Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: dpmasunder on May 20, 2005, 07:09:15 AM
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Hi all! I'm an Aussie guitar maker who has started work on an 8-string project for my own use, and maybe (hopefully) as the prototype for others.
I've been emailing Tim a bit about this and he's agreed to wind the pickups for it, which I'm pretty bloody happy about.
Well things are getting underway shortly so I figure the forum might be the best place for my questions from now on, so here's how it stands right now...
I've designed a pickup cover in 3d (I use Rhino if anyone cares), it's being looked at by a CNC contact soon. Providing the CNC work is anywhere near affordable I'll get the flatwork cut. I've designed the cover so the coils mount to it with screws from underneath, so I'll have to change things if the CNC isn't a goer.
Two questions -
Firstly, this vulcanised fibre I got from StewMac has a slight curve to it. Is it possible to flatten it? Does it matter?
Secondly, could a calibrated neck pickup be made as a stacked coil (think noiseless Strat) but wired in series to give humbucker-ish tone combined with narrow magnetic field Straty-ness? :grrr:
I have more ideas but I don't want to push it :lol:
Nice emoticons btw
Dan
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Welcome to the boards Dan.
The forbon can be flattened out by a little judicious handling and placing under a heavy weight-I'm not sure how big a piece we're talking about but you should be able to reshape it if you're careful.
Stacked singles-as a rule I won't touch them.I've never heard a good noiseless single-bottom line is once the coil shape is changed, ie two mini coils or stacked and the 50/60 cycle hum has gone so has the single coil tone and you're left with something that's neither like a humbucker or single,just flat and lifeless.
If you've experience of a good sounding design I'll look at it.
Glad you like the emos :chain: :minigun: :rip: :rock: :tfrag:
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The forbon is only 6" x 6", I was thinking of ironing it :roll:
I think I get what you're saying with the stacked coil. If the coils are identically wound and sensing the same string movement they cancel out a heap of signal???
I'm not a Strat kind of guy and I've never heard a stack designed to give humbucker balls. I'm giving this thing a heap of upper fret access so things are looking a little cluttered with 2x hb's. The guitar design looks to be changing a bit from what I sent you btw
Tim, can you tap the coils on this (these?) a couple of k from the end and do 6 conductor PDT_009
You guys might appreciate this
http://people.freenet.de/schnubelken/bunnys/
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Hi Dan,
What about a P-90 or mini-Mule? These are narrower than the regular HB and both have a great sound. I have a Crawler/P-90 set up and they blend really well and also give me the tone I was after. I am just waiting my mini-Mule (along with a tapped HB size P-90 and Alnico V Strat!). This is going on a custom guitar that has very little space between the 24th fret and the Wilkinson Tremelo :huge:
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Single coil isn't an option for me. I can't stand hum :lol:
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The mini-mule is a LP Deluxe/Firebird mini humbucker. I guess though that for an 8 string this might be a problem! What about the PB split HB solution? Having 2 4 string single coils pickups in line with rw/rp to be humbucking?
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An 8 string guitar? Where I come from we call that a harp :wink:
I'd love to see some pics of the guitars you've made. Do you have a website?
BTW, cool bunny jokes :twisted: I guess the Aussie expression would be sick but fair.
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8-string?
Thinking of forming a meshuggah tribute band?
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The forbon is only 6" x 6", I was thinking of ironing it :roll:
I think I get what you're saying with the stacked coil. If the coils are identically wound and sensing the same string movement they cancel out a heap of signal???
I'm not a Strat kind of guy and I've never heard a stack designed to give humbucker balls. I'm giving this thing a heap of upper fret access so things are looking a little cluttered with 2x hb's. The guitar design looks to be changing a bit from what I sent you btw
Tim, can you tap the coils on this (these?) a couple of k from the end and do 6 conductor PDT_009
You guys might appreciate this
http://people.freenet.de/schnubelken/bunnys/
6 con!! Hell why not so long as you can figure out how to wire it up :lol:
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lol that's the spirit!
Meshuggah noooooo. I can't stand their 8-string work.
I've been playing 7 a long time and I think 8 will help me express myself better.
It's really just laziness, the more strings you have the less you have to move your hand up and down the neck :lol:
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for Ratrod
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/dpmasunder/0D7SJ6Frontish.jpg)
http://www.benedom.com/seven-string.html
No website yet, it's almost ready.
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Most recent possible outline - this is the 10th attempt :lol: the jpeg conversion is a bit rough for some reason
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/dpmasunder/yetanother.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/dpmasunder/cr@prender.jpg)
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They look amazing-just don't ask me to play it,I have enough trouble with 6 strings :lol:
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Any feedback on the design would be appreciated btw :drink:
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Nice stuff! I like the upper horn of the 8-string, kinda like an inverted Iceman. BTW you must have BIG hands.
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Dude, I have tiny hands.
Perhaps there's some deep psychological reason for this.
Overcoming my digital inadequacies :roll:
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I once tried a 7-string Ibanez. All my fingers are quite long exept for my pinky. I could wrap my fingers around the fretboard but I had trouble getting my pinky on the low E-string. Same with those 'Police-chords', I sometimes think I should get a short scale guitar for that stuff, like a Jag.
