Q-Tuner pickups

Doctor J

I was thinking of replacing the Bartolini's in my Ibanez bass and came across Q-Tuner

Looks impressive, but does anyone know what this says in English?

Antisocialiser

No Doctor J, we ask you answer :P

Doctor J

Damn you. Damn you all to hell. Does nobody speak this techno mumbo jumbo?

Where in the name of Eircom league football is Feylya?

Paladin

Lots of what they are on about seems to be ****.
Well, a lot of said on the site is true, but there are some things they go on about (The virtual edge continuum Hyphothesis) that I havent heard of before.

What they are sugesting however, is that the pickups themselves be adjusted physically to alter the tone of the notes picked up. By varying mechanical values, one can amplify or attenuate harmonics.

Im sceptical as to the extent they can do this and even more so of the real positive effect it will have.
The harmonics they are talking about affecting are miles beyond human hearing afaik (for quality pickups anyway). I think harmonics between 15KHz and 25KHz Might well have an impact on the quality of sound, but not too much, and if necessary these can be amplified at the preamp stage (turn up treble in high quality preamps). Bear in mind that most people cant hear beyond 15KHz.
In my electronics class, experimenting with an amplifier in a lab, only myself and 1 other guy could hear anything at 17KHz and nothing beyond that

Still, it might be interesting to have one of these pickups in a guitar to try it out. Might be amazing new sound (still a sceptic however).

Doctor J

I sent the guy an email and he got back to me straight away -

"Thanks for your e-mail. Q-tuners are the best pickups in the world. The sound is ultra-transparent and highly dynamic. Model BXXL is available for the bridge (High Z 14 Kohms) and for the neck/upper position (Medium Z 11 Kohms). Q-tuner pickups are passive- no 9V required. I guarantee that the BXXL will make your bass sound much better or you will get a full refund. Feel free to e-mail me again in case you need to know more."

He doesn't mince his words, does he?

It seems you can do all sorts of fun things with the many many pole pieces. What few reviews there are for them seem very positive.

Here's a pic of the 6 string bass pickup

feylya

HERE I AM!

Now, I kinda know a dude who is delevoping one of these pickups. Allow me to find his explanation on what it does.

BEHOLD:

it is an active mulitple coil pickup with its own preamp and it has an adjustable midrange boost and high end cut. so as you crank up the midrange it givesyou a little less highs as you turn the knob. also i am putting a threeband eq in one of them to see how that goes. with a resonance trimmer with a thumbwheel so its all in the pickup. it also utilized one half of an inductor to help give some noise canceling via feeding back some negative humm off of what it picks up on its own, without being attached like a normal humbucker



basically i am taking an slightly over wound single coil mounting it on its side. using high output pickups. but redirecting the magnetic flow so that it pulls opposite of the normal vertical pull and pulls horizontal. there was a magnetic genius who happened to be a guitar player, all though i dont' remmeber his name. and anyway he developed these insanly cool pickups on this.

now i am using the heavy duty magnets and a slight over wound coil to compensate for the refocusing of the magnetic field and still have a good sound, i have already done this and i know it yields a very pleasing sound. so i am going to proceed with this design.

And a sketch of it Here

Eoin Madsen

Originally posted by Paladin

In my electronics class, experimenting with an amplifier in a lab, only myself and 1 other guy could hear anything at 17KHz and nothing beyond that

That would be because of the limitations of the speaker or amplifier system. You should be able to hear up to at least 19Khz unless you're a 70 year old man. The average is 20kHz, with the upper limit being 21-22kHz. Having any trouble with the oul prostate lately?

Doctor J

Gonna have to give them a miss, methinks. My 6 string has a fairly narrow string spacing and their 6 string pickup wouldn't really fit my bass. Shame. The guitar in the wav file sounds sweet, ditto for the bass.

The guy is very anti-active - "At the risk of losing a potential customer, I make objections to the active electronics. Technically, most if not all active guitar/bass electronics is just "toy stuff". The pickup has to do the work, not the added electronics. The best advise I can give you is to install a pair of Q-tuner and to bypass the active electronics. No offence. I am just trying to help you with some honest advise."

Ah well the search continues....

Paladin

"Ear". Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia. CD-ROM. 2000. -

"The maximum range of human hearing includes sound frequencies from about 15 to about 18,000 waves, or cycles, per second." = 15-18,000 Hz

Nah Eoin, 20KHz is given as a nice round figure. The Human ear is generally not that good.
Most adults have an upper threshold of 16KHz, and whilst children very occasionally show limits approaching 20KHz, 18KHz is a more accurate upper threshold for them.

Whilst the speaker we used in our electronics experiment was pretty run of the mill, it was a tweeter that would easily work beyond 20KHz, although the power diminishes greatly around this. However the amp we had had plenty of power to blow up the speaker if we wanted so it really was just the fact the ear couldnt hear it.

However, there are arguments that higher frequencies DO matter.
See James Boyk's Paper on the matter.
There are many many rebukes of this (not just this paper, but this entire idea of "feeling" sound above 20KHz) but to be honest, I think that frequencies above 20KHz do matter to the "colour" of live sound more than Hi-Fi sound. It might explain why live music really is better!

Intrestingly, the ear accentuates frequencies around 3.5-5KHz (voice) and at around 13KHz. Its guessed that the 13KHz peak is due to it being around the 3rd Harmonic of the peak of our hearing range. I think that other harmonics (about 22KHz, 26KHz) could well have an impact on our ear when carried on other fundamental waves, and tho this is an unproven thing afaik, it is accepted by many.

However, Im still sceptical as to improvement having pickups "adjustable" to accenuate certain harmonics/frequencies. I dont think the improvement will be that significant.

Ok Ill stop rambling!
Im just interested in this sort of stuff (weird eh). Might try get a career in amp design if Im not forced into working for a living

PS - Eoin, How did you know about my prostate trouble? Were you that masked man?!?!

Eoin Madsen

If you say so, I've been told differently. I can hear 20 kHz from my studio monitors, but their reproduction falls off very rapidly from 18 kHz and up, from what I can tell by recording them. Obviously the mic is a factor in that too. I noticed if I go digital through my desk at 48k sampling I can only hear 19hHz, interestingly. Anyway, bear in mind that speakers rated 20-20k can't properly reproduce 20k - it just means it can barely hit that, if you turn it up real loud and use a sine wave... Most tweeters and HF compression drivers are only rated for 20kHz or 22kHz at most, so I have my doubts in general. While researching guitar speakers a while back (with a view to building my own cab) I noticed that they generally only have a frequency response of 75Hz to 5000Hz.

Those pickups sound like a great idea, but you'd need a special guitar cab with HF drivers or tweeters in it, or there'd be no difference.