It's so freaking weird!! When I was 16-17 age old , I was building the same coil pickups for guitars! I am 65 years old now and like that stuff! We didn't have neodymium magnets back there in USSR. Everything was bulky, and huge , and it didn't look fancy but it was working and we were happy. Today, I am leaving in USA and I can see on youtube people are doing the same things I was doing 50 years ago! Isn't it weird?

@JIMISTONED

3 ай бұрын

Its the spirit I guess

@lukejohnston5566

3 ай бұрын

One of the greatest parts of humanity's musical heritage is the ingenuity of improvised musical instruments. Cool to hear you were tinkering and inventing despite having limited materials.

@timointrouble

3 ай бұрын

I think you got it backwards. We were inventing and tinkering BECAUSE we had limited materials/access to knowledge

@threepe0

3 ай бұрын

Neodymium isn’t common at all in pickups.

@ronaldelliott4373

3 ай бұрын

You’re an Analog kid in a digital world Gregory. Welcome to the club! 🤫

it's good to see a scientific analysis of guitar pickup sound as opposed to magical mythical mojo marketing mumbo jumbo. besides noise rejection and output levels, I'm sure most of the perceived differences in pickups are due to it's frequency response and how it's impedance affects downstream electronics. i'm sure descriptions like warmth, brightness, muddy, clarity, note definition etc., are all just down to frequency response. Also, I suspect the perceived compression of active pickups is not actually due to the signal being compressed in the pickup but rather in downstream circuits due to the higher signal levels and lower impedance of the pickup.

@martinkrauser4029

3 ай бұрын

"warmth" and "brightness" are used by audio technicians to mean frequency response and nothing else. The players, on the other hand ...

Superb analysis! At Cal Poly, we had to deliver a technical presentation to our EE peers. I opted to reverse engineer MXR’s graphic EQ pedal. That’s when I discovered the gyrator circuit synthesizing an inductor with an active circuit. These days I’m toying with a USB stereo codec inside my Strat, so some of your tone & cable elements disappear into the codec’s high input impedance. I get massive voice changes by transmitting MIDI commands to laptop software. My processor has enough DSP resources to create biquads, FIR & other filter topologies before the signal even leaves the instrument.

Wow, that sounds quite accurate, the single coils sound the most accurate. Thank you for sharing

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching!

Nice background setup. thats gotta be one of the most visually eclectic collections of guitars around.

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Save for the PRS, all the guitars on the wall are my own designs that I build myself. I'm glad you like them!

That's in the direction what FIshman is doing with their Fluence pickups. The stacked-pcb-style coils have FAR less windings than traditional humbuckers, so the response curve is flatter and needs a preamp to sound decent. But that allows all the benefits you are describing here. Brilliant video, thank you!

@Patrick-857

Ай бұрын

DSP based preamps with super low impedance pickups are coming I think. Basically an IR loader, but for pickups built into your guitar. Using the same technology as IRs, you could theoretically capture all of the nuances of a particular pickup, as well as possibly simulate different positions along the string. It would account for everything that effects pickup tone, as well as volume and tone pots and caps.

Very nicely done! Great entry point not just for people experimenting with pickups, but also for people learning about how active filters work.

My Alembic bass has a similar setup: the pickups have super-low windings and resistance so probably clean up past 10kHz or something. But the active preamp, instead of the treble/middle/bass controls of a Musicman Stingray or most other basses, instead has a cutoff knob (-12dB/oct as you say is typical) and a resonant peak switch, I believe wired for 0, +4 and +8dB. I see your tests show peaks of 3, 6, and 9dB. so it's pretty ball-park. Now, intellectually, I know this should be able to about simulate any bass pickup, with any tone settings, and any length cable. But it's been pretty hard to get used to and in the past I've always preferred the tone of the Stingray and the passive Fenders. But I finally discovered after ten years that I've been changing only the battery for the fret marker lights, and the preamp battery is under the knob electronics access panel! Replaced that--only 10 years past its expiration date--and the thing's a real spunky monkey now.

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Gotta love those little gotcha's! I've had things like that happen more than I care to admit :)

@0richbike

3 ай бұрын

Stupid bass AND stupid battery;-)

@lqr824

3 ай бұрын

@@0richbike more like stupid player and stupid battery. The actual bass is very very good.

Great Job! the audio demo was good enough to convince me that you have actual good ears and that your circuit works.

I just bought my first guitar, and I was about to buy fishman fluence pickups, and I'm glad you saved me the money if I manage to figure this out. Thanks a crapton my man!

