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Designing a guitar with hot-swappable pickups

162 points by frenchie4111 5y ago

wk_end 5y ago
> On every electric guitar, the pickups have dampening springs. From trolling online guitar forums, it sounds like these are pretty important for dampening some vibrations from affecting the pickup. This is a strange statement. Many pickup designs have springs as part of their mounting mechanism, but it's not for dampening vibrations - it's to allow the height of the pickup to be adjusted. Certain pickups (notably, off the top of my head, Fender Jazzmaster & Jaguar pickups) don't even use springs for this - instead there's a block of foam placed underneath the pickup that compresses as the pickup is screwed down. Of course, it's possible some cork-sniffer guitar nerds will claim that they can hear the effects pickup springs have on tone (and the effects of different metals in the springs, no doubt), but these are the same people who will claim that they can hear the difference different glues make on tone, or will swear up-and-down that a real $5000 Klon has a richer and fuller sound than a $100 clone made from the exact same circuit with the exact same components, or that tube amps sound better because "electrons can't survive in a crystal lattice" [0] (so buy my $100K tube amp!), or... [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVTj08qTwGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVTj08qTwGw
- frenchie4111 5y ago
  Yeah, maybe they aren't that important. Using guitar forums as my source of truth maybe isn't the best. In any case, I have them on my guitar :)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- YZF 5y ago
  "Tone" is the sum of many little things (and then some bigger things). There can certainly be differences between guitars that seem quite similar. Since part (most?) of "tone" comes from the player there can be subtle "UX" things that have an influence or even the mental state of the player and what they believe to be true. I can believe that spring mounted vs solidly mounting to the body can make some difference (physics says there should be) but I can also believe the difference can be so small as to be negligible. People gravitate towards combos that are known to be successful. Since they don't understand the exact mechanisms at work it's safe to say let's have a mahogany body, a certain pickup, mounted a certain way, a bone nut, certain fingerboard material etc. and expect certain results.
  - jolux 5y ago
    In rough order of significance, electric guitar tone is influenced by: - technique (absolutely the most important) - amplifier - pickups + strings - everything else (debatable whether you can even notice it) I don’t know if there’s hard evidence but I think folks who think wood and nut types and whatever make a difference are nuts. The relative difference in stiffness between the strings and the body is so huge that believing that the neck and body effect tone seems to me like believing that asphalt vs concrete effects how a tennis net vibrates.
    - skj 5y ago
      You can definitely hear the difference between many guitar models. Are you suggesting that pickups are the only difference?
      - jolux 5y ago
        Pickups and amps are by far the biggest difference. In an acoustic guitar, sound is produced by the whole body of the guitar resonating. In an electric, sound is produced by the string vibrating in an electromagnetic field above the pickup poles. The ideal guitar string contacts the body at three points along the body (nut, fret, saddle), on ideally as narrow a surface as possible at each of those points.
        the_local_host 5y ago
        If you ever get the chance, try putting together a strat with one of those cheap paulownia bodies and compare it to.. well, anything else that is exactly the same except for the body material. To me, the difference is glaring; the paulownia is so treble-heavy it's intolerable.
        jolux 5y ago
        By what principle does it make it more treble-heavy? This is the part that I haven't had explained to me and I don't understand it. I have a basswood Mustang and it sounds fine with decent humbuckers in it.
- squarefoot 5y ago
  I don't know about dampening screws on pickups as I don't think I ever saw them; they use springs on each screw to keep them pushed up and reduce screws play, but I'm not sure they're the same thing. Anyway, guitars with a spring vibrato bridge, have this faint but audible natural spring reverb inside their body which by contact affects the strings too adding more warmth to their sound. It would be worth experimenting with a set of all different springs so that the force applied to the bridge is the same, but they would resonate on different frequencies therefore making the reverb effect bandwidth wider.
  - frenchie4111 5y ago
    Good thing it's easy to swap the pickups in my guitar, so I can test things like that easily :)
- lostlogin 5y ago
  > trolling Does the author mean ‘trawling’?
  - frenchie4111 5y ago
    Yep, you're right, I do mean that
    - lostlogin 5y ago
      Hello! Neat articles on the rest of your site too. As a Home Assistant addict, you have given me plenty to read.
    - fnord77 5y ago
      you were right > The basic difference between these two similar terms is that trawling involves a net and is typically done for commercial fishing purposes, while trolling involves a rod, reel, and a bait or lure," and is typically done by recreational fishermen.
      - lostlogin 5y ago
        The definition misses a common usage - to antagonize (others) online by deliberately posting inflammatory, irrelevant, or offensive comments or other disruptive content. I wonder though, based on the professional/enthusiast fishing definition, could you call someone who is paid for (digital) trolling, a trawler? https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/troll https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/troll
      - Stratoscope 5y ago
        As lostlogin noted, words have different meaning in different contexts, and the fishing definitions do not apply to online discussions - except perhaps on a fishing forum! Here's an example: I went trawling through your HN comments to find something I didn't like so I could downvote it. Naw, I didn't really do that, I'm just trolling you!
        5y ago
- stirfish 5y ago
  Some cheap (or expensive but old) pickups rattle when you shake them. Here's a tutorial on "repotting" some pickups in wax to fix this. https://www.projectguitar.com/tutorials/electronics/repotting-your-pickups-r33/ https://www.projectguitar.com/tutorials/electronics/repottin... You don't have to be a cork sniffer to hear small things affect your tone. You just have to play very loudly on half-broken instruments - which isn't everyone's cup of tea.
- jollybean 5y ago
  Small point - 'tube amps' unconditionally sound better than solid state. It's a marked difference that doesn't really require a trained ear or anything, if you played a few chords on a 'warmed up tube amp' vs. 'solid state' to someone who's never seen an electric guitar in real life, they'd be able to hear the difference.
  - somebodythere 5y ago
    They sound "different", but not "unconditionally better", and it's not something you can't replicate in the signal path...
    - jollybean 5y ago
      The difference is unambiguous and players overwhelmingly chose tubes, all other things being equal (i.e. cost, hassle). Unless you're playing maybe a very clean sound (jazz?) without the most remote hint of warmth or distortion, tubes are it. It's ridiculous that someone would call out 'tubes' as somehow being a kind of nerdy/fake/poseur guitarist connoisseur melodrama. It's literally the most important point differentiation of amps, to the point that almost all tube amps sound better than almost all solid state (at least in the same class). While someone might possibly take umbrage that 'tubes are not always better' - there's basically no room for someone to say it's a 'petty concern'.
      - jen20 5y ago
        > without the most remote hint of warmth I’m struggling to work out what you mean by “warm” here. By a musician’s definition, low impedance pickups and solid state electronics (usually those with input transformers) have produced some of the warmest guitar tones on record. Even a mid-tier archtop plugged directly into a solid state amp produces _incredibly_ warm. Distortion (in the musical sense), sure.
  - dr_hooo 5y ago
    A trained guitarist's ear might notice the difference, but I highly doubt a crow would care. Also you are overstating the difference, and by no means is your opinion uncontested (just putting this out for the non-guitarists in the HN crowd). Even for those who can identify and prefer the tube sounds, digital modellers like Kemper do exist and do exist and seem to do a fine job in blind tests (see for example Anderton's on youtube).
- sunshineforever 5y ago
  Are you sure that tube amps don't sound better than solid state amps? This is such a common knowledge in the "guitar world" that I can't believe that it's not true. And I swear that I've heard the difference myself... Edit to further elaborate I've heard that solid state amps are used in metal more commonly because they have a different tone then tube amps which would be more common in a bluesy type sound.
  - vcxy 5y ago
    I think this used to be true, but these days tube amps can be very faithfully modeled. E.g., the fender tone master amps sound great.
    - tshaddox 5y ago
      Even when it used to be true, I feel like what was true was that tube amps sound more like tube amps than solid state amps.
    - charrondev 5y ago
      You’ve also got stuff like the keeper modelling amp and newer axe FX models that can sound indistinguishable when coming through good full range speakers. One thing that can make even modern solid state amps sound bad is crappy speakers. The bulk of solid state guitar amplifiers are combo amps with a single crappy 10” or 12” inch speaker in a cheap cabinet.
  - robbiex88 5y ago
    "...I've heard that solid state amps are used in metal more commonly because they have a different tone" Partially false. The general trend in metal has gravitated towards tube amp distortion (and digital modeling of it) precisely because of the different tone and responses vs solid state amps. As a guitarist there's a certain response you get with a tube amp vs digital and solid state. As an HN reader, I struggle to describe and quantify this quality besides the generic descriptors of 'response' and 'feel'.
  - bsder 5y ago
    > Are you sure that tube amps don't sound better than solid state amps? This is such a common knowledge in the "guitar world" that I can't believe that it's not true. Poets around the world throughout history have tried to quantify beauty and failed. I always find it humorous that guitar players think they can succeed when they are far less well-equipped to the task. However, a couple of points: 1) Old solid-state amps were mostly built to be cheap, so they sucked. Modern ones are constructed significantly better. 2) Vintage tube amps often have more variation (and may or may not have been repaired faithfully which increases the variation) so you occasionally get one that has "magic". The downside is that most of the amps don't have that magic--you will probably never encounter the "stage queen" personally. Another downside is that you can lose the "magic" pretty easily. This is something that the vintage amp guys all gloss over. If you got the "stage queen"--congratulations! Of course the other 300 in the production batch don't sound anywhere near as nice. 3) Dimebag Darrell, for example, liked his solid-state Randall sound very much. Who are you to argue? 4) Modern modeling amps are getting REALLY good at mimicking the tube amps. This means that you CAN have that "stage queen" that you will never encounter personally. And you can create sounds that the stage queen can't. Whether they're "pleasing" is a different story. 5) Each individual amp has a "sound"--whether solid-state or tube. The question at the end of the day is: "Do you, personally, like how that amp sounds?" And, if the answer is "Yes", plug your guitar into the amp, play what you want, and tell the poseurs to go pound sand.
- jbverschoor 5y ago
  You’re only able to hear these differences if you use silver cables made by elves under the moonlight!
  - ksaj 5y ago
    Like these cables: https://mitcables.com https://mitcables.com In the 90's they were trying to sell these to guitar players. Nobody seemed to care that if you sent a regular wave down the line and measured it at the receiving end, then did the same thing after chopping out the magical bit of fake electronics, the signal still came out the same.
- analog31 5y ago
  I'm an electric bassist, and springy pickups unnerve me. For one thing, I sometimes rest my thumb on the pickup. So I've replaced the springs with hard spacers, cut to the desired length. As a result, my pickups are solid, and not adjustable. For another thing, the foam turns into goo after 40 years, which is how long it's been since I set up the instrument.
- rograndom 5y ago
  One of my favorite "did you know?" relates to early shoegaze bands using "vintage" jazzmaster and jaguars. The bands would buy those, sometimes original 60's instruments, because they were cheap. And the foam under the pickups would be almost gone so the pickups would be almost bottomed out and be much further away from the strings than originally intended. The guitarists didn't know this of course, but that became part of the "shoegaze" sound so people now buy brand new jazzmasters and dump the pickups all the way to the body.
  - pram 5y ago
    That is super interesting! How was this discovered?
- fallingfrog 5y ago
  Guitars with dogear P90’s don’t have any springs at all. They’re just screwed right to the body of the guitar. They were made that way because it was cheap, (and then of course as you say it became magic mojo later..)
  - julianz 5y ago
    Same as Gretsch Filtertrons (and most of their other pickups too, I guess). No height adjustment at all.
- Gravityloss 5y ago
  I think you don't want your pickup to vibrate. Not sure what happens if it does, is there some interference. I bet you could test it, just take the strings off, vibrate the body somehow and listen to the signal closely.
YZF 5y ago
Often the cheap necks can be made quite nicer with a bit of extra fret work. If the edges feel sharp then it's a matter of filing/sanding them to get them smoother. If there's buzzing then re-level and re-crown. There is a wealth of information on guitar building. If you want a bigger challenge, build your own neck. It is doable with hand tools though the right power tools certainly make it easier. If you want to drill straight holes without a drill press there's this little guide doohickey you can buy that you hold against the piece and put your drill bit through the guide.
- frenchie4111 5y ago
  Thanks for the tips! I actually tried the guide doohickey but I still failed to get good straight holes. The hard part was that the guitar is not a really level surface to rest the guide on, so I had some complication getting it to sit well.
  - YZF 5y ago
    That's where the hand plane comes into play ;) I've also started building guitars during the pandemic. Lots of fun! I'm on my third.
- duncan-donuts 5y ago
  Another trick for straight holes is to put something on the bit (like a washer or something that moves freely) and it should stay in the same spot. If it slides forward/backward the bit isn’t level. This probably isn’t a good technique for drilling pilot holes for a neck but it works well for things where a Good Enough™ tolerance is acceptable.
leoh 5y ago
Very nice. It would be awesome if this were standard.
galkk 5y ago
Without video it isn't clear how convenient/easy it is. Here's another approach: https://youtu.be/pZaTbCBvcOI?t=39 https://youtu.be/pZaTbCBvcOI?t=39 (it's in Russian, but the mechanics is very simple)
- frenchie4111 5y ago
  Ooh that one is easier than mine. Would have been outside the scope for this project though (likely needs custom connectors). Takes 30 seconds-ish to swap mine, you pull it out, unplug the jack, plug the jack into the next one, slide it in. Not "on stage" easy, but definitely "messing around in my garage" easy.
vr46 5y ago
An interesting idea, but not convinced, as they don’t look very adjustable for height, for example, my Tele pickups are higher on the treble side, compensating somewhat for the higher output of the bigger strings. You could cut this into the mount, but that defeats the purpose of being able to test things quickly, the moment one variable is fixed, you have an instant constraint. This experiment is a trade-off, I get that. He’s not an experienced guitar player and wants to fiddle with pickups. Fine, enjoy, EVH was all about getting the sound to match what’s in his head anyway, whatever it took.
- frenchie4111 5y ago
  They have the same height adjustment options that most guitar pickups do, the pickups are held on to the mount with two screws and you can screw in/out to adjust the height accordingly. It works in reverse of the normal system since the screws are backwards, but it works
  - vr46 5y ago
    There’s zero mention of this in article, unless I missed something? He expressly stated that he wanted to switch pickups without removing screws, so unless pickups have to be pre-set and stuck to a mount that is stuck to the guitar body, I don’t see it? My Tele neck pickup is actually not attached to the body, for example, it is attached to the pick guard!
ZoomZoomZoom 5y ago
FYI, this idea got implemented a few times in various forms, the most known commercial implementation is by Dan Armstrong. Ampeg Dan Amrstrong guitar and bass are just cool, look them up.
jackseviltwin 5y ago
Somnium Guitars [0] also makes guitars with easily hot swappable pickups. They have a mounting system where you can put most pickups into their mounting module and click it into place from the back of the body. It’s still a bit pricey, but starts at a less expensive $2,495 MSRP vs $4,500 from Relish. Here’s a video from Know Your Gear on their product: https://youtu.be/Vj2uJBeSHt4 https://youtu.be/Vj2uJBeSHt4 [0] https://somniumguitars.com https://somniumguitars.com
- frenchie4111 5y ago
  These are awesome, thanks for sharing
dehrmann 5y ago
> Lately I’ve been learning to play guitar. I wanted to be able to try out a bunch of different pickups on my guitar, to get a feel for what sound I prefer. I've been playing for over 10 years, and I still don't really care. I have a strat with the standard three single-coil pickups and a Gibson with two humbuckers. I'm sure it makes some difference, but where I'm at, I can't hear enough of a difference beyond the big things that it just doesn't matter.
- inetsee 5y ago
  I'm 70 years old. My ability to hear subtle differences in sound is probably at least 20 or more years in my past. This is why I have no intention of buying a PonoPlayer, or any of the other outrageously expensive high resolution music players.
  - dehrmann 5y ago
    > This is why I have no intention of buying a PonoPlayer Also Nyquist–Shannon.
- jolux 5y ago
  I think Stratocaster single-coils and Gibson humbuckers cover almost all of the sounds you can get out of an electric guitar. The bridge pickup on a Telecaster is overwound and a bit louder than the bridge on a Strat, but the difference is pretty subtle if the Strat is setup correctly. The only other really distinct sound is the P-90, but it's not nearly as common as the other two, and it's also a variation on single-coil tone.
  - TylerE 5y ago
    You're really selling it short. Even amongst fairly traditional humbuckers, there is a huge range...compare an Alnico 2 humbucker wound to say 5kohm with a 20k ceramic...
    - jolux 5y ago
      That's true, overall resistance makes a huge difference.
mattacular 5y ago
Very cool DIY. Was hoping to see what it looks like from the back with all the electronics in place? And maybe a video of how the swap works in practice would be helpful to illustrate.
