Anyone ever make their own pickups?

Doctor J

Just wondering, it's something I wouldn't mind having a stab at. It'd be interesting to see how different techniques and materials result in different sounds.

Karl Hungus

I've a friend who winds his own bass pickups, but no, I've never attempted it myself. I wouldn't mind giving it a stab though, they've got kits on www.stewmac.com that include all you need to make your own pups.

Edit: Here you go: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Pickups:_Kits.html

Doctor J

Aye, I've seen the stewmac ones, handy if you're just making a regular guitar pickup, but I'd be more interested in trying something different rather than make something Seymour Duncan does much better

There are a few builders out there, for example Q-tuner, Lace and Nordstrand who are doing interesting and different things to varying degrees with pickup design.

Karl Hungus

Doctor J wrote:

Aye, I've seen the stewmac ones, handy if you're just making a regular guitar pickup, but I'd be more interested in trying something different rather than make something Seymour Duncan does much better

There are a few builders out there, for example Q-tuner, Lace and Nordstrand who are doing interesting and different things to varying degrees with pickup design.

Ah right, any idea about how you're going to go about this? I mean, in terms of something different.

Also, oooh, that looks intruiging!

Doctor J

Just trying different ideas, different layouts and stuff... something different to the existing 60 year old designs. I'd like to get a full grasp of how the standard pickup works and try different applications to achieve different results.

The Doktor

Yep, I made one years ago. Just to see if I could.
Made a small frame from plasticard, and got 6 magnets an a heap o wire. Then made a yoke to make winding the wire on a bit easier (kinda like the little handle you use to wind your new strings on, only bigger.
Then made it active too... was fun and worth doin.
Would be worth while to start with a basic one, to see what different guage wire, more/less windings, different magnets etc do. And hear the difference for yourself, rather than readin about it.

Voodu Child

Theres a tonne of companies with big resources experimenting with different layouts & materials.

Best way to come up with different end results is to start from a different place altogether. Theres been very little done in the area of optical pickups, and its pretty simple to do in practice.

EDIT - an example of using optics to turn a vibrating medium into sound - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ9LQHazTRg

Karl Hungus

Optical pickups intruige me a lot, I remember reading about them before. Stuff like Lightwave. Though the sound samples sound very sterile altogether.

Voodu Child

Karl Hungus wrote:

Stuff like Lightwave

My bad, maybe there has been more development in that area than I thought. What they say on that site pretty much makes sense anyway - no electric interference, no magnetic interaction with the string (better sustain), no responce curves etc. Dont know if thats a good thing or bad thing until I hear it - we're so used to the faults of magnetic pickups that they seem like qualities.