Guitar
There has been several attempts - by for example Westone and more recently Norton Guitars - to make a pickup that can be moved to the areas of the strings where different antinodes and their corresponding overtones are located. This gives you the sound of a neck pickup, a bridge pickup and everything in between. Though only one at a time.
The T-beam bass and the bracket for the humbucker pickup were too obvious a candidate to not trying something like this. And since I allow myself an impulsive and unstructured approach to my hobbies, I gave it a try.
The pickup bracket has nylon cable clips screwed to it. The clips grip the edge of the T-beam top flange and allows the whole thing to be slid easily along the beam. It was necessary to isolate the pickup from the vibrations of the guitar body (hence the rubber bands and foam padding). If not, the vibration characteristics of the string on the pickup's location would be hardly audible compared to the much stronger body vibrations also received by the pickup. Isolating the pickup also significantly reduced the noise of the nylon clips sliding along the T-beam... nice, because now it is possible to slide the pickup "in-tone" and hear the subtle changes of the timbre of the string.
The bracket and pickup is big and heavy, so one of the next steps will be making a sliding bracket for the much smaller between-strings pickup, which I made earlier. The small pickup should also be better at sensing a small section of the string, where the humbucker due to its length picks up a lot of vibrations - including the unwanted ones. With the big pickup, you can easily hear the difference up and down the strings, but the effect isn't exactly striking. I hope and believe that the small one will do a better job.
I had to rout a channel in the wooden sides for the nylon clips. With everything on, in the afternoon sun, it looks like this:
- Two-layer Aluminium Neck
Among the drawbacks of my old T-beam designs were the lack of a truss rod or similar system to control the bow of the neck. A way to help this - but still use stock aluminium beam for the guitar - could be having a neck in two layers - an upper flat beam,...
- Future Project
Here's an instrument which I'd like to make some day: Three string blues slide guitarFor playing seatedSliding nutNo strapSpine: 30 X 12 mm aluminium rectangular beam - freely vibrating Piezo pickup on aluminium beamSliding pickup under strings-...
- Mahogany Sides For The T-beam
Almost a year ago I mentioned the mahogany sides that I was going to make for the two string T-beam bass. They're coming along slowly, but they're far enough to be shown here. The main thing is the added mahogany sides. But another thing I've...
- To-do List
Nothing much has happened on my T-beam-bass lately. I've replaced the jack connector since the old one didn't work and clamped the connecting cable going from the jack more securely to the sliding bracket. Plus, I've borrowed a friend's...
- Stick Bass Pictures
I've made the spine of the two-string, nylon string, fretless piezo alu T-beam stick bass. Now I have to stick some wood and some piezo pickups on it. Some photos: I will shorten bot ends of the T-beam down to the tuners and string holes. Btw, these...
Guitar
A sliding pickup
There has been several attempts - by for example Westone and more recently Norton Guitars - to make a pickup that can be moved to the areas of the strings where different antinodes and their corresponding overtones are located. This gives you the sound of a neck pickup, a bridge pickup and everything in between. Though only one at a time.
The T-beam bass and the bracket for the humbucker pickup were too obvious a candidate to not trying something like this. And since I allow myself an impulsive and unstructured approach to my hobbies, I gave it a try.
The pickup bracket has nylon cable clips screwed to it. The clips grip the edge of the T-beam top flange and allows the whole thing to be slid easily along the beam. It was necessary to isolate the pickup from the vibrations of the guitar body (hence the rubber bands and foam padding). If not, the vibration characteristics of the string on the pickup's location would be hardly audible compared to the much stronger body vibrations also received by the pickup. Isolating the pickup also significantly reduced the noise of the nylon clips sliding along the T-beam... nice, because now it is possible to slide the pickup "in-tone" and hear the subtle changes of the timbre of the string.The bracket and pickup is big and heavy, so one of the next steps will be making a sliding bracket for the much smaller between-strings pickup, which I made earlier. The small pickup should also be better at sensing a small section of the string, where the humbucker due to its length picks up a lot of vibrations - including the unwanted ones. With the big pickup, you can easily hear the difference up and down the strings, but the effect isn't exactly striking. I hope and believe that the small one will do a better job.I had to rout a channel in the wooden sides for the nylon clips. With everything on, in the afternoon sun, it looks like this:
- Two-layer Aluminium Neck
Among the drawbacks of my old T-beam designs were the lack of a truss rod or similar system to control the bow of the neck. A way to help this - but still use stock aluminium beam for the guitar - could be having a neck in two layers - an upper flat beam,...
- Future Project
Here's an instrument which I'd like to make some day: Three string blues slide guitarFor playing seatedSliding nutNo strapSpine: 30 X 12 mm aluminium rectangular beam - freely vibrating Piezo pickup on aluminium beamSliding pickup under strings-...
- Mahogany Sides For The T-beam
Almost a year ago I mentioned the mahogany sides that I was going to make for the two string T-beam bass. They're coming along slowly, but they're far enough to be shown here. The main thing is the added mahogany sides. But another thing I've...
- To-do List
Nothing much has happened on my T-beam-bass lately. I've replaced the jack connector since the old one didn't work and clamped the connecting cable going from the jack more securely to the sliding bracket. Plus, I've borrowed a friend's...
- Stick Bass Pictures
I've made the spine of the two-string, nylon string, fretless piezo alu T-beam stick bass. Now I have to stick some wood and some piezo pickups on it. Some photos: I will shorten bot ends of the T-beam down to the tuners and string holes. Btw, these...