Post by frankfalbo on Oct 29, 2017 18:21:31 GMT -5
Haven't been here in awhile (perhaps some enjoyed my hiatus) and just saw this thread. Without multi-quoting everybody I'll try to put $.02 on different themes that have come up, forgive me if I mischaracterize anyone's point of view.
1. The "beating" neck pickup delta, between the plate and non-plate bridge pickup is at least partially a tuning issue. I have good pitch and I can hear it as such. It's minutely possible that the altered magnetic field of the bridge pickup is influencing the string's harmonic content but unlikely, and is overshadowed by the tuning shift. This is something any of us can recreate at home, just by making an open chord and squeezing harder and softer. I don't say this to suggest there's no other difference between lordquilton's clips.
2. Can changing the magnetic field of pickup A alter the sound from pickup B? Yes it can. It's pretty low on the list of meaningful changes but it's not nothing. I've shared the Angus story before. Those are extremely loud and unique circumstances, but his #1 guitar had a very degaussed neck pickup, and on his #2 guitar, degaussing the neck pickup was part of making the bridge pickup tone a success. I'll agree this was as more mechanical (in changing the ADSR of the string) rather than how it magnetically charged the string itself, along the length of the string. In other words, it didn't change the bridge pickup sound because it was polarizing the string a certain way and therefore affecting the electrical tone of the bridge pickup, like it would if you started waving magnets in and around the bridge pickup area.
3. Leo Fender didn't use the baseplate so it would "sound like a Tele". It's the general consensus between myself and (more importantly) friends of mine who would be in the know, that as a machinist, Leo used the steel baseplate for the following reasons: First, to hold threads. He'd leave the fiber on pickups like the Tele neck pickup that would be direct mounted, in that the screw head hits the flatwork and it's not threaded. By the time the Strat came along everything was redesigned, and cost was also a factor. I believe they just said "we don't need it" on the Strat pickups. Secondly, it grounds the bridge plate and strings. There are dozens of other possible motives we could project onto this but usually with Leo, the manufacturing and durability factors lead to the most logical and likely explanations.
4. The initial review: For someone so interested in science your reviews continue to be saturated with editorialized vernacular. Every descriptor chosen caters to your presupposition that small deltas are not worth the attention they receive from marketing departments, and that it's your job to evangelize those foolish enough to exchange currency for such claims. As someone working with these things, the differences you post for with/without baseplate are "huge" to me. But like all things, it's in the eye of the beholder. To a NASCAR driver, a small delta that would be insignificant to the commuter can become the single most important thing on a given day. So we can agree to disagree as to the magnitude of change, but I'll try to address the baseplate issue below.
5. Baseplate: First on a Tele the plate is larger, so the inductance shift should be larger by a small magnitude. Jerry Donahue worked tirelessly on the "faux tele sound in a strat" and the full sized baseplate is one aspect, as is having a magnetically permeable bridge surrounding the pickup, about half way through the coil. Both things affect the magnetic circuit. Any plate, even the Strat sized rectangle on the Dimarzio will affect the return path. It doesn't matter if you see a gauss delta at the string, the circuit has changed. In Jerry's case, a pickup like the Twang Banger was just a partial approximation. In short, you should be looking for some aperture widening, and some reduction of phase cancellation within the coil from the plate, but without the Tele bridge and larger baseplate you're not all the way there.
In that regard, I can agree that (in my opinion) there are marketing descriptors out there that over-promise greater Tele emulation than is actually delivered.
1. The "beating" neck pickup delta, between the plate and non-plate bridge pickup is at least partially a tuning issue. I have good pitch and I can hear it as such. It's minutely possible that the altered magnetic field of the bridge pickup is influencing the string's harmonic content but unlikely, and is overshadowed by the tuning shift. This is something any of us can recreate at home, just by making an open chord and squeezing harder and softer. I don't say this to suggest there's no other difference between lordquilton's clips.
2. Can changing the magnetic field of pickup A alter the sound from pickup B? Yes it can. It's pretty low on the list of meaningful changes but it's not nothing. I've shared the Angus story before. Those are extremely loud and unique circumstances, but his #1 guitar had a very degaussed neck pickup, and on his #2 guitar, degaussing the neck pickup was part of making the bridge pickup tone a success. I'll agree this was as more mechanical (in changing the ADSR of the string) rather than how it magnetically charged the string itself, along the length of the string. In other words, it didn't change the bridge pickup sound because it was polarizing the string a certain way and therefore affecting the electrical tone of the bridge pickup, like it would if you started waving magnets in and around the bridge pickup area.
3. Leo Fender didn't use the baseplate so it would "sound like a Tele". It's the general consensus between myself and (more importantly) friends of mine who would be in the know, that as a machinist, Leo used the steel baseplate for the following reasons: First, to hold threads. He'd leave the fiber on pickups like the Tele neck pickup that would be direct mounted, in that the screw head hits the flatwork and it's not threaded. By the time the Strat came along everything was redesigned, and cost was also a factor. I believe they just said "we don't need it" on the Strat pickups. Secondly, it grounds the bridge plate and strings. There are dozens of other possible motives we could project onto this but usually with Leo, the manufacturing and durability factors lead to the most logical and likely explanations.
4. The initial review: For someone so interested in science your reviews continue to be saturated with editorialized vernacular. Every descriptor chosen caters to your presupposition that small deltas are not worth the attention they receive from marketing departments, and that it's your job to evangelize those foolish enough to exchange currency for such claims. As someone working with these things, the differences you post for with/without baseplate are "huge" to me. But like all things, it's in the eye of the beholder. To a NASCAR driver, a small delta that would be insignificant to the commuter can become the single most important thing on a given day. So we can agree to disagree as to the magnitude of change, but I'll try to address the baseplate issue below.
5. Baseplate: First on a Tele the plate is larger, so the inductance shift should be larger by a small magnitude. Jerry Donahue worked tirelessly on the "faux tele sound in a strat" and the full sized baseplate is one aspect, as is having a magnetically permeable bridge surrounding the pickup, about half way through the coil. Both things affect the magnetic circuit. Any plate, even the Strat sized rectangle on the Dimarzio will affect the return path. It doesn't matter if you see a gauss delta at the string, the circuit has changed. In Jerry's case, a pickup like the Twang Banger was just a partial approximation. In short, you should be looking for some aperture widening, and some reduction of phase cancellation within the coil from the plate, but without the Tele bridge and larger baseplate you're not all the way there.
In that regard, I can agree that (in my opinion) there are marketing descriptors out there that over-promise greater Tele emulation than is actually delivered.