@user-hy6yq4uk8e

2 ай бұрын

Is that a "crap-ton", or Eric Crapton, or I've been crapt on?

You should talk with Glenn Fricker from SpectreSoundStudios, as this is the sort of thing which would interest him ;)

Thank you for your work. I'd figured out about the first 5 minutes of the video on my own, but what a shortcut to get somewhere useful! Not only am I a new subscriber, but this video is getting bookmarked.

With this you opened for me a fresh can of worms, now I go fishing. Yeah, in my junk boxes, for some thick magnet wire, neodymium magnets and some old school low noise transistors. I think I will make a common base input stage followed by common collector buffer. I love to work on low impedance as much as I hate high impedance. It all boils down to noise susceptibility. Nevertheless I'll probably try a small audio transformer. Thank you for these new horizons, very well done!

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching!

@ke4uyp

3 ай бұрын

Question, have you done a frequency response chart on the step up transformer? Does it have any attenuations either? On the low frequency or high frequency end. ​@@thescientificguitarist4228

I think i now understand the one portion of a circuit Crimson Guitars showed off in a recent video on a custom they made. I dont think they used the same model as you but explaining the tuning functions at the start of the video made it click. Theres likely a number of ways to achieve this, even just utilising pedal eqs after active electronics being the most accessible (though often not accurate to voicings.)

So this is basically like the Alembic system. They figured you make a flat response low impedance coil, and pair it with a variable low pass filter with adjustable Q. Then you can simulate the response of high Z pickups. And I’ve made bass pickups like this back in 2010. Some people think EMG are low Z coils, but they are regular high Z pickups with a differential buffer preamp. The Fishman pickups are actual low Z pickups.

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

You are correct on all fronts. This is not a new concept, as Les Paul experimented with stuff like this on his recording guitar back in the 50's. What I am doing is providing files, schematics, and education for other DIY'ers to make their own. Thanks for watching!

@CeresKLee

3 ай бұрын

Does it resemble the one in the Epiphone Jack Casady bass?

@terryenglish7132

3 ай бұрын

Just a note for any unfamiliar w EMGs. Their unique sound is mainly due to the 2 coils having different resonances , as well as not interacting w each other since each goes thru its own opamp. They are also wound the same direction and both connected w coil start grounded. A normal HB is wound the same direction for both coils, but connected backwards, one start to finish, one finish to start. Connecting a coil finish to start makes it very slightly muddier.

@DavidRavenMoon

3 ай бұрын

@@terryenglish7132 EMGs are regular high impedance pickups connected to one op amp acting as a differential amp. One end of both coils is connected to ground. The other ends go to the + and - inputs on the op amp. This helps cancel common mode noise. Humbuckers must have the two coils electrically out of phase. Because humbuckers are wound in the same direction, you wire them reverse polarity (start to start or finish to finish). If you wire them electrically in phase, i.e.m start to finish, they will sound out off phase and very thin. Not muddy. The reason the two coils are out of phase is the reverse magnetic polarity.

I would like to commend you on the excellence of your channel and the really impressive chat community that you have brought together in your comments section. So many chats are a bunch of simpletons with strong opinions jabbering about things they don't begin to understand. This chat page has more people with real technical comprehension of the subject being discussed than any other group that I have found. I am learning a lot here and I thank you and your commenters for that. Very impressive. Please continue. I'll be back.

Like the "can do" spirit and thanks for sharing. It would be great to hear how a ge7 (graphic eq pedal) compares in scope with your pickup. Years ago I ripped a variable capacitor from a portable radio and wired it in to the tone pot of a Strat( the tuning part of the radio) to see how the frequencies reacted , it sounded like a really bad wah wah pedal! Try it though, it's a lauugh. Your pickup sounds great!!

Great stuff man! Thanks for being so generous with your time and energy 🤘🤘🤘

This is brilliant and exactly what I needed for me to understand how I could make en tone controle like the already mentioned Alembic.

Wow simply mind blown !!!!! Thank you for making this video and in general your channel.

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching!

Tx for this treasure trove man! You're awesome! 👌

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Glad you enjoy it!

Funtastic ! Thanks for all that.

Excellent. Great job!

Thanks for playing clean sounds, I dislike when people only use overdrive to example tone. But now, I'm curious about the overdrive tone

@MrNamePerson

3 ай бұрын

Agree!

@artysanmobile

3 ай бұрын

The clean tone tells the story of what is possible with enhancement. If I can hear only one sound to choose a guitar or amp, it is the clean sound.

