it?

:D - C


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 7:59 am
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jul 19, 2007 6:50 pm
Posts: 395
Location: Alabama
Ceri wrote:
How interesting. That is presumably the effect of moving metal parts within the magnetic field of the pickups inducing current in the coils. Strangely, my divers' watches don't do that - perhaps they are shielded by the thick pressure casing?

And we all know that tapping / scratching on the pickups is audible, without any need to crank the amp.

The issue here is pups reproducing sound without the strings there to act as a diaphragm. Because of the bearing of that on the popular notion that pickups can collect sound directly from the body wood, as well as from the main source, the strings.

From the accumulating evidence, it seems it can happen, however miniscule the effect. So the next question is - how?

Presumably, a strong direct sound source is causing the poles to vibrate and so induce a tiny current into the coil. Remember, there has to be interference in the magnetic field to create a signal: these are not piezos. Given the microscopic movements involved - wow!

In the end, we need to remember that, if it occurs at all, this is never the less an absolutely tiny effect, and will be utterly lost beneath the main source, string vibration. So timber cannot be influencing tone by direct contact with pickups to any significant degree. That happens because different timbers absorb certain frequencies faster than others, and the reciprocal relationship of that to the decay of the vibrating string. As discussed on the previous page, that is how wood colors tone.

Excellent contributions from everyone on this fascinating thread! It's great when we all put our heads together on something, isn't it?

:D - C


I have to ask, just to make sure you didn't overlook it, how does the second hand on your divers watch function? Is it a pop-pop movement, or is it a sweep motion?

_________________
Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet - Maj. Gen. James Mattis, USMC


Top
Profile
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 43 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next
Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next

All times are UTC - 7 hours

Fender Play Winter Sale 2020

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot], jmallard and 2 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Search for:
Jump to: