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Guitar Lounge / Re: H-S-H models? (other than Ibanez)

« on: August 07, 2012, 04:11:33 PM »

Jackson had a few too IIRC.  though that might be a little too similar to IBZ for you.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« on: August 07, 2012, 04:02:40 PM »

^ one of them is you.

LOL! I'm fully aware.  I'm also realizing this probably isn't the place for anything overly technical either.  might have served a better purpose over at MEF.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« on: August 06, 2012, 10:45:37 PM »

Talk about going off topic!!!! What was this thread about again??? :lol:

Dude I dunno anymore, other than two assholes arguing about something nobody else on here cares about.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« on: August 06, 2012, 10:42:24 PM »

No, I'm using an analogy to indicate that I think you are both missing the point.  ALL those things matter, inductance, capacitance, resistance, etc. 

Actually my point was more about context lol! And regarding specifically the resonance frequency.  Luijo was absolutely right about capacitance being neglegable but only on a conditional basis - when discussing how a pickup acts as a first approximation of transferring energy from the strings and producing an alternating voltage across a resistive load,  but its a very wrong statement if you are making a blanket statement, especially considering a second approximation about its significance to the eq of the pickup, and where the energy gets focused, in which winding capacitance is extremely significant, as inductance as a calculated value by itself can't make the pickup sound like anything.   That article he posted does do a very good job of explaining this though.

What would a pickup sound like with a 9h inductance and a 0.1pf winding capacitance?  That being a scenario where winding capacitance is truley neglegible.  Just what would that sound like?

I mod tube amp circuits.  I have thousands and thousands of hours actually in the circuit learning what the affect of this or that is.  Everything matters. 

Me too! Wanna share some build porn?

As for capacitance, I've had EEs swear to my face that you can't hear a 100pf cap.  My response is always the same, which is to pull the largest bill in my wallet out and put it on the table, and say, "wanna bet?".  Of course you can hear 100pf, and feel it, easily.   Thats the difference between thousands of hours actually doing it, and "I think based on what i read in a book and by best guess that.......".

Well You have to Establish a context for that too to be honest, and not even with just the obvious.  The obvious being Say you have a source impedance of 500k (the junction of a two 1M voltage divider with have about this) and you place a 100pf capacitor from that junction to the return (because I hate the term ground) 100pf is very significant, because not withstanding any other phase shifts you get a first order lowpass filter that is -3db at 3.2k.  but say you are talking 100 ohms, 100pf won't be "directly" audible in the same context because the filter produced is outside the range of human hearing, and an engineer will take that as a "must be Inaudible" gospel, but psycoacoustics are a bitch that way, and not everything is as cut and dry - switch mode power supplies, although the junk they kick up is at very high frequencies will have an audible effect on  a guitar tube amp say which often operates at a pretty narrow frequency range.  One thing I do agree with though is that if the effect is real, it can be measured.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« on: August 05, 2012, 03:55:57 AM »

Back to square one, I've NEVER said is not important,

I believe you made a blanket statement and said it was a negligible factor , which is indeed not true, And in terms of the resonance frequency - something that is pretty significant, it is pretty important (which is the only thing I have been talking about).  You were pretty quick to say that capacitance was insignificant enough that it shouldn't be botherd with, and yet the article you yourself posted encourages the exact opposite to significantly alter the pickups tone.

just that inductance is FAR more important...that's all. You keep doing circles around the point that there are other important things, which I don't deny, just that there is one aspect that is far more important in this particular case. And as you'd just said, it does depend on the context.

But thats the thing, In What particular case? Determining the resonance frequency? What contexts concerning the pickup did you elaborate on?  Whether you want to own up to it or not, you really did make a sweeping statement and spoke in absolutes with out elaboration, and tried to discredit something that is pretty important, which is the only thing in this banter I really have issue with.  What I mean it's all in how you approach it, and you can't quote things in an article, that are conditional and need context, in order to spin things.  For example the quote you used from the article.  Why is capacitance negligible in a first approximation? Well if we are simply talking about a first approximation of what a pickup is/does on a functional basis in terms of an amplifying device - a voltage source into a resistive load, we're more interested in in transfer characteristics, not interested time constants/frequency response. So if your argument is only that inductance is the most influential aspect? Absolutely because it affects both realms.  Is your argument capacitance is neglegable as a blanket statement, because inductance is important? Hell no! it is extremely significant, especially for what I have been talking about the whole time, the article your posted reinforces this too.

 Anyway I'm done too!

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« on: August 05, 2012, 01:24:38 AM »

"No, it's not the voltage, its the current!"  "No, it's not the current, its the voltage!" 

Wrong.  It's both.

I know you are being anecdotal, but it really does depend on context. 

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« on: August 05, 2012, 01:05:21 AM »

Very interesting read, among many others around the net:
http://www.buildyourguitar.com/resources/lemme/index.htm
"Many people measure only the resistance and think they know something about a pickup. But this is a fundamental error. By far the most important quantity is the inductance, measured in Henries. It depends on the number of turns, the magnetic material in the coil, the winding density and the overall geometry of the coil. The resistance and the capacitance don´t have much influence and can be neglected in a first approximation."

I'm sorry dude but i just read it and that article makes it very apparent winding capacitance is very influential in the voice of pickup! And is half of the lc filter equation, it actually backs up my whole point! If you bothered to read what i have been trying to tell you! and it tells you can DRASTICALLY Affect the voice of The pickup by increasing capacitance, which can be done easily.  inductance alone CANNOT create an audio filter, a tuned tuned lc filter in this case, which is significant in voicing the pickup. Capacitance is NOT negligible, and is 50% of the resonance frequency equation... and the guy who wrote that states that as well if read.

You still need to differentiate between how a pickup "sounds", and how it "works" which are over lapping, but different things.  If you are talking about how a pickup functions as a self generating voltage source, capacitance doesn't need to be considered (which I never refuted).

However If you are talking about how a pickups "sounds" which I have been talking about the whole time, and in regards to its resonance frequencies, capacitance is NOT NEGLIGABLE! It is very significant as backed up by the article. It is mathematically half of what makes up the resonance freq.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« on: August 04, 2012, 09:16:38 PM »

By the way, 100pf to 250pf isn't insignificant.

  do I  get the neener neener neener rights now?

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« on: July 31, 2012, 06:54:56 PM »

You're missing the main point dude and no matter how many terms and words and formulas you try to throw at it we're back to the same point

I would say the exact same thing to you, you seem to be missing what I'm really talking about! LOL!  Im not talking about the pickup as if it were a pie chart!.  I'm talking about the just the resonance frequency as dictated only by the coil inductance, and inter winding capacitance.

...capacitance's influence in the case of guitar's PU in minimal compared to other factors.

Having a direct influence on the resonance frequency of the coil, One the biggest aspects that makes up the pickups "Voice" I would say that it's more substantial than your making it out to be.  Negligible is not the word I would use for it.  Plus it is one of the few things the end user easily has control over without dissecting anything.

I'm not saying you are wrong I'm just saying that you're putting too much weight into it.
You can add external inductance, resistance and capacitance (like the Bill Lawrence thingy) but we're still talking about the PU and it's main defining characteristic...it's inductance.

I'm talking about what you can do externally to easily adjust one parameter in order to change a fairly significant aspect of the voice.  Adding capacitance in parallel with the coil will shift (and can do so significantly) the resonance frequency down that cant be refuted.  Thats all I'm sayin'.  It's a mod worth trying.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« on: July 31, 2012, 04:16:59 PM »

If you sit down and read your own words we're back where we started, and one of the things I said in my first post and you seem to have passed by..

How so?, I don't believe I'm overlooking what you said, but by the same accord I don't think you understand what I'm saying, or trying to convey.  I'm talking about the primary eq curve of the pickup which is fundamentally dependent  on its resonance frequency(ies), which is an equal product of both coil inductance and self capacitance (winding capacitance).  you cant have the resonance frequency without the capacitance.   I am perfectly willing to run Spice simulations as a visual because they WILL show the fundamental of whats going on.  Losses in the metal parts, and the effect of the magnet not withstanding.  I'm also perfectly willing to scheme out small signal ac models of what goes on externally.  A pickup is not a complicated device, but at the same token it's not just flatly representing what it's picking  up from the strings either.

Being this the type of circuit it is, and no matter how many words and spins you throw at it, inductance is still the biggest and most important factor. I didn't say anywhere capacitance doesn't matter, just that it is negligible in this particular case since this is a coil and we're looking at the coil per se and in this case the effect of capacitance in the final product is very little.

NO it's NOT! 100pf - 200pf like what is found typically in not negligible. The capacitance is an equal in determining the resonance frequency of the coil, Inductance alone, or in conjunction with current generated by moving strings cannot produce an audio filter of any kind.  It's correctly called a reactive circuit, Since we are interested in frequency response at least thats what I'm talking about, we need to look at how it behaves in the AC realm.

If you want to focus on the peripherals sure there are other things that influence the result, but that's equal to having a discussion about turbos in cars and ending up talking about aerodynamics...of course both things make the car go faster, but the topic is turbos.

I'm Simply talking about the resonance frequency which is a tuned filter fundamentally made up of the the inductance and capacitance, and can be influenced externally.  Neither of them are more important than the other when simply talking about the oscillating frequency

breaking it down to a basic level, you can have an inductance of 9h, and a self capacitance of 100pf, and have a resonance frequency of 5Kh as a result.  likewise you can have an inductance of 18H, and a capacitance of 50p and still have the same.

you can have an inductance of 9h 100pf coil , and externally increase capacitance to 200p and you will get 3.8Khz resonance frequency, just as you can have 9H 100pf coil, and increase inductance to 18H, and get the same frequency. both as well as internal and external factors will have an effect on the Q of this circuit, however thats best left out right now.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« on: July 31, 2012, 02:22:54 AM »

being an electrical engineer myself for over 20 years I'm quite interested in the subject.

Cool! what discipline of EE?

As I said in my earlier post all of them are factors, but being a PU a pair of coils the main factor in it is its inductance, since it is an inductive circuit, not a capacitive one.

Capacitive, inductive, both play a role and since we are primarily concerned with how it is applicable to AC it is a "reactive" circuit.  Inductance alone cant determine everything, it is merely one piece, or one note of the triad (did I just go there?, that was dorky!)

That's one of the reasons pole piece material and shape as well as some extra metal in the coils like the DMZ V V technology have such an effect in the sound of PUs. You don't see manufacturers tinkering with caps inside PUs for that same reason,

Well one reason: internal inclusion of a physical capacitor is not really practical nor discrete - not exactly an easy thing to physically include/encase. two that being said, and like I said earlier inductance is the easier of the three parameters to physically control within the case size without affecting the other three, and more importantly one you can be sneaky and discrete about .  you have a couple of choices, you can increase inductance by increasing turns, which means you have use thinner wire, for the same physical coil size, but this as a side effect also more drastically changes the other two of the three parameters, both DCR, and capacitance increases which also affects the resonance peak frequency and q, - it's not so easy to control this way, you traded one for the other.  by comparison, increasing more surface area, or more metal, you can effectively increase the inductance for a given coil without increasing turns, or resorting to thinner wire to do so. 

although you could use them as filters like other guys around here to mod the TZ.
Being so is the reason some manufacturers publish inductance values for their products but none of them publish capacitance values. The most common published figure is the resistance values as it is a figure most people can relate to and can measure with equipment easy to have access to, not the case with inductance since it requires a very specific meter, like the Extech LCR meter which is commonly used by boutique winders  for quality control of their products and experimentation.

True, most publish the DCR as it is the most easily relate-able to the end user, and an easy test for anomalies or partial shorts but this is probably by the same token the most useless parameter to give an idea of how something is behaving in context especially if we are talking about reactive context, and MORE importantly how it sounds musically!.  It doesn't tell you a whole lot in reality by itself, just as much as the DC resistance of a speaker tells you.  Most inductance meters will also just measure DC inductance which is no use to us, it will be several times higher to AC.

Capacitors in a tone control don't increase "composite winding capacitance", they just shunt highs to ground and the pot controls how much of the original signal you send through it.

what does AC really see's in this scenario? (small signal ac really does apply!) the pot controls how much of the cap is isolated from the coil, the fact that ts grounded is irrelevant. the resistance between the cap, and the coil retards the caps effect because to AC the resistor is still the higher impedance path, since to anything above the reactive time constant created by the cap and resistance the cap looks like a dead short (one of the reasons tone controls load your signal by virtue of being connected). what happens when the pot is fully clockwise?, the capacitor is in parallel directly across the coils.

I can simulate this part in spice if you wish and post the results, if you think it will help others or the cause at all since the small signal AC will hold up well in sim. not necessarily the losses part due to materials though, which is not so easy for.  The TZ bass mod is not exactly the same thing, that Is just a simple first order high pass filter because of it's position.

In fact, the tone control cap is isolated from the capacitance of the windings by the value of the tone pot itself in the most common wiring used.

Not as easy as that, you have to examine what AC REALLY see's in this scenario through various sweeps in the pot, which is not as cut and dry.

Please explain more about the real life complications on this matter,

Sure.  You touched on it yourself, its not as cut and dry.  the physical properties make a difference as do the materials used.  magnetomotive properties of the assembly have an effect on the real life empirical result as you mentioned,  especially regarding tone which is what we are concerned about really.  I have seen some actually measure the losses in the brass base plate dimarzio uses, and have deemed it a contributing factor. 

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« on: July 30, 2012, 09:11:48 PM »

For all intent and purposes capacitance in a guitar PU is negligible. You can tinker a little with that but the biggest factor, being a coil, is inductance.
You do get capacitance in the form of the proximity of each turn of wire to the next but if you look around for real detailed PU specs capacitance is minimal.

Keep in mind Inductance is only one factor as well!, be it a guitar pickup, or output transformer.  in a guitar pickup capacitance, equivalent series resistance, and inductance all work together in creating a tank circuit (LCR filter), the equivalent series resistance more effects the Q of the filter.  For all intents and purposes these factors are what gives the pickup (more accurately each coil, the values of which are then determined depending on how you connect the coils) its resonance frequency, (frequencies in the case of the dual resonance designs).  Artificially increasing capacitance just as increasing inductance will shift the resonance frequency lower.  increasing composite winding capacitance is exactly what a tone control does, only a tone control does so drastically because a very high value of capacitance is typically used for a tone control, shifting the resonance frequency way low.  In real life it's gets more complicated, but thats the basics

You change inductance that way, not capacitance.

Exactly, the logic is the same, and in the case of the virtual vintage tech, to increase one parameter only without the others being affected in the process.  It's not as simple as that, but that is the hope.  The same applies again to audio transformer design since I used it as an example above.  one way to increase primary inductance without having to increase turns in an audio output transformer (applies to all transformers not just output) is to add more metal - increase the number of laminates in the stack, but it only goes so far. I can elaborate more if anybody wants

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« on: July 29, 2012, 03:12:32 PM »

I think if you have a pickup you really like, but you want to tailor it more in your own person taste, then modding is great. But to take a pickup you genuinely don't like and tinker with it, may just leave you feeling like you wasted your time. Slim chance you'll like even after all that work and effort, you may just feel like youve gone insane (like i did with the D activator)
Altho I did like hte A8 mag swap in the D-activator it still have the same overall high end spike that i really did not like. Seem scratchy and harsh... And since my rig sounds great with other pickups i use, I aint changing it for a D Activator

yeah I feel the same about that particular model.  There are some qualities I like about it and I can see how it might be good for certain applications which is why I haven't dumped them yet (that and they are yellow with black poles which might make it a bit tough), but generally yes I agree, engineering a solution to circumvent a very easy problem is seldom worth the effort.

For the cap thing though, literally took me 5 min to rig up so I could test in real time, and although It didn't change how I felt, at least I know.  so it was worth it in that regard.  although the flip side is that simple modification to something you do like can lead you to more tonal possibilities.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« on: July 29, 2012, 01:54:14 PM »

 Lone phantom is the guy that helped me love the tone zone,he has a cap mod that rolls off the real big low end of the tone zone and it is great if you think the TZ is too bassy in your guitar.

you can take that mod even further if you dont use your tone pot. 

regarding the JB you can also try and move the voicing by increasing it intrinsic coil capacitance, (self capacitance/parasitic capacitance).  I mentioned the process in the D Activator thread, and you can also make it adjustable too, as well as test out many different values with a few alligator clips.  probably will work better for a jb since it has mirror coils to the best of my knowledge, and not dual res.

There are other things you can do as well to passively alter things,  as well as actively,  although most people  don't like to fuss with batteries

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The mini bar (off topic & misc) / Re: Just waht IS the Relationshio between Seymour Duncan and Larry Dimarzio?

« on: July 29, 2012, 02:21:04 AM »

Steve Blucher is the designer.  Larry is the name.  I don't think Larry has designed a pickup in at least 2 decades, if not 3.

Interesting, I Didn't kniow that. I'd give anything for Larry Dimarzio to custom wind me a set of Strat pickups or a vintage PAF though!
Speaking of which, every now and again comes a "Pre-factory" Dimarzio for sale ( usually at ridiculuous absurd prices).
Anyone know if Larry Dimarzio was personally  custom winding some of those early pickups? This isn't something i wouldnt ask directly of Dimarzio Tech assistance.

I think for his 40th, Larry Dimarzio should make 100 sets of the original Handwound PAf and VS-1 Strat pickups to spec in a limited edition boxed set. Hello L.D...ya listenin??

I think it depends on who you ask, some might claim Larry might have briefly apprenticed under bill Lawrence at one point, But not sure on the accuracy of that claim.  Some might also claim the only model Larry fully designed was the original super distortion.  Can't confirm that claim either.  Not too sure how much of either claim is applicable or matters really.