@firebald2915

3 ай бұрын

​@artysanmobile It's refreshing to hear the guitars voice on clean instead of choking it out with distortion pedals. Enriching the clean tone will enhance your OD and Distortion, Fuzz, etc.. Your Best Pedal to own is an EQ. Want more push into an amp... use a DI. Inexpensive pedal from Behringer Acoustic ADI 21. That's my rig for my Tele and the clean sound is so Rich. Plus, lower your pickups and free those strings.

@artysanmobile

3 ай бұрын

@@firebald2915 Maybe so. I can learn so much about something by hearing its clean tone, whether speaker, amp, guitar, etc, just from experience.

I have a bunch of guitars with a lot of different pickups, and I play a lot of gigs. Lately I've been using one kind of pickup in two different guitars for Country, Rock, Americana and Folk. A MIM Tele and a '78 neck-thru Ibanez Musician. The DiMarzio Super Distortion in both. Of course I use Strats for Hendrix, but the SD is simply a pickup for all occasions. No coil splitting of any kind, and I don't use channel switching amps. This is an excellent video, and I will be trying my hand at making some pickups with this as a resource. Thanks!

Very interesting and extremely cool video. Bill Lawrence is smiling down upon you. Keep at it you are onto something very significant 🎉

@gergemall

3 ай бұрын

Very cool stuff

@konradkoeppe2840

3 ай бұрын

Bill was so far ahead most still don't understand.........

Thanx for sharing your knowledge man..😊👍🏼

fantastic video

Nice work!

Similar to the low-impedance pickups in the Les Paul Recording guitar, if I recall correctly. Interesting stuff, thanks!

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Yep, same idea, I'm just proliferating the idea so that others can build their own.

this is fantastic! In order to "convince" the non-believers, please prepare a demo where the output of the different variants is compensated for, so it matches the "real" pickup loudness. Our brain can easily be tricked , louder seems always better. So a loud overwound HB (in comparison) sounds more impressive, although it is actually taking away so much tonal information. Your demo shows all sounds at the same loudness, which is fair and correct. I guess that's the reason why cheap guitars have loud , mostly ceramic magnet pickups, with a actually very dull sound. They sound great with distortion at first glance, but dont have the clarity of classic pickups. Thank you!

I think a cool project would be to do both this and the sustainer in a single humbucker sized pickup since they're both single coil sized. Been thinking about trying this out for a 7 string.

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

You can actually use the same coils for both duty. That is actually how this all originated. It's a pickup when the sustainer is off and it's the sustainer driver when on.

You just earned yourself a subscriber.

Wow! Good job!

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Thanks, I appreciate it!

Just great content. Subscribed

Wow!... Thanks a lot! That is very exact I was looking for! 👍🏻🙌🏻✨☀️🍀🌿🌾

You’ve done a great job quantifying the parts of the network making our playing tone.

Really cool, great stuff 👍

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching!

Excellent video thank you!

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Glad you liked it!

The best sound i got out of my guitar, basic humbucker and single coil was with straight wires to a buffer in the guitar. Too bad it is a bit too cumbersome, and i got tired of batteries running out and not having volume pot, but the dynamic range it got.. and the way the high end frequencies came out. Definitely recommend to try it.

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Use a 5V power bank with 5V to 9V step up cable and you can run a buffer for almost forever...Expose the charging port to the outside of the guitar and you just recharge it like any other electronic device.

@squidcaps4308

3 ай бұрын

@@thescientificguitarist4228 I came to similar conclusion except using 9V power supply since it gives better Vpp ,but charging that power supply with 5V usb, and then step up. 5V power supply is not that great from circuit design point of view, things are SO much easier when you got at least 7.5V Vpp. That is +-3.25V. With 9V, after all the drop off from battery voltage dropping is accounted for, that is +-4V, enough to run 5532s, which i just fucking love. 5V dropping pushes things way too close to +-1.5, and now you are in trouble, since i wanted this to feed into line inputs directly, to further optimize the signal path. With line inputs, you are looking at one capacitor and a unity gain high impedance buffers.. .Get the signal level as high as you need as close to the source as you can, is my mantra.

@roadtonever

3 ай бұрын

​@@thescientificguitarist4228That power solution sounds fabulous.

Amazing content, thank you.

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching!

Great sharing my dear friend!! Love and respect Kyle!! 😊🥁🇵🇭

Very cool! Thanks for

😮 ******* ****. That is ******* awesome!

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Thanks!

Important to note that humber due to having to coils picking up different vibrations from the same string will inheritely have different sound due to phase cancellation of some string harmonics (that depends on the coil width, distance between coils, pickup position and the place you fret the string).

