Cool article on pick-ups

GAD

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I've been doing a lot of pickup stuff lately. When I started it all my initial mental position was, "It's magnets, plastic, and wire - how hard could it be?" That simple curiosity has served me well in life but the problem is the discovery of just how wrong I am every time I say it costs me a LOT of time. Sometimes it makes me money. Sometimes it makes me smarter. Sometimes, well, sometimes I'd have been better off spending that time elsewhere. :)

I have a pile of articles brewing about pickups but suffice to say that after hundreds of hours of obsessing about minutia, digging into theory and spending money on even more test equipment (seriously, who needs a gaussmeter?) I'm here to tell you that though it's pretty simple to take some magnets, plastic, and wire and make your own pickup, there are very valid reasons why some sound better than others.

I believe that it's human nature to want things to be simple (unless you work in IT, apparently) and people (myself included) want to believe that pickups are simple. They are not. There are a lot of complex interactions at work that can be hard to understand unless you're into electronics and physics which is why we revert to saying things like "HB-1s sound chimey" and "Fender HB-1s sound muddy". At the level of communicating about sound, those terms work. What gets me into trouble, like the Curtis Novak says in the article, is that I need to know why. When he was a kid he took apart drills. For me, it was telephones.

I also don't sleep much which is why I'm posting at 4:30am. Sheesh. I'm going back to bed.
 

NEONMOONY

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Aside from the art and science of making a consistent product with a specific sound, there is our own shift idea of what is perfect. It seems like players are always chasing an elusive ideal sound. A pickup may be a favorite for a while and then we starting looking for something that is "that" sound plus something more, looking to improve, in some undefined way, the sound we loved 5 minutes ago. Our dream sound constantly shifts.
 

Walter Broes

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you could almost argue that pickups are too simple, us guitar folks are stubbornly sticking to what's essentially 1930's technology. Big, crude high impedance hum antennas, and as if that wasn't bad enough, we insist on plugging them into tube amps, of all things. Not a big surprise we get a big fat grin on our faces manipulating rigs like that in a world where 90% of the sounds we hear are processed, compressed, digitally generated or manipulated.
 

fronobulax

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Curtis Novak makes a Hagstrom Bisonic clone that in my opinion is as close as you can get to an original in the new market. I've got one in the Betts Bass. Communications were a bit awkward but it turned out he was dealing with a death in the family when I was trying to get answers. He knows more than I do about pickups and is capable of explaining the things a customer needs to know before making choices. I'd gladly buy from him again.
 

mellowgerman

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Nice, thanks for sharing. Always interested in getting a glimpse into the Novak mind. I too have had a fantastic experience with the Bisonic pickup that Curtis makes and I have heard a few of his other pickups in person. Great stuff and a really nice guy too!
 

jp

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Thanks for posting this article, John. Interesting reading about a guy who I've always heard about but never really explored. I like his philosophy which often means I'd like his products.
 

adorshki

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you could almost argue that pickups are too simple, us guitar folks are stubbornly sticking to what's essentially 1930's technology. Big, crude high impedance hum antennas, and as if that wasn't bad enough, we insist on plugging them into tube amps, of all things. Not a big surprise we get a big fat grin on our faces manipulating rigs like that in a world where 90% of the sounds we hear are processed, compressed, digitally generated or manipulated.
"Hear, hear", no pun intended.
We used to say a guy "knew how to play his amp, too."
 
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