mike_red5hift 5y ago
Might want to look at Somnium Guitars for a more refined (not DIY) version of this. They have a really nice system. Not cheap, but the build quality is excellent.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kjgkjhfkjf 5y ago
It's extremely tempting to try to speed up your progress on the guitar using your existing engineering skills (e.g. what we have here), mathematics skills (e.g. learning music theory), or other resources (e.g. buying loads of gear), but the only way reliably to make progress is practice, practice, and more practice playing the guitar itself.
- frenchie4111 5y ago
  Very true, and I know that. I just wanted to build a guitar because I thought it’d be fun :)
jolux 5y ago
Nice to see some electric guitar geekery on HN :). I started playing last year during the pandemic too, but I had learned a bit in elementary school and I played alto saxophone for around a decade in various school jazz groups. Gentle suggestion: try to see how many different tones you can get out of one sole pickup by varying your technique (angle and strength of attack, angle that your finger is fretting the string, the part of your finger you fret with, amount of vibrato, type of vibrato, gentle bends, etc). Try practicing with the amp cranked so you can play notes at normal volume just by brushing the pick against the string and listen to the errors it reveals in your technique. The electric guitar is an extremely sensitive instrument. Pickups do make a huge difference (particularly switching between singles and humbuckers), but I got this advice from a teacher and it has totally changed my perspective on tone. If you can develop a deep understanding of the relationship your technique has to tone, you can find a tone that is yours on any guitar, I guarantee it.
papandada 5y ago
But how about the results of which pickup sounds he preferred?
metalman 5y ago
Tone is in the hands.
utopcell 5y ago
One could get a Line 6 Variax and play with endless variations on body types, pickups, tunings and recordings of vintage guitars. Old ones can be had for very little these days.
utopcell 5y ago
Jimi went from a $5 acoustic in 1958 to being dead in 1970. That's less time than what it takes most of us to go through our GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) and just enjoy playing the darned thing.
Beldin 5y ago
For those like me who didn't know: a pickup is a thingy that generates a tiny electrical field around a string. This allows electronics to translate string vibrations to an audio signal. One thing missing (for me) from the article is a rough idea of what the effect could be. Why would you care about easy swapping at all? Why not find the right one(s) and stick with that/those? Why does changing speed matter - would you change them between songs? (Yes, I didn't know about pickups before this article)
- hctaw 5y ago
  It's a laborious process that has a significant impact on tone. You usually have to restring the guitar when you change them out. The biggest change would be between dual coils ("humbuckers") and true single coils. Most modern humbuckers have four leads (you only need two to make a sound, you get two leads per coil) which allow you to wire a switch on the guitar called a "coil tap" which allows you to disengage the secondary coil. This allows you to have a dual coil that functions sonically as either, and it is very desirable for musicians that need a diverse range of tones for their set list (good example is if you ever play a wedding and take requests). You're also never happy with it. I've changed all the pups on my three guitars multiple times.
  - TylerE 5y ago
    Coil splits are very useful, but they never REALLY quite get there. Even when the secondary coil is off, there's still additional magnetic drag/pull on the string. A good true single coil has this chime to it that I never get from a split (or tapped) 'bucker.
- analog31 5y ago
  Perhaps for a bit of additional explanation, a guitar pickup is a variable reluctance sensor. It's a coil wrapped around a magnet. The magnet sympathetically magnetizes the string, and then the vibrating magnetized string induces a voltage on the coil. The strings have to be made of a magnetic material such as steel, nickel, or one of the magnetic stainless alloys. Beyond what was mentioned about single and dual coil, each pickup has a unique resistance and inductance, which at first glance might affect the frequency response of the typically crude circuit in the guitar. And the magnetic field may also produce some damping of the string motion. Those are some things that might affect tone quality.
TrackerFF 5y ago
Dan Armstrong guitars had a nifty system for this, which goes back years. https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3130/2319685814_b648ce0118.jpg?v=0 https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3130/2319685814_b648ce0118.j... https://cdn.mos.musicradar.com/images/Product%20News/Guitar/Oct08/ampeg%20first%20look/ampeg-front-460-100-460-70.jpg https://cdn.mos.musicradar.com/images/Product%20News/Guitar/...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
periheli0n 5y ago
It’s awesome to see this—the post makes it look quite straightforward to build your own guitar! But: As a guitar player myself I have learnt that GAS is ever-tempting, especially pickups. Personally I think that if all the time I spent reading “sound descriptions” on pickup manufacturers’ websites I would instead have spent playing, not only would I play much better, I would also sound much better. Sound comes out of your fingers more than out of anything else. Billy Gibbons would sound like Billy Gibbons no matter what pickups one puts in his guitar. He would surely notice the difference, the vast majority of his audience wouldn’t.
- tuxie_ 5y ago
  What about the time you spent telling someone else how to spend their time? Wouldn't that have been better spent playing instead?
  - periheli0n 5y ago
    Good point. In fact, since a large portion of my day job consists of teaching, and teaching involves a substantial portion of helping students allocate their time, I would probably have loads more time for playing if I stopped doing that. Problem is, I wouldn’t have any money to pay for gear, let alone a roof over my head. By the way I thought I had expressed clearly in my comment that I found the post amazing. Sorry if this didn’t come through.
weirdkid 5y ago
Not an expert, but I did recently upgrade the pickups in an older guitar. I learned that not all pickups are wired to the guitar the same way. Seymour Duncan HotRails had to be connected differently than Seymour Duncan VintageRails, for example. This would be a complicating factor to any hot-swapping system.

162 points by frenchie4111 5y ago

> On every electric guitar, the pickups have dampening springs. From trolling online guitar forums, it sounds like these are pretty important for dampening some vibrations from affecting the pickup. This is a strange statement. Many pickup designs have springs as part of their mounting mechanism, but it's not for dampening vibrations - it's to allow the height of the pickup to be adjusted. Certain pickups (notably, off the top of my head, Fender Jazzmaster & Jaguar pickups) don't even use springs for this - instead there's a block of foam placed underneath the pickup that compresses as the pickup is screwed down. Of course, it's possible some cork-sniffer guitar nerds will claim that they can hear the effects pickup springs have on tone (and the effects of different metals in the springs, no doubt), but these are the same people who will claim that they can hear the difference different glues make on tone, or will swear up-and-down that a real $5000 Klon has a richer and fuller sound than a $100 clone made from the exact same circuit with the exact same components, or that tube amps sound better because "electrons can't survive in a crystal lattice" [0] (so buy my $100K tube amp!), or... [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVTj08qTwGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVTj08qTwGw

frenchie4111 5y ago
Yeah, maybe they aren't that important. Using guitar forums as my source of truth maybe isn't the best. In any case, I have them on my guitar :)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
YZF 5y ago
"Tone" is the sum of many little things (and then some bigger things). There can certainly be differences between guitars that seem quite similar. Since part (most?) of "tone" comes from the player there can be subtle "UX" things that have an influence or even the mental state of the player and what they believe to be true. I can believe that spring mounted vs solidly mounting to the body can make some difference (physics says there should be) but I can also believe the difference can be so small as to be negligible. People gravitate towards combos that are known to be successful. Since they don't understand the exact mechanisms at work it's safe to say let's have a mahogany body, a certain pickup, mounted a certain way, a bone nut, certain fingerboard material etc. and expect certain results.
- jolux 5y ago
  In rough order of significance, electric guitar tone is influenced by: - technique (absolutely the most important) - amplifier - pickups + strings - everything else (debatable whether you can even notice it) I don’t know if there’s hard evidence but I think folks who think wood and nut types and whatever make a difference are nuts. The relative difference in stiffness between the strings and the body is so huge that believing that the neck and body effect tone seems to me like believing that asphalt vs concrete effects how a tennis net vibrates.
  - skj 5y ago
    You can definitely hear the difference between many guitar models. Are you suggesting that pickups are the only difference?
    - jolux 5y ago
      Pickups and amps are by far the biggest difference. In an acoustic guitar, sound is produced by the whole body of the guitar resonating. In an electric, sound is produced by the string vibrating in an electromagnetic field above the pickup poles. The ideal guitar string contacts the body at three points along the body (nut, fret, saddle), on ideally as narrow a surface as possible at each of those points.
      - the_local_host 5y ago
        If you ever get the chance, try putting together a strat with one of those cheap paulownia bodies and compare it to.. well, anything else that is exactly the same except for the body material. To me, the difference is glaring; the paulownia is so treble-heavy it's intolerable.
        jolux 5y ago
        By what principle does it make it more treble-heavy? This is the part that I haven't had explained to me and I don't understand it. I have a basswood Mustang and it sounds fine with decent humbuckers in it.
squarefoot 5y ago
I don't know about dampening screws on pickups as I don't think I ever saw them; they use springs on each screw to keep them pushed up and reduce screws play, but I'm not sure they're the same thing. Anyway, guitars with a spring vibrato bridge, have this faint but audible natural spring reverb inside their body which by contact affects the strings too adding more warmth to their sound. It would be worth experimenting with a set of all different springs so that the force applied to the bridge is the same, but they would resonate on different frequencies therefore making the reverb effect bandwidth wider.
- frenchie4111 5y ago
  Good thing it's easy to swap the pickups in my guitar, so I can test things like that easily :)
lostlogin 5y ago
> trolling Does the author mean ‘trawling’?
- frenchie4111 5y ago
  Yep, you're right, I do mean that
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    Hello! Neat articles on the rest of your site too. As a Home Assistant addict, you have given me plenty to read.
  - fnord77 5y ago
    you were right > The basic difference between these two similar terms is that trawling involves a net and is typically done for commercial fishing purposes, while trolling involves a rod, reel, and a bait or lure," and is typically done by recreational fishermen.
    - lostlogin 5y ago
      The definition misses a common usage - to antagonize (others) online by deliberately posting inflammatory, irrelevant, or offensive comments or other disruptive content. I wonder though, based on the professional/enthusiast fishing definition, could you call someone who is paid for (digital) trolling, a trawler? https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/troll https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/troll
    - Stratoscope 5y ago
      As lostlogin noted, words have different meaning in different contexts, and the fishing definitions do not apply to online discussions - except perhaps on a fishing forum! Here's an example: I went trawling through your HN comments to find something I didn't like so I could downvote it. Naw, I didn't really do that, I'm just trolling you!
      - 5y ago
stirfish 5y ago
Some cheap (or expensive but old) pickups rattle when you shake them. Here's a tutorial on "repotting" some pickups in wax to fix this. https://www.projectguitar.com/tutorials/electronics/repotting-your-pickups-r33/ https://www.projectguitar.com/tutorials/electronics/repottin... You don't have to be a cork sniffer to hear small things affect your tone. You just have to play very loudly on half-broken instruments - which isn't everyone's cup of tea.
jollybean 5y ago
Small point - 'tube amps' unconditionally sound better than solid state. It's a marked difference that doesn't really require a trained ear or anything, if you played a few chords on a 'warmed up tube amp' vs. 'solid state' to someone who's never seen an electric guitar in real life, they'd be able to hear the difference.
- somebodythere 5y ago
  They sound "different", but not "unconditionally better", and it's not something you can't replicate in the signal path...
  - jollybean 5y ago
    The difference is unambiguous and players overwhelmingly chose tubes, all other things being equal (i.e. cost, hassle). Unless you're playing maybe a very clean sound (jazz?) without the most remote hint of warmth or distortion, tubes are it. It's ridiculous that someone would call out 'tubes' as somehow being a kind of nerdy/fake/poseur guitarist connoisseur melodrama. It's literally the most important point differentiation of amps, to the point that almost all tube amps sound better than almost all solid state (at least in the same class). While someone might possibly take umbrage that 'tubes are not always better' - there's basically no room for someone to say it's a 'petty concern'.
    - jen20 5y ago
      > without the most remote hint of warmth I’m struggling to work out what you mean by “warm” here. By a musician’s definition, low impedance pickups and solid state electronics (usually those with input transformers) have produced some of the warmest guitar tones on record. Even a mid-tier archtop plugged directly into a solid state amp produces _incredibly_ warm. Distortion (in the musical sense), sure.
- dr_hooo 5y ago
  A trained guitarist's ear might notice the difference, but I highly doubt a crow would care. Also you are overstating the difference, and by no means is your opinion uncontested (just putting this out for the non-guitarists in the HN crowd). Even for those who can identify and prefer the tube sounds, digital modellers like Kemper do exist and do exist and seem to do a fine job in blind tests (see for example Anderton's on youtube).
sunshineforever 5y ago
Are you sure that tube amps don't sound better than solid state amps? This is such a common knowledge in the "guitar world" that I can't believe that it's not true. And I swear that I've heard the difference myself... Edit to further elaborate I've heard that solid state amps are used in metal more commonly because they have a different tone then tube amps which would be more common in a bluesy type sound.
- vcxy 5y ago
  I think this used to be true, but these days tube amps can be very faithfully modeled. E.g., the fender tone master amps sound great.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    Even when it used to be true, I feel like what was true was that tube amps sound more like tube amps than solid state amps.
  - charrondev 5y ago
    You’ve also got stuff like the keeper modelling amp and newer axe FX models that can sound indistinguishable when coming through good full range speakers. One thing that can make even modern solid state amps sound bad is crappy speakers. The bulk of solid state guitar amplifiers are combo amps with a single crappy 10” or 12” inch speaker in a cheap cabinet.
- robbiex88 5y ago
  "...I've heard that solid state amps are used in metal more commonly because they have a different tone" Partially false. The general trend in metal has gravitated towards tube amp distortion (and digital modeling of it) precisely because of the different tone and responses vs solid state amps. As a guitarist there's a certain response you get with a tube amp vs digital and solid state. As an HN reader, I struggle to describe and quantify this quality besides the generic descriptors of 'response' and 'feel'.
- bsder 5y ago
  > Are you sure that tube amps don't sound better than solid state amps? This is such a common knowledge in the "guitar world" that I can't believe that it's not true. Poets around the world throughout history have tried to quantify beauty and failed. I always find it humorous that guitar players think they can succeed when they are far less well-equipped to the task. However, a couple of points: 1) Old solid-state amps were mostly built to be cheap, so they sucked. Modern ones are constructed significantly better. 2) Vintage tube amps often have more variation (and may or may not have been repaired faithfully which increases the variation) so you occasionally get one that has "magic". The downside is that most of the amps don't have that magic--you will probably never encounter the "stage queen" personally. Another downside is that you can lose the "magic" pretty easily. This is something that the vintage amp guys all gloss over. If you got the "stage queen"--congratulations! Of course the other 300 in the production batch don't sound anywhere near as nice. 3) Dimebag Darrell, for example, liked his solid-state Randall sound very much. Who are you to argue? 4) Modern modeling amps are getting REALLY good at mimicking the tube amps. This means that you CAN have that "stage queen" that you will never encounter personally. And you can create sounds that the stage queen can't. Whether they're "pleasing" is a different story. 5) Each individual amp has a "sound"--whether solid-state or tube. The question at the end of the day is: "Do you, personally, like how that amp sounds?" And, if the answer is "Yes", plug your guitar into the amp, play what you want, and tell the poseurs to go pound sand.
jbverschoor 5y ago
You’re only able to hear these differences if you use silver cables made by elves under the moonlight!
- ksaj 5y ago
  Like these cables: https://mitcables.com https://mitcables.com In the 90's they were trying to sell these to guitar players. Nobody seemed to care that if you sent a regular wave down the line and measured it at the receiving end, then did the same thing after chopping out the magical bit of fake electronics, the signal still came out the same.
analog31 5y ago
I'm an electric bassist, and springy pickups unnerve me. For one thing, I sometimes rest my thumb on the pickup. So I've replaced the springs with hard spacers, cut to the desired length. As a result, my pickups are solid, and not adjustable. For another thing, the foam turns into goo after 40 years, which is how long it's been since I set up the instrument.
rograndom 5y ago
One of my favorite "did you know?" relates to early shoegaze bands using "vintage" jazzmaster and jaguars. The bands would buy those, sometimes original 60's instruments, because they were cheap. And the foam under the pickups would be almost gone so the pickups would be almost bottomed out and be much further away from the strings than originally intended. The guitarists didn't know this of course, but that became part of the "shoegaze" sound so people now buy brand new jazzmasters and dump the pickups all the way to the body.
- pram 5y ago
  That is super interesting! How was this discovered?
fallingfrog 5y ago
Guitars with dogear P90’s don’t have any springs at all. They’re just screwed right to the body of the guitar. They were made that way because it was cheap, (and then of course as you say it became magic mojo later..)
- julianz 5y ago
  Same as Gretsch Filtertrons (and most of their other pickups too, I guess). No height adjustment at all.
Gravityloss 5y ago
I think you don't want your pickup to vibrate. Not sure what happens if it does, is there some interference. I bet you could test it, just take the strings off, vibrate the body somehow and listen to the signal closely.

