Single string pickups

[charlie monroe]

Although the rails thing is cool, I wouldn't get hung up on moving the pickups laterally.

I have seen PilotJones work out the most complicated scale equations you can think of. He knows loads about physics. And he's in your thread already. If you told him the scale length, gauge of strings and value of the pick up, he could probably tell you within a thou where to drop those babies.

What might be more important is pickup height.

Lots of bass pickups were furnished with adjustable pole pieces, because the manufacturers were unable or unwilling to balance multiple strings in one pickup. You have the challenge of balancing 6 pickups. YMMV as i don't know if guitars are as sensitive to pickup height as bass.

 

[TheCatalyst]

That sounds like a routing nightmare with cables.

+1

 

[pilotjones]

The bass with the swinging pickup is the vViper, made by Spalt.

There is no mathematically perfect place for a pickup. Certain positions will accentuate certain overtones, while killing others. And it all changes with each fretted string tone. The best guides are the tones of existing basses, taking their pickup positions into consideration. The general bass <--> treble trends of effects of movement towards or away from the bridge are both theoretically and empirically supported. You can check the "pickup response applet" that is referenced in the stickies.

There is a difficulty to be encountered with staggered single pickups, that you can't get the exact same position (and tone) from adjacent strings. Just as the way a P bass gets a different tone from the E and A than from the D and G.

 

[Triad]

I think that making 6 coils (each one adjustable in height) could be nice. I always wanted to make something like that with wooden covers but it would be a pain to adjust the height for each round wooden cover, expecially 'cause they should be pretty small if you want to avoid the staggered thing. Not more than 15mm each. No room for screws if you don't put them right into the magnet itself

 

[MortallyWounded]

one step further:

make these pickups movable along a rail!
i would definitely get these (as long as they aren´t ridiculously expensive).

I stumbled upon this thread looking for manufacturers of single-string pickups, because I want to do just this. My goal is to locate each pickup in that particular string's "sweet spot" and allow them to be adjustable in two axis (height and distance from bridge saddle) so that the sound can be tailored for different action/gauge/intonations.

Then, each individual pickup would have its own adjustable tone and volume trim pots, located inside the body cavity, to be adjusted for each string upon setup. Once you've got your new strings set up the way you want them, tweaking of the position and trims of each pickup can produce a more balanced output in terms of harmonics, output level, and tonal qualities.

If you want to get extremely weird though, the pole pieces could further be adjusted. Modular magnets to tailor the sound even further simply by changing each magnet for different strength.

And lastly, each string should probably have it's own unique wind pattern, number of turns, and possibly even gauge of wire. Heck, the coils themselves could even be modular, possibly in a plug-and-play breadboard bed system.

On second thought, maybe I'll just buy a new EMG HZ set and call it a day. I don't even think I could make all those adjustments before the strings got worn out.

 

[Triad]

You could do this: make a wooden shell big enough (big like two humbuckers+a ramp), put in that cover the coils glued on small metal bases (threaded). On the side of the ramp toward the bridge you can place screws like the ones used on the Fender style bridges to set the octaves and use them to move the coils back and forth. You could do this on both sides (neck and bridge) to get two adjustable coils under each string. And of course the whole shell can be adjusted in height.

 

[funnyfingers]

Comparing this to piezo saddles for midi, you could use a midi output. You could then combine them into a normal 1/4" in in a box. Also the midi out should work with a midi controller to make it so the E and the A really sound like a bass.

 

[bigbri5050]

Lol I think this is quickly outrunning my knowledge on the topic. Could I use the same output for all the pickups then? For instance, say I had a standard bridge pickup, and in the neck position I had 6 individual string pickups. Each of the six were ran to their own controls as well as to a killswitch. All of those leads would then join and would share a blend pot with the bridge pickup. Would this sort of a configuration work? Would there be too much cross talk?

The minute you combine signals with a pot you will get crosstalk between them. You should aim to have a small operational amplifier for each signal and then take the outputs to a virtual earth op amp which will combine the signal. If you know what you are doing it should be possible

 

[rudy4444]

I have been thinking about these for a while and started lookin into them some more. The idea has been brought up on here a few times but the question I have was never addressed that I saw. Here is an example for anyone who doesnt know what I am talking about:
View attachment 2051219
I saw that a company called synco makes them. A place called wind world makes what they call magnetic spot pickups.
Its done with a lot of electric violins, double basses etc. I have wound pickups before and I am thinking about winding some of these to play with for a standard electric but I was wondering about the target value I should wind to. Some of the sites I saw had them wired in series but I wouldnt want to do that. I would want to isolate each coil. But that makes me wonder what ohm value I should be hitting. I dont know a lot about pickup winding theory. Say I usually wind my pickups to 10k ohms. Should each individual coil be wound to 10k ohms? Or should they be a sixth of that value even though it wont be wired in series? I didnt know if the value would change if its only responding to one strings movements.

I've wound a bunch of 6, 7, and 8 pole pickups and there's one thing I'd advise you to consider seriously. Whatever you end up doing for each coil and how you combine them make sure you configure them to buck hum. You'll be very glad you did.

Working with #42 through #44 wire isn't for the faint of heart, and remember when you think about your ultimate "dream" pickup to not be so heavenly bound you're no earthly good. All the stuff is easy to dream up and way more difficult to implement. Far better to do a solid design based on real-world examples if you want to end up with something other than a science project.

 

[Beej]

Six year old questions, but good answers!

 

[Bruce Johnson]

The minute you combine signals with a pot you will get crosstalk between them. You should aim to have a small operational amplifier for each signal and then take the outputs to a virtual earth op amp which will combine the signal. If you know what you are doing it should be possible

We have a special thread on here, all about strange and goofy pickups. It includes how to make them and discussions of theory. Several different examples of types of single-string (aka multi-coil) pickups.

Magnets & Copper Wire: A Pickup Building Thread

 

[charlie monroe]

Six year old questions, but good answers!

The cool thing is that @synesthesia is still active!

 

[moonshinegtrs]

I've had success using versions of these...

DIY Pickup


Moonshine

 

[Jisch]

I saw this posted on FB this morning - GRECIAN SEKOVA CA. 1963: