Quietest Humbucker:

Robert Herndon said:
Those who know me will tell you I was once known for an unreal classic car collection - I had 1949 Buick Eight, 1966 Nova SS, 1968 Olds Tornado, 1967 Hemi Coronet R/T, (3) 1969 Dodge Charger RT/SE's, NASCAR Dodge Charger 500, 1969 Daytona, 1968 GTX, 1968 Road Runner, 1967 GT500, 1972 Torino Cobra, 1975 Firebird Formula, several Porsche 911's,a 1972 Lamborghini Jarama, 1968 Maserati Mexico, and a 1970 Muira SV.
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I had to say 'spin your wheels' huh? Those are some excellent excellent choices in cars there Rob! I see you have an eye for style & mandatory performance.
There just happens to be a '70 Cobra Jet Torino in this months subscription delivery of Hemmings Muscle Machines! Totally awesome & often overlooked power house from the pinnacle 1970 year for muscle car performance. I'm almost surprised to hear Ford still had a Cobra Torino in 72. They must have dropped the compression (like the rest of the models) and also seen a Horsepower rating drop due to HP standard measurement being measured by 'net' HP which all ads to my surprise that such a car existed from Ford in '72!

Was the motor a de-tuned 429 Cobra Jet (1970 motor) or something else & what was the official HP rating in 1972 for that car? I'll be googling me some Cobra Torino stuff in a couple seconds!
Spin those wheels man!
 
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Relic said:
I had to say 'spin your wheels' huh? Those are some excellent excellent choices in cars there Rob! I see you have an eye for style & mandatory performance.
There just happens to be a '70 Cobra Jet Torino in this months subscription delivery of Hemmings Muscle Machines! Totally awesome & often overlooked power house from the pinnacle 1970 year for muscle car performance. I'm almost surprised to hear Ford still had a Cobra Torino in 72. They must have dropped the compression (like the rest of the models) and also seen a Horsepower rating drop due to HP standard measurement being measured by 'net' HP which all ads to my surprise that such a car existed from Ford in '72!

Was the motor a de-tuned 429 Cobra Jet (1970 motor) or something else & what was the official HP rating in 1972 for that car? I'll be googling me some Cobra Torino stuff in a couple seconds!
Spin those wheels man!
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Exactly! My 1972 Torino was a 3514V car. I installed a 1970 429SCJ with a lot of work.

Want me to post pics???
 
Relic said:
You don't even want to know. But I got a real problem bro. lol
Here's the sign off 'Signature' I use at a Gibson related guitar site & I catch some $#it over it once in a while because,.. well because of a bunch of different reasons I reckon if people would be honest. As a point of interest, I can not get any smaller font! lol

Here, check it, what do you think??

View attachment 3601

Hey, I know I'm not the first person to list their personally forum relevant gear in their signature, but I would like to find a smaller more compact yet readable & organized way of doing it. I'm sure regular users get tired of my Gibson brand guitars blazing that green across the length of their screens with ever post I throw up there.
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You do indeed have a problem... You don't have enuff guitars!!! :pound-hand:
 
Hi guys, I had meant to add this last night at the appropriate time but was too tired. I think that to make a decision as to whether woods, bridges etc can affect tone we first have to understand how a pickup works. There really is a lot of misconception about this, sooo I'll explain. Ok the magnet provides the magnetic field which the pole pieces then focus, or direct towards the strings. The purpose of this is to magnetize the small section of string directly above the pickup. That is the magnet & pole pieces sole purpose, to magnetise the strings. Then when the magnetized strings are struck & vibrate in close proximity to the coils they generate a current in the coils. Now earlier Relic said about yelling into a pickup & have it come through the amp. I'm sure most people know that if you have an unpotted, microphonic humbucker in a guitar you can do just that, yell into it & hear it through the amp a little which demonstrates that if the coils are vibrated in close proximity to the magnetic field it also generates a current, as does the squealling feedback these type pickups produce when the coils are vibrated. So, if vibration travel through the bridges, woods etc to the pickup, how much of an effect does it have on tone. As Relic said it would be more with these unpotted pickups, more with like a P90 directly mounted to the body. I do think it would still only be a subtle effect, even on a clean signal. Add in some clipping from a few tube stages being overdriven, then speaker distortion & it would become insignificant, IMO of course, but its food for thought. Cheers

Edit; BTW Relic, that is an impressive collection of guitars you have there. Has me a little green with envy. Cheers
 
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It's even more basic than that. According to Faraday's law, any change to a magnetic field in the presence of a conductor will cause a current to be generated in the conductor. To be of real use in a practical sense, that conductor is constructed as a coil with many turns of wire. Anyway, the magnets create magnetic lines of flux surrounding the coil. Even if the magnets alone vibrated, without any strings present, that would result in the lines of flux moving relative to the coil, inducing an analogous current in the coil.

As I know you understand...but I'm just making an illustration....that is how a dynamic microphone works. The diaphragm is attached to a moveable magnet which is surrounded by a fixed coil. As the diaphragm vibrates, the attached magnet moves with the diaphragm. It's motion effectively moves the magnetic lines of flux relative to the coil, inducing current in the coil

Where I would expand a little on what you said above is that you almost make it sound like the small magnetized portion of the vibrating string, by itself, induces a current in the coil. I would suggest it's a little beyond that, though not necessarily contrary to that. Magnetic fields impinging on each other will change lines of flux. So, I would think it's a little more complete to say the magnetized portion of the string, interacting with the magnetic field of the permanent magnets and pole pieces, creates the changing lines of flux surrounding the coil.

But, I'm probably just being anal!
 
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Hi Smitty, you are right. Disregarding for the moment how string vibrations are translated into a signal, this is what I was trying to get at. Moving the magnet in relation to the coil or the coil in relation to the magnet generates a signal, so how much do vibrations transfered to the pickup through the body wood etc, affect tone? I, like you believe it is subtle. Regarding string pickup, there's two basic schools of though. One, as you describe above. The string, being in the pickups magnetic field, consequentially is magnetically charged with an opposing polarity, thus when vibrated disrupts the magnetic field, generating current flow in the coil. The other school of though is similar except that it is the strings magnetism that generates the current flow. The only reason I lean towards the latter is that when experiments have been done by removing the pickups magnet & externally magnetizing the strings, the pickup functions equally as well. Of course this isn't definitive proof either. & I don't think you were being anal at all. Cheers
 
ivan H said:
The only reason I lean towards the latter is that when experiments have been done by removing the pickups magnet & externally magnetizing the strings, the pickup functions equally as well. Of course this isn't definitive proof either. & I don't think you were being anal at all. Cheers
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Interesting. I need to try to find that experiment. But, I need to be careful, as I could end up geeking out more than I am currently prone to do!
 
smitty_p said:
Interesting. I need to try to find that experiment. But, I need to be careful, as I could end up geeking out more than I am currently prone to do!
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When magnets, polarity and such are mentioned, I always think about Peter Green's reversed pickup...not a wiring reversal, but merely a physical rotation of the pickup, which I do not think has much, if any effect on tone.

What's your take, scientific gentlemen???
 
smitty_p said:
Interesting. I need to try to find that experiment. But, I need to be careful, as I could end up geeking out more than I am currently prone to do!
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Hi Smitty, I'll have to search for them too (there's more than one) but I've no idea where I was looking when I came across (some time ago). I do have a link for a Seth Lover interview where, after speaking of where he grew up & worked, did radio courses, military enlistment (more radio courses) etc etc, before he gets to working for Gibson & inventing the humbucker. He speaks of looking at patents previously issued for pickups, if you read where he gets to talking about Lesti's patent (20,070) where he describes that they used electro magnets to magnetise the strings, the pickup itself just being a coil. Reading on, other pickup patents describe various methods of magnetizing the strings, including using permanent magnets. Anyway, here's the link
Seth Lover interview 1978 vintage gibson PAF humbucking humbucker pickups guitars
I'll look for the ones with the experiments when I get time. Cheers
 
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