Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Tech => Topic started by: Nadz1lla on March 08, 2011, 11:22:51 PM
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Luthiers: is there a "formula" or mathematical equation to calculate how much everything moves by when making different scale length guitars? For example, is there a A x B = Z for fret spacing, pickup placement etc? I'm putting some ideas together to try and make a guitar template for odd scale length guitars, and it struck me that there could be a simple calculation for gauging the differences between scales etc.
If not, is there a way to get a template of these things made up to spec by someone?
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Yes there is:
http://www.stewmac.com/fretcalc.html
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Stewmac provides the goods yet again! Cheers for that link, dude!
But here's another question...what about pup placement? :lol: I know if you get it wrong and miss that sweet spot, you end up with a wrong sounding guitar, hehe.
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That's a whole can of worms that you're about to open there mate.
Incidentally, I keep my cans of worms next to my cans of woopass. People better hope I don't open the wrong one.
Get yourself a copy of Melvin Hisc--k's book, it's a damn good place to start
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Yeah...I have it somewhere, but it's been missing for a while... I might have to buy another copy. :?
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There's a lot of voodoo and bullshitee out there on this (and a lot of other guitar subjects).
All in all, you're best off asking someone like Feline who has done it hundreds of times.
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Aye, good call... Jonathan, if you're following this, do you have any wisdom to impart? :D
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For a humbucking pickup, the area at which the string affects the pickup is quite large, so movement of the pickup just results in a tonal change (closer to the bridge = brighter, thinner), rather than there being a null point at a node of the string. Pressing a fret down will change this node point anyway, so even if you mathematically worked out the optimum position for an open string, this would only work for 1 particular note on the instrument.
I wouldn't worry too much about pickup placement-- if it looks right, then it probably is ;)
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Well that sounds about right, heh. Cheers dude!