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Yep, this is true. Other constructions can be done as well, such as a single coil with a dummy coil for hum rejection, or many other kinds. I went with this construction because it was the construction I was already using for sustainer drivers.

@markosad667

3 ай бұрын

So, a Humbucker has a phase cancellation of some harmonics, but with the high freq roll off of the active filter don't you get the same result?

@lqr824

3 ай бұрын

My understanding is that 90% of the humbucker "feel" is just due to the cutoff and resonant peak moving. Only a tiny bit is due to the two coils getting slightly different harmonics. The two coils are right next to each other, and there usually won't be much audible cancellation of given frequencies. I think the biggest thing is that if, on a given note, one coil is right where a given harmonic wouldn't move the string at all, the other coil will "hear" that harmonic a bit, giving less noticeable gaps. That said I don't think this is detectible in real-world music. Just as an example, say the string is 24" long, and the pickup is 6" from the bridge. At that point, the pickup cannot hear the 4th harmonic at all. If it's a humbucker with a second coil 5.5" from the bridge, that would pick up the the 4th harmonic a bit. Picture the first harmonic (fundamental) as the string's shape, if you froze it in a strobe light, forming the first half of a sine wave at maximum swing. It then snaps back and reverses. The second harmonic then is shaped like a full sine wave, with half the string swinging one way, the center at 12" exactly still, then the other half swinging the other way. Third harmonic has two points it's still (at 8" and 16" on this example note) while the fourth is still at 6" 12" 18". And since it doesn't move the string at 6" we don't hear it. But it's moving a bit at 5.5" so a second coil of a humbucker WOULD hear it. Back to your question: if you turn on bridge and neck pickups, then it is much more likely they'll get some of the higher harmonics out of phase and cancel, since they're a lot farther apart.

@lqr824

3 ай бұрын

I think VERY little of such phase cancelling as even the higher harmonics won't typically be reversing phase over such a short distance. Some yes of course.

@terryenglish7132

3 ай бұрын

​@@lqr824The 17th harmonic is completely cancelled using a HB on a Fender scale. Thats only 5,000 hz on a high E. I have a swimming pool routed Strat for testing p ups. Even moving a p up 1/4 inch can be slightly to very noticeable in how it changes the tone. So, yeah, you do hear the phase/harmonics cancelation, its just not as noticable as, say 2 Strat p ups out of phase.

Good stuff

Nice work !. When I first saw the impedance of the pickup and the schematic of the filter, I thought that would not work. The signal from the pickup is way too small to be amplified by a unity gain buffer and using higher gain would introduce too much noise to be useful. Then you showed the transformer. That would solve the problem. Thank you for showing the mini transformer. I wish there would be even smaller ones to be fitted in the backside of the pickup. Your pickups look cool on the guitar too.

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

My humbucker sized driver/pickup actually has the transformer under the pickup cover. You can even put the active electronics there, but that makes tuning the response more of a pain.

My favorite pickups to base on for tuning with a selection of capacitors is Wilde Microcoil.

Good project! Unfortunately I was missing a demo of the sound shaping circuit. Could this be added, please?

All good work and well presented but I was hoping for a passive circuit design. Not your fault. Cheers T

Great stuff!!! Now how to make the nearest thing to a FRFR pickup?

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Without the shaping circuit, the pickup is an FRFR.

Ok, this is great! But I already got my Fishman Fluence pickups. However, since I'm interested in electronics, even guitar electronics - I would like to test this out..

Thx ❤

I hope my comment on Glenn Fricker's channel has brought some viewers. You definitely deserve them!

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

I certainly appreciate it!

So, basically very similar to Wal pickups: start with a super linear response then push it through a state variable filter.

Ah, like a Gibson Recorder. Low impedance coil for wide frequency response and then a mini transformer.

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Yep, similar concept to the alumitones as well, though there the body is part of the transformer itself.

You might be interested in the Lace Alumitone pickup - a flat response, low-impedance, high output, pickup. I've tried them in an archtop but the response of the pickups were too flat and extended for me. A PASSIVE resonant peak circuit might make them more acceptable for the modern guitarist.

@thescientificguitarist4228

2 ай бұрын

I've been aware of them for many years. What I am sharing with everyone is a DIY construction. I tried to DIY some Alumitone-style pickups before, but it's far from easy, as the aluminum forms one side of the "transformer" used in the voltage step-up process.

great stuff. I was thinking to get a Fishman Fluence P90 but i'll try this out first.

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

The only downside with the construction I show is the magnetic gap in the middle. You can do just a single coil or do humbucker style coils as well, I was simply using what I already had on hand from sustainer-related activities.