YZF 5y ago

Often the cheap necks can be made quite nicer with a bit of extra fret work. If the edges feel sharp then it's a matter of filing/sanding them to get them smoother. If there's buzzing then re-level and re-crown. There is a wealth of information on guitar building. If you want a bigger challenge, build your own neck. It is doable with hand tools though the right power tools certainly make it easier. If you want to drill straight holes without a drill press there's this little guide doohickey you can buy that you hold against the piece and put your drill bit through the guide.

frenchie4111 5y ago
Thanks for the tips! I actually tried the guide doohickey but I still failed to get good straight holes. The hard part was that the guitar is not a really level surface to rest the guide on, so I had some complication getting it to sit well.
- YZF 5y ago
  That's where the hand plane comes into play ;) I've also started building guitars during the pandemic. Lots of fun! I'm on my third.
duncan-donuts 5y ago
Another trick for straight holes is to put something on the bit (like a washer or something that moves freely) and it should stay in the same spot. If it slides forward/backward the bit isn’t level. This probably isn’t a good technique for drilling pilot holes for a neck but it works well for things where a Good Enough™ tolerance is acceptable.

leoh 5y ago

Very nice. It would be awesome if this were standard.

galkk 5y ago

Without video it isn't clear how convenient/easy it is. Here's another approach: https://youtu.be/pZaTbCBvcOI?t=39 https://youtu.be/pZaTbCBvcOI?t=39 (it's in Russian, but the mechanics is very simple)

frenchie4111 5y ago
Ooh that one is easier than mine. Would have been outside the scope for this project though (likely needs custom connectors). Takes 30 seconds-ish to swap mine, you pull it out, unplug the jack, plug the jack into the next one, slide it in. Not "on stage" easy, but definitely "messing around in my garage" easy.

vr46 5y ago

An interesting idea, but not convinced, as they don’t look very adjustable for height, for example, my Tele pickups are higher on the treble side, compensating somewhat for the higher output of the bigger strings. You could cut this into the mount, but that defeats the purpose of being able to test things quickly, the moment one variable is fixed, you have an instant constraint. This experiment is a trade-off, I get that. He’s not an experienced guitar player and wants to fiddle with pickups. Fine, enjoy, EVH was all about getting the sound to match what’s in his head anyway, whatever it took.

frenchie4111 5y ago
They have the same height adjustment options that most guitar pickups do, the pickups are held on to the mount with two screws and you can screw in/out to adjust the height accordingly. It works in reverse of the normal system since the screws are backwards, but it works
- vr46 5y ago
  There’s zero mention of this in article, unless I missed something? He expressly stated that he wanted to switch pickups without removing screws, so unless pickups have to be pre-set and stuck to a mount that is stuck to the guitar body, I don’t see it? My Tele neck pickup is actually not attached to the body, for example, it is attached to the pick guard!

ZoomZoomZoom 5y ago

FYI, this idea got implemented a few times in various forms, the most known commercial implementation is by Dan Armstrong. Ampeg Dan Amrstrong guitar and bass are just cool, look them up.

jackseviltwin 5y ago

Somnium Guitars [0] also makes guitars with easily hot swappable pickups. They have a mounting system where you can put most pickups into their mounting module and click it into place from the back of the body. It’s still a bit pricey, but starts at a less expensive $2,495 MSRP vs $4,500 from Relish. Here’s a video from Know Your Gear on their product: https://youtu.be/Vj2uJBeSHt4 https://youtu.be/Vj2uJBeSHt4 [0] https://somniumguitars.com https://somniumguitars.com

frenchie4111 5y ago
These are awesome, thanks for sharing

dehrmann 5y ago

> Lately I’ve been learning to play guitar. I wanted to be able to try out a bunch of different pickups on my guitar, to get a feel for what sound I prefer. I've been playing for over 10 years, and I still don't really care. I have a strat with the standard three single-coil pickups and a Gibson with two humbuckers. I'm sure it makes some difference, but where I'm at, I can't hear enough of a difference beyond the big things that it just doesn't matter.

inetsee 5y ago
I'm 70 years old. My ability to hear subtle differences in sound is probably at least 20 or more years in my past. This is why I have no intention of buying a PonoPlayer, or any of the other outrageously expensive high resolution music players.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  > This is why I have no intention of buying a PonoPlayer Also Nyquist–Shannon.
jolux 5y ago
I think Stratocaster single-coils and Gibson humbuckers cover almost all of the sounds you can get out of an electric guitar. The bridge pickup on a Telecaster is overwound and a bit louder than the bridge on a Strat, but the difference is pretty subtle if the Strat is setup correctly. The only other really distinct sound is the P-90, but it's not nearly as common as the other two, and it's also a variation on single-coil tone.
- TylerE 5y ago
  You're really selling it short. Even amongst fairly traditional humbuckers, there is a huge range...compare an Alnico 2 humbucker wound to say 5kohm with a 20k ceramic...
  - jolux 5y ago
    That's true, overall resistance makes a huge difference.

mattacular 5y ago

Very cool DIY. Was hoping to see what it looks like from the back with all the electronics in place? And maybe a video of how the swap works in practice would be helpful to illustrate.

mike_red5hift 5y ago

Might want to look at Somnium Guitars for a more refined (not DIY) version of this. They have a really nice system. Not cheap, but the build quality is excellent.

