Pickups and drop tuning

[GlennW]

Originally Posted by SGD Lutherie

But it is like the Fire/Thunderbird sidewider turned 90 degrees. Of course Bill designed those as well.

I can see the P-90 similarities now that you mention it. I've saved a bunch of pictures you've posted and was checking out the Ripper and TB bass pics. Unconventional approaches that work.

[Derek Kiernan]

http://www.billlawrence.com/Pages/Al...tm/Patent2.htm

The design is well explained there. Good read! You learn a lot if you go through and try to digest it once or twice.

[SGD Lutherie]

Bill's patents are always a good read. He did a great article back in the 70's on pickups for GuitarPlayer. That's what got me interested in making pickups.

Bill has a lot of patents:

3,711,619 (1973)
3,902,394 (1975)
3,915,048 (1975)
3,916,751 (1975)
4,151,776 (1979)
4,364,295 (1982)
D279,380 (1985)
5,376,754 (1994)
5,789,691 (1998)
7,227,076 (2007)

The two Bartolini patents 3983777 & 3983778 are very interesting also.

[greenboy]

Erno and Bill, Erno and Bill! - and David for that matter!

[rbonner]

Did some things since my last post. looked at the action and measured the E and A strings to the pickup and fingerboard. Raised the center two strings slightly as you had mentioned David the poles were higher because of the higher middle strings.

This tamed the E and A strings some more and now they are in line volume wise between the B and E... I'm suprised it didnt take very much...

I also changed the preamp here to a bass guitar preamp instead of the HIFI mic / instrument amp I had been using. I didnt A-B test as the other preamp is going back on a mic anyway. But things sound really good now.

Thanks for the assistance guys. Another mystery solved.

BOB