@larrysteinke1839

3 ай бұрын

@@thescientificguitarist4228 i have a couple of old pickups like a regular humbucker and a mini humbucker with dual blades. could i just re-wind those with the heavier gauge wire and use it with your shaper circuit?

@larrysteinke1839

3 ай бұрын

@@thescientificguitarist4228I would like to try your pickup shaper circuit. Are the CAM files ready to just give to a PCB manufacturer like PCBWay? I haven't tried it but they have a service where shared projects can be created and anyone can order the PCB or even assembly and a percentage of cost can be donated to author.

Thank you so much for the explanation and sharing of files and schematic for this. It is greatly appreciated. I've put a Vero version together on DIY layout calculator. Would you be able to have a quick look at it to see if it makes sense please? While I've built a lot of guitar pedals and a few guitars, I've very much just been following layouts to make those.

@thescientificguitarist4228

2 ай бұрын

To be honest, I have never used vero, so I'm not sure how much help I would be with the layout. It seems like most people, when they start out, choose either vero or perf and I chose perf for whatever reason, and now vero just looks alien to me :D

Great video. How responsive are the pickups? The nuances make all the difference.

Transformer part is interesting to me. I can use it for passive boost with regular pickups? Or to even out levels of single coil and humbuckers in HSS. Interesting. 🤔

@martin13rm

3 ай бұрын

Yamaha new revstar models got exactly that, named "Focus switch", i've tried one and absolutely loved it, it boosted and high filtered the output, all passive

@myhapylife

3 ай бұрын

@@martin13rm This is interesting. If I use transformer between pickup and volume pot, can values of the pot can stay the same, or if you would use transformed maybe it needs different value? Is there some kind of disadvantage od using transformer for boost voltage?

@martin13rm

3 ай бұрын

@@myhapylife oh idk it exceeds my knowledge on the matter for sure i'm sorry 😅

8:00 NOTE: the blue line is invisible to me even at maximum screen throughput. Personally I check out how my video was compressed by KZread as soon as I upload it to catch things like this, and if it's not clear, I fix it and upload it again.

@RachelsSweetie

3 ай бұрын

What blue line? :)

Great stuff!!!. Be aware that the spec on that Triad SP-48 is "+ or - 2.0 DB, at 300 Hz to 100K Hz", so compensation may be needed for the low end?. Just a thought.

Thanks so much. Just learned a bunch of stuff, and also got some questions answered that I've had for a while. This makes me wonder if the Chase Bliss Condor pedal has similar topology, considering that you can do similar things with it , such as changing resonant frequency and the woods of the band affected etc. If I remember correctly I don't believe they used an op-amp.

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

If it's Chase Bliss, I would expect it to be digital, but I really don't know.

@AlanW

3 ай бұрын

@@thescientificguitarist4228 My understanding is Chase Bliss is all analog signal path, it's the control that digital.

Have you considered making a variable capacitance multiplier opamp stage to put in parallel with the a regular pickup to vary the cut off frequency and Q?

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

I haven't. The parametric equalization of a flat signal is rather straightforward and worked conveniently in a quad opamp package for this application.

I'd be curious to see experiments regarding the effects of the width of poles, or bar which acts like a pole. I suspect thinner ones could bring a clearer sound, which could probably be evaluated through frequency response to a particular note, which should probably be more focused, while wider ones would probably sound fatter and on a wider spectrum, by being affected by a larger part of the string. But that's just a hypothesis, of course.

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Smaller coil and pole cross sections would reduce the sensing aperture, which could, in theory, result in more high frequency content, but that would be at very high frequencies; far higher than what we use in guitar.

@CyberChrist

3 ай бұрын

@@thescientificguitarist4228 It could be argued it would add presence ;) But I'd be curious to see the differences in practice ^^

Very cool project! Curious what the output impedance of this circuit would be - the frequency response is the same as the pickup you're trying to emulate, but how will it behave when driving a fuzzface, where the pickup loads the circuit? It won't have the same output impedance as the equivalent passive pickup, right? It'd also be cool to experiment with putting a codec and a microcontroller in there and do all the filters digitally - could probably even record impulse responses from real pickups and then load them into a convolution engine running on the microcontroller. Something like a RPi Zero should be powerful enough for that!