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kjgkjhfkjf 5y ago

It's extremely tempting to try to speed up your progress on the guitar using your existing engineering skills (e.g. what we have here), mathematics skills (e.g. learning music theory), or other resources (e.g. buying loads of gear), but the only way reliably to make progress is practice, practice, and more practice playing the guitar itself.

frenchie4111 5y ago
Very true, and I know that. I just wanted to build a guitar because I thought it’d be fun :)

jolux 5y ago

Nice to see some electric guitar geekery on HN :). I started playing last year during the pandemic too, but I had learned a bit in elementary school and I played alto saxophone for around a decade in various school jazz groups. Gentle suggestion: try to see how many different tones you can get out of one sole pickup by varying your technique (angle and strength of attack, angle that your finger is fretting the string, the part of your finger you fret with, amount of vibrato, type of vibrato, gentle bends, etc). Try practicing with the amp cranked so you can play notes at normal volume just by brushing the pick against the string and listen to the errors it reveals in your technique. The electric guitar is an extremely sensitive instrument. Pickups do make a huge difference (particularly switching between singles and humbuckers), but I got this advice from a teacher and it has totally changed my perspective on tone. If you can develop a deep understanding of the relationship your technique has to tone, you can find a tone that is yours on any guitar, I guarantee it.

papandada 5y ago

But how about the results of which pickup sounds he preferred?

metalman 5y ago

Tone is in the hands.

utopcell 5y ago

One could get a Line 6 Variax and play with endless variations on body types, pickups, tunings and recordings of vintage guitars. Old ones can be had for very little these days.

utopcell 5y ago

Jimi went from a $5 acoustic in 1958 to being dead in 1970. That's less time than what it takes most of us to go through our GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) and just enjoy playing the darned thing.

Beldin 5y ago

For those like me who didn't know: a pickup is a thingy that generates a tiny electrical field around a string. This allows electronics to translate string vibrations to an audio signal. One thing missing (for me) from the article is a rough idea of what the effect could be. Why would you care about easy swapping at all? Why not find the right one(s) and stick with that/those? Why does changing speed matter - would you change them between songs? (Yes, I didn't know about pickups before this article)

hctaw 5y ago
It's a laborious process that has a significant impact on tone. You usually have to restring the guitar when you change them out. The biggest change would be between dual coils ("humbuckers") and true single coils. Most modern humbuckers have four leads (you only need two to make a sound, you get two leads per coil) which allow you to wire a switch on the guitar called a "coil tap" which allows you to disengage the secondary coil. This allows you to have a dual coil that functions sonically as either, and it is very desirable for musicians that need a diverse range of tones for their set list (good example is if you ever play a wedding and take requests). You're also never happy with it. I've changed all the pups on my three guitars multiple times.
- TylerE 5y ago
  Coil splits are very useful, but they never REALLY quite get there. Even when the secondary coil is off, there's still additional magnetic drag/pull on the string. A good true single coil has this chime to it that I never get from a split (or tapped) 'bucker.
analog31 5y ago
Perhaps for a bit of additional explanation, a guitar pickup is a variable reluctance sensor. It's a coil wrapped around a magnet. The magnet sympathetically magnetizes the string, and then the vibrating magnetized string induces a voltage on the coil. The strings have to be made of a magnetic material such as steel, nickel, or one of the magnetic stainless alloys. Beyond what was mentioned about single and dual coil, each pickup has a unique resistance and inductance, which at first glance might affect the frequency response of the typically crude circuit in the guitar. And the magnetic field may also produce some damping of the string motion. Those are some things that might affect tone quality.

TrackerFF 5y ago

Dan Armstrong guitars had a nifty system for this, which goes back years. https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3130/2319685814_b648ce0118.jpg?v=0 https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3130/2319685814_b648ce0118.j... https://cdn.mos.musicradar.com/images/Product%20News/Guitar/Oct08/ampeg%20first%20look/ampeg-front-460-100-460-70.jpg https://cdn.mos.musicradar.com/images/Product%20News/Guitar/...

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periheli0n 5y ago

It’s awesome to see this—the post makes it look quite straightforward to build your own guitar! But: As a guitar player myself I have learnt that GAS is ever-tempting, especially pickups. Personally I think that if all the time I spent reading “sound descriptions” on pickup manufacturers’ websites I would instead have spent playing, not only would I play much better, I would also sound much better. Sound comes out of your fingers more than out of anything else. Billy Gibbons would sound like Billy Gibbons no matter what pickups one puts in his guitar. He would surely notice the difference, the vast majority of his audience wouldn’t.

tuxie_ 5y ago
What about the time you spent telling someone else how to spend their time? Wouldn't that have been better spent playing instead?
- periheli0n 5y ago
  Good point. In fact, since a large portion of my day job consists of teaching, and teaching involves a substantial portion of helping students allocate their time, I would probably have loads more time for playing if I stopped doing that. Problem is, I wouldn’t have any money to pay for gear, let alone a roof over my head. By the way I thought I had expressed clearly in my comment that I found the post amazing. Sorry if this didn’t come through.

weirdkid 5y ago

Not an expert, but I did recently upgrade the pickups in an older guitar. I learned that not all pickups are wired to the guitar the same way. Seymour Duncan HotRails had to be connected differently than Seymour Duncan VintageRails, for example. This would be a complicating factor to any hot-swapping system.