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Just buy a bass and play that occasionally. Those stretches won't bother you anymore :lol:
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In that case, I'd get me an upright bass. :lol:
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I haven't put a great deal of thought into it but using a four pole 5-way with 6 conductor
this might work, I've done something similar with 3 hb's before
1 - Bridge pickup
2 - Bridge pickup tapped
3 - One coil from each pickup, maybe tapped
4 - Neck pickup tapped
5 - Neck pickup
Wire the five-way switch so the output of it is equivalent to standard 4-con then run that to a series/parallel switch. So you get 5 series sounds
and 5 parallel.
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You can also do the PRS settings with this:
Bridge pu
Screw bridge/Screw neck parallel
Screw bridge/Screw neck series*
Slug Bridge/Slug neck parallel**
Neck pu
I would change this so that * is both hb's and ** is the Screw coils in series.
You would have to really think about phase if you are putting a series/parallel switch after the 5-way. I've wired a 4 pole 5 way for all series settings and series/parallel within the switch, but it would be difficult to change the phase for all coils the same way after the switch. :crazy2:
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Phase would be the same in series and parallel modes.
Sorry, I don't quite understand your concern??
Essentially the 5-way just selects which coils (or taps) are active and spits
it out as a single 4-conductor humbucker.
+1 on the upright Ratrod. I'd love one, but they ain't cheap!
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i was thinking about the direction of the winding. As I understand it, if you want the coils to be hum cancelling you normally need rw/rp for one coil against the other. So depending which coil set you are picking in your 1 coil from each pu, it might be a problem. It might be that I didn't think mine out well enough, but it is easy to get a non-hum cancelling combination when you are selecting different coils.
With the 4 way I guess you would be using one coil on each switch. I was thinking that as sometimes you need to go to ground vs to another coil, doing the series/parallel after the switch might be a problem depending on which coil combination is selected on the 5-way.
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you're absolutely right re. coil selection.
I guess I've been doing this a while so I automatically think like that now, sad eh? :lol:
I'll go through that wiring on paper later, it's not something I'd put a lot of thought into yet.
F@#$'s with your head sometimes wiring up 4-poles doesn't it :lol:
It's even worse when you've got pickups from different makers, dummy coils and that kind of cr@p
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Even more confusing when you forget which magnets you've flipped....
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It really does your head in. I spent about 2 hours working out how to get H/S/S series wiring in all 5 positions! In the end I settled for both P/U in parallel because I couldn't work out how to get all 4 coils in series :idiot2:
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+1 on the upright Ratrod. I'd love one, but they ain't cheap!
You can get a cheap one for about 600 Euro's. King basses are indeed priceless.
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Grrrrrrr. Well, after waiting many weeks for a quote on the cover machining (a contact of my bro) it turns out the dude can't do it.
Very frustrating. Looks like I'll have to go back to the bare forbon look.
Tim, I'm a little paranoid about the fly lead concept, do you think that method of wiring has much durability? Have you got a pic of something similar?
I can put room for eyelets on it.
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I made an experimental 8 string many years ago, around '67 I think, with one string above the standard 6, and one below. The top string was the problem, there weren't many gauges available then and I broke many banjo 5th strings before giving up and making it a 9 strng with the top three doubled. It was......er.....interesting to play, but didn't really do a lot for me. I guess if I did it again I would add two bass strings below the standard 6. I much preferred the 9 which was a lot easier to play than a 12 string, but gave a similar effect. However, I have more than enough trouble with 6 strings to want any more now.................
Good luck though!
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Very cool R/2e! Mine will have two lower strings.
I think I've got the pickup flatwork sorted now, finally.
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2 lower strings, are you going down to F# Meshuggah style or lower?
Sounds good though, have you got any pics/specs?
I am (one day) gonna build a Warmoth Baritone 7 string, which would be much the same thing, sans high E...
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It'll be F# or G, I may tune the whole lot up a semitone, but I won't be playing Meshuggah on it, though I do like Fredrik's solo work :wink:
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It'll be F# or G, I may tune the whole lot up a semitone, but I won't be playing Meshuggah on it, though I do like Fredrik's solo work :wink:
Sounds cool, I look forward to seing your finished project.
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Update - the fibre is at the laser cutters, won't be long now :twisted:
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One question, why?
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Because 7 isn't enough anymore :lol:
With 8 strings I have more notes available at any given hand position, so in essense I'm lazy.
I find myself wanting to jump quickly between low and high notes, and wanting to do things that an 8 would make easier.
It's not just about getting lower notes, if that were the case I'd tune a bari 6 to F#.
Now you know.
One question for you. Why not? :wink:
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Been playing with the design again :roll:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/dpmasunder/newbody20-bolton1.jpg)
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(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/dpmasunder/pickupparts0.jpg)
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we look forward to working on them!
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:lol: I missed the post office on Friday, they'll be on their way Monday.
Just 4 coils for the time being, should I send spares just in case?
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Just the 4 coils will be fine. Tims away this week, but we will get started on them asap!
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So, how's things progressing?? 8)
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(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/dpmasunder/IM000640.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/dpmasunder/IM000644.jpg)
Awesome! Thanks BKP.
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Awesome indeed, let us know how they sound in the Guitar.
Are they modeled on a current BK?
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The wind was a variation on the warpig set, slightly tweaked for the 8 strings.
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that is very nice!!!
wonder how everything will sound