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

The output impedance is quite low, so vintage fuzzes won't play nicely with it. Doing the filtering digitally is very doable, but digital is not always better. I've done real time audio filtering professionally for over 10 years and while it can do amazing things, there are other things that analog is preferable for. I like an analog shaping circuit because 1) it is lower barrier to entry for DIY'ers (which is a core motivator for me), 2) it's very low power, so for onboard applications it's ideal, and 3) the circuit actually takes up less space than a microcontroller and CODEC (not to mention cheaper). I love microcontrollers and use them a lot, but this is one application where I don't think it's strictly necessary.

some tiny oversights in your simulations - pots values change from HB to SC (500k, vs 250k, and active is a low 25k), as does the tone capacitor value .22 or .01 for some, .47 for others, depending on maker/objective. Discovered this issue when i got an active pickup guitar but it had fender style tone cap, which really "deadened" its sound, until i swapped it for the active orientated capacitor

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

The simulations show only with tone and volume all the way up, in which case the loading of a 250k vs a 500k on a single coil is negligible in the output response.

This is amazing - finally a good amount of info on how such pickups are built. Are there pickups Hi-Z on the output? Also, how do different pickups affect the sound at different playing dynamics? Are we loosing any of that complexity by only focusing on the filter parameters?

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

The pickups are low output impedance, so going straight into a vintage fuzz probably wouldn't work. As for dynamics, that's a good question. I haven't done a deep dive into it because I am working out some other items with this and need to build the guitar that will be the permanent home for these pickups.

Oh, wow, never thought of it like this before. Though honestly, given the analogy to parametric EQ, I wonder if it might be more flexible to build a two-pickup guitar with a stereo output for the flat/raw signals, and then do the EQ curves in DSP. and mix to mono before FX. 🤔

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

This is essentially what the variax did/does

@Markleford

3 ай бұрын

@@thescientificguitarist4228 Hey, nice! I never knew! 👍

Sound and Feel. The feel and response is a huge part of bringing expression into it. What variables are avail for the dynamics, ADSR?

Great video (as always). Doing the same but replacing analog filters by FIR digital filters would give an even wider set of options (acoustic cavity / semi hollow resonance, early reflections) which is (it seams) similar to what the Line 6 Variax does to emulate different guitar pickups and bodies...

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

You are correct, but most DIY'ers are hesitant regarding most anything that requires digital programming. I'm hoping to help there, as well.

@Tuathband

3 ай бұрын

It's this BS that is holding the pedal community back. They are digital averse. It's lame as hell. They're also averse to Ibanez for some reason

I've got three questions: 1) What's the thickest wire gauge you can still wind up a coil with? 2) Can you "boost" the neodymium magnets' strength with electromagnets? (Or just use the electromagnets instead) 3) What would happen if you keep increasing the pickup voltage? Would it be enough to shock you?

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

1. I'm not sure. Theoretically you would be space limited. 2. Any stronger of a magnet and string pull becomes a very real concern. 3. There wouldn't be enough current to really do much of anything.

nice video, even a mechanical controls guy like me could understand it

That's my dream pickup. I really like the idea of low z pickups and the tone shape abilities. With the flat response isn't possible go full passive with the tone shaper eq? Since you only need take off the unwanted freqs to match a certain pickup. And how this compare in performance to the single primary loop ultra low z pickups discussed by Joseph Rogowski in the music electronics forum?!

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

You could do all passive, but the effects of any component on loading it down is a distinct possibility, not to mention that you will need something active to boost it at some point.

so could you just install the flat response pickup and buffer in the guitar and manage the eq in a pedal with a parametric top end eq AND/OR impulse responses of popular pickups?

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Absolutely! Your imagination is really the only limit. I ran one of these through an acoustic simulator pedal and it worked well with the filters on it.

Really neat idea. Small question: typically strat tone and volume controls are 250k pots rather than 500k. Did you take a look at the SC simulations with those R values for the tone and volume control resistors?

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Yes, I did. With the "controls" all the way up, the difference between 500k and 250k is negligible. The real difference occurs when rolling the controls down.

This is amazing, is in the first part one of the best explanation on active pickups I have found. Questions: On the end the pickups look like humbuckers but you show that you do like a split single coil, so the other side of the humbucker is just for aesthetic purposes and is empty? and you think that if instead of a split single coil a underwinded humbucker or a thin humbucker is used there would be much difference? maybe it's plausible to pack the electronics on that space :D

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

In my personal units, there actually are active electronics and the transformer in the empty space. The humbucker form factor gives plenty of space.

@fdavpach

3 ай бұрын

@@thescientificguitarist4228Oh that's amazing, I love this project, I need to look into where to get those magnets

Magnetic clarity 🤓

Nice job man, I have one question, how do you deal with the hum induced by the step Up transformer? Or Are these Transformers winded to achieve hum cancellation?

