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A crazy idea. Stick with me.

calmb4tehpwn

calmb4tehpwn

Jan 2, 2011
607
0
Burnsville, MN
#1
Okay. Typing this on my phone excuse any typos or dropped words. I'll update when I get home.

I am an it professional and have always been interested in luthiery and pickup construction. Now I am currently being spun up on the theory and practical application. Of fiber optics. I wont go into what exactly that is, only that I intend to build a Fiber optic guitar. Replace all the copper wiring. this presented a few problems, my first idea was to just put a media converter, convert analong signals in the copper to Optics, transmit to the preamp and convert back. This is fine. Fun stuff. Doesn't do anything. Doesn't improve the quality of the information moved, and in the end doesn't move it a whole lot faster. So o thought replace all the copper in the bass. But wait. Copper wound pickups. I can't replace those with the current level of available optical fiber technology. It probably exists in a lab someplace. But if I want to use it. I need to make it. Put that on the backburner. Okay so media converter at the preamp, and copper through to the speaker, audible sound waves to our ears. Wait. We don't need a preamp, strictly speaking, fiber data can move for miles, and we can have onboard preamps to doctor the sound. Straight to the power amp, right? Wait. Why Do That? Go straight to a powered speaker. Make a speaker With optical input, straight media converter into a powered audio source. This way all the way from the vibration in the strings to the vibration in the speaker. There is no conversion into data. It never becomes a digital signal and only translated into another type of wavelength. Or course you would need a 9volt in the bass, and power to drive the speakers. But otherwise passive all the way to the speaker. The most pure sound aside from acoustics. Potentially undoctored.

Now. I know. This is crazy. Surely someones working on It already. Wait. There was an article about this.

There is a prototype fiber optic guitar. But this operates With fiber strings, which When pressed at a certain fret cuts the information passing and that information is read as a certain note and sent to the amp. This means You don't actually need to strum. Its a keyboard essentially. Press a fret, produces a note. I'm talking about inventing a pickup that turns the sound into light and not analog data.

I understand. This is a four decade project I'm talking about. Funding of at the very least hundreds of thousands of dollars and help from experts in a couple different fields.

But it's possible.
 
#3
calmb4tehpwn said:
But wait. Copper wound pickups. I can't replace those with the current level of available optical fiber technology. It probably exists in a lab someplace. But if I want to use it. I need to make it. Put that on the backburner.
Click to expand...

I have no background in this, but... How about developing an optical pickup? Something that might resemble a Fender-type p/u cover, but with sensors inside and below each string that would capture the vibrations and relay them to the media converter?
 
#5
Luv2Pla4U said:
I have no background in this, but... How about developing an optical pickup? Something that might resemble a Fender-type p/u cover, but with sensors inside and below each string that would capture the vibrations and relay them to the media converter?
Click to expand...

It would need a sealed environment, otherwise you'd be picking up optical noise from your picking fingers, picks, dust, etc. Anything above the pickup would potentially introduce noise in the system, and not the good kind.

One could probably isolate the signal pretty well, but not perfectly. For example, you could use UV LEDs and LSDs, and UV-reactive strings (like DR Neons), but you'd still have noise.

That's why Lightwave puts their optical pickups in a covered bridge, where there are no fingers to be picked up.
 
#8
Did you say, no digitizing of the signal? Are you proposing to do analog light communication? Assuming you first develop a set of transmitters and receivers that can even do that: in such a system every change in the bending physical shape) of the light pipe, whether long-term or transient, would produce a change in output.
 
#10
Interesting concept, my uncle TB's own PassinWind created a prototype years ago using an LED shooting across the string with receptors to collect the visual wave I believe.

Also another flaw I will point out is that a powered speaker is still powered by an amp, regardless of if it's seen or not.

Dirk
 
#12
Okay, so this was a concept built in a day. It needs to be a digital signal. There's not exactly a way to turn audio waves into IR wavelengths without digitizing. It was minutes after my post that I realized that.

I would still like to avoid any copper in the entire construction.

I'm going to look up lightwaves now, but I'd like a media converter to be part of the design, which I'm assuming isn't in the lightwaves design.

Anyways, I'll hit you up in a bit when I start to figure out which parts aren't feasible or need to be reworked. Keep the feedback coming! This is why I bought it up on the board.
 
#13
Okay. So lightwave doesn't use fiber optics throughout the instrument, only use optics to read the vibration in the string. Which -is- what I was envisioning when I briefly considered it. I'd like the compound on the concept, as they probably wouldn't appreciate my using their proprietary pickups for my fiber optics design.

Knowing that the technology is not only feasible, but applicable makes the rest of this a lot easier. I don't actually have to invent anything.

As to the powered speaker idea. I intend to have a power amp that's integral to the speaker. Since there is no power in fiber optics, I want to avoid power until the very last stage.
 
#14
I have thought about this, very broadley though.
But I had an idea of running fibreoptic material down the centre of the string, and have a hole for the light to shine through were the pickups would sit. There I would have a receiver to pickup the light variations. But that wont work due to dust and what not.
Another method was lasers to get a more definate signal, but again you rely on optics which will be affected by dust, oils and so on.

I think Lightwave have done as good as possible with the light design with current tech.
 
#15
my current idea (which may be short lived) is to have a pickup cover, with edge emitting LEDs (a thinner line than the standard surface emitting) or perhaps a class 1 laser, shining down from the inside of the cover, with a receiver where the pickups would be normally. That way the strings are interrupting the path of the light with a certain consistency (or frequency). Programming the pickups to read the frequencies, though, will be the hard part. Potentially, though, there's no need for it to be in the regular pickup location. It could be down by the bridge, if each note vibrates in a specific way. It doesn't matter how much the string moves, only how, so it doesn't need to be in the middle. Right?
 
#16
O.P.
The sound we are getting from current technology speaker wire and analog amps is quite sufficient. Sound IS analog, and the small imperfections inserted by the electronics are either beyond perception(solid state) or desirable(tube).

Ditto on your worrying about fiber-optic string pickups - you realize the sound of most good pickups is pretty close to the sound of the actual instrument....what exactly are you hoping to accomplish?

Current state-of-art is for the power amp to be in the same enclosure as the speaker, to avoid wire/line losses - this is known as active-powered speakers. It's been around for a while.

Brother, this is obviously something far beyond your knowledge and expertise. It really sounds like an idea cooked up whilst someone was highly medicated or intoxicated. Or did you bet a friend how many people would try to respond in a cogent fashion to your ramblings? I like how you figured out 1/2 an hour later that sound has to be converted to analog to be heard. Where is the ROFLMAO icon?:D
 
#17
I was hoping my ramblings were at least a bit coherent, and it wasn't that I didn't understand that it must be analog to be heard, it was that that I didn't consider it ever need to leave analog, but to convert medium, between audio and light, the medium would need to be digital. You're right, there's a lot of concepts I'm still grasping in regards to this project, and it's clearly something I'm not planning to undertake right now. But the fact is that everything in this world has skyrocketed in the level of technology involved, but the instrument side of music hasn't moved since they invented cavity shielding.

Sure, that's an exaggeration. Clearly pickups have made various leaps, but why tear me down for investigating the possibility of exploring instrument technology? It's just uncalled for.

You're entitled to your opinion, and I asked for criticism, but unless you've got anything constructive, I'll ask now that you step off.
 
#18
SO many of your ideas were only half formed (like the amp in the speaker scenario, that was a hoot) that it is impossible to take this post seriously at all. It really should have been in the humor section. I will now step off.
 
#19
So here's my take: If you're looking to build a hobby lab in the basement, and give yourself something to work on for the next couple of decades, you're on the right track. This could take up a ton of time. And be a bunch of fun too.

If you're looking to create a product for mass marketing, you're going about it all backwards. The best products are the result of someone needing something - "necessity is the mother of invention" as they say. If we view it from the perspective of pursuing a mass market instrument, this project seems to me to be trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. People like how the copper-wire based electric bass works and sounds. That's why the leading selling guitars and basses have changed so little over time. They work... efficiently, and elegantly.

What I would suggest is that if you want to create a product, create a NEW instrument, don't be satisfied with revamping an existing one. I don't know if there's such a thing (yet) as an optical theremin, but something like that might be a start.
 
#20
I've built a bass with the lightwave system. (it wasn't cheap)
The thing with IR pickups is that the conversion to audio doesn't sound like any current bass made. The fundamental frequency of the note being played is much more pronounced.

Unfortunately most modern bass amplification doesn't do fundamentals very well, and when they do, it sounds very different than what we're all used to hearing from a bass.

That's why the Lightwave company added a piezo transducer and a magnetic emulation switch. Some builders even put magnetic pickups with the Lightwave system to bring it closer to the sound we are used to hearing.

Please don't think I'm trying to discourage you. I just think you should be aware of the inherent issues with what your talking about doing.

There are a couple good aspects to IR pickups. First,You don't have to use magnetic (or even metal) strings, which opens up a lot of possibilities.
Secondly, the strings aren't effected by magnets, so the sustain and sound is much more "open"

It's not a bad idea you've got. I would suggest contacting the Lightwave guys and seeing what they've come up with so far. They we're very helpful when I was working on my project. They've got at least ten years of work into this idea.

The last time I talked to them they had a daughter board that would take the IR signal and convert it into 13 pin midi signal for about $150. :eyebrow:

Good luck, and post pics when you start your project.:)
 

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