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

I have found these transformers in particular to be very quiet; much quieter than others and much quieter than using an opamp for the initial voltage gain.

You can easily achieve the same effect with a lot less trouble and expense by using something called a graphic EQ pedal, and you can get any number of affordable Chinese made ones for about $30, from all the major Chinese pedal companies. And, those don't require your dedicated preamp that's required for your pickups to work with any normal guitar amp.

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

The problem with a graphic eq on a regular pickup is that you are limited in the frequencies and amounts you can boost. You can't boost something that isn't there due to the physical construction of the pickup (e.g., high frequencies). If a graphical eq works for what you want, that's awesome, but what I show here is really just scratching the surface of the shaping possibilities of a low inductance, high-resonant-frequency coil.

Very nice bud! (slow clap)

Very, very interesting! Looks like you're the right person to discuss a specific problem: Have you ever developed filters for a specific sound? Many years ago I bought the IBANEZ JP-20 archtop guitar because I wanted that warm jazz sound. However, the sound was always thin and I could never make it sound like Philip Catherine or Pat Metheny, for example. So my idea was to analyse the spectra of my heroes, measure the spectra of my guitar and then develop a filter with a transfer function that would adapt my spectrum to the target sound. That didn't work. It seems that the physical difference in the spectra is very subtle and my analyses were not fine enough. It could also be that the pickup is not well placed, if it is exactly below the node of the first harmonic, then an overtone is missing and can no longer be amplified by any filter. Have you ever tried to systematically shape the spectra yourself?

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Adding back information that isn't there in the first place is a recipe for disaster. A thin guitar can't have bass "added", really. Sure, you can boost with active filters, but what is it boosting? Usually plenty of noise along with what you are interested in. However, tonal shaping can be done in many ways, I'm just presenting an easy-to-DIY version here. More complex filters, convolutions with IR's, etc. can totally be done, they are just not as accessible to most DIY'ers.

@veitheld167

3 ай бұрын

@@thescientificguitarist4228 Thank you very much for your reply! I am quite familiar with the theory of filters and the problems of missing harmonics etc. What I'm interested in is a systematic approach to reversing the design process. So instead of designing circuits, building them and then figuring out how they sound, I'd like to do it the other way round. The question is whether we can find an appropriate mathematical model of a particular target sound and then derive a filter for that particular case. I've gone the other way round a few times and built my own amplifiers for jazz or replaced the inadequate Fender tone stack with Baxandall filters. But I only found out the result when the thing was finished and I plugged my guitar in for the first time. So the main problem is to find a mathematical description for a sound. In jazz that might work because you normally play without distortion and stick to the "linear" range. But while the difference between the sound of a Gibson 175 and a Telecaster with flat wound strings is really remarkable, you don't see much difference when you compare the spectra. If you ever work in this field, I'd love to hear more about your results. It looks like your technical background is absolutely up to the task!

Waiting for someone to build a superconducting wire guitar pickup complete with cryogenic system 😂

Why a humbucker ? Low Z coils shouldn't pick up noise, like a standard p up . I've made p ups using those big gauge wire spools that came in a 3 pack from Radio Shack😢. I play w high gain, metal level, but I never really noticed noise being a factor.

Now I really wish I had a 3d printer :(

Hey, Why did you use a 500k load on the single coils in your simulations? Wouldn't 250k be more accurate? Or does it not matter? Thx

daaaaaam this is epic, could you show how to make a midi guitar ? i mean to transfer the signal from the coils to a midi signal that would make the perfect guitar combined with this awesome video 🤩

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

The signal processing involved in a midi guitar is very tricky, as it requires careful design of low latency pitch identification and tracking, which is quite difficult.

@tg_2137

3 ай бұрын

@@thescientificguitarist4228 Not the way I’m sure you envisioned, but I’ve seen a solution that uses microcontroller, each fret is tied to a digital input, as well as the strings. From there you configure it as a matrix, similar to keyboards. While it’s been done before, would be cool to see your take on it

Thank you ! This is great and I would like to try building a pair of pickups. I appreciate the Git repository. Would it be possible for you to add a bill of materials list to that ? I am not very experienced and I need all the help I can get. Many thanks again Hans

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

I have a BOM and plenty of build notes for this as it relates to a sustainer driver on my webist at scientificguitarist.wixsite.com/home/sustainer-driver-coil

@hans-georgdaun6270

3 ай бұрын

​@@thescientificguitarist4228Fantastic ! This is really detailed and will be very helpful. Many thanks (and I made a donation)

Why did you use a 500K for the single coil? Usually vintage single coil uses 250k pots.

🙏

So are you using some kind of pots to change the resistance and inductance on the guitar to get the different sounds of different pickups?

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

I'm using an active circuit with a couple of filters to shape a very flat pickup signal.

While your guitar pickup analog equivalent circuits are correct, the various low-pass EQ curves they produce aren't what gives different types of pickups their distinctive sound. What actually counts is the interaction among a variety of mechanical relationships: Intensity and shape of the magnetic fields within each pickup, effective length of the section of each guitar string that vibrates within each magnetic field, offset position of the pickup with respect to the end of each guitar string. These physical parameters produce harmonic waveform augmentation and cancellation patterns that cannot be duplicated by analog EQ circuits.

@selfsaboteursounds5273

3 ай бұрын

"These physical parameters produce harmonic waveform augmentation and cancellation patterns that cannot be duplicated by analog EQ circuits" Yes they can, this is the entire premise behind both synthesizers and digital audio recording

@FallenStarFeatures

3 ай бұрын

@@selfsaboteursounds5273 - OK, I see I'm talking way over your head.

@roadtonever

3 ай бұрын

You didn't explain why those need to be considered or how. IME the stuff he shows is enough to get you through a gig with varied tones for diverse genres. Why make it more complicated?

@FallenStarFeatures

3 ай бұрын

@@roadtonever - If you prefer not to complicate things, why bother reinventing something as time-tested as guitar pickups?

@roadtonever

3 ай бұрын

@@FallenStarFeatures Reinvent what exactly? Preamps and toneshaping circuitry has been part of the arsenal of pro guitarist for decades. I even simplify this concept in my personal guitars by using only two tone selections and a set of off the shelf low wind pickups that can be used passively. Your concern about the effects of different coil arrangements is not specific to his project, its debateably how much it matters to a working musician vs the impact the resonant peak. Cork sniffing hobbyist might agree with you, that doesn't mean everyone should care.

great video but i’m new to this so can someone explain to me how he is adjusting to pickups to change the tone? i think mentions a pot somewhere in the schematic explanation but in the demo i didn’t see on on the guitar. so what at a very basic level what is he manipulating to go from a single coil sound to an HB and so forth?

@thescientificguitarist4228

2 ай бұрын

There are 5 potentiometers in the tone shaping circuit that change the frequency, resonance, and amplitude of the characteristic response of a pickup, enabling the simulation of various kinds of pickups.

Fun

Could you compare your circuit to the state variable filter circuit described by Helmuth Lemme in his book “Electric Guitar Sound Secrets and Technology”. Thx

@jackwickman2403

3 ай бұрын

When building state variable filters for audio there is a trap to be avoided. Opamp cookbooks show design shortcuts that simplify the calculation of component values. These can result in different signal levels at different amp stages in the filter circuit. For constant level signals this can be usable, but the widely varying levels of an audio signal can cause clipping in the stage with the highest level while all the other stages are OK. It is important to match the levels in the various stages so they all clip at the same signal voltage. This will give maximum dynamic range and signal to noise ratio. It will also make calculating the values of the frequency and Q determining components more difficult. Look at the Alembic Superfilter.

The simulations are cool but it's important to keep in mind that when the signal from the pickups passes through an amp and a speaker most of the differences between pickups of the same generic type go away. The idea is super cool though I might have to give it a try. I am curious though. The main initial point of a humbucker is to cancel out 60 cycle hum when you have any kind of gain. Is that something you experience with this design, and if you do how would you fix it?

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

The design I show is humbucking, so common mode noise rejection is baked right in. The really fun applications of this come with more advanced filtering to do things like acoustic simulation, or even synthesis or other instrument modeling.

Vox CoAxe pickups on the Virage series of guitars do this

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Yep, there have been a few implementations in the past. Unfortunately, most aren't available to the average DIY'er

@trent54

3 ай бұрын

@@thescientificguitarist4228 yes very true not something you can easily get

How many windings on each bobbin are there? Also, Lace Alumitones are relatively low inductance with a wide frequency range. Would the EQ circuit work on those?

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

The design I used is about 250 winds per bobbin of 28 AWG magnet wire. The circuit would work on any pickup with sufficiently wide and flat bandwidth.

@CarsInDimension

3 ай бұрын

@@thescientificguitarist4228 Thank you. What would happen if I place the circuit after passive high & low pass tone controls? In other words, use it as a pedal after the volume and tone controls.

Outstanding work! Is string pull a problem? Those neodymium magnets can be quite strong.

@thescientificguitarist4228

3 ай бұрын

Not that I have found