Making a Stereo (or Hexaphonic) Guitar Pickup

[zebra50]

Hi!

A little update on the stereo pickup. With some help from Zayance, I have made a 'production' version of this. I'd like to say a big thanks to Tony (Zayance), who is extremely talented and professional, and helped with the board layout.

The fabricated boards help with alignment of the square pole pieces, and the pickup cover and base plate tidy the job up nicely.

The original version with 42AWG wire was a little bright sounding, especially in the bridge position (where string isolation is best), and so I have swapped to 43 AWG with another 1200 turns. This gives a little more output too.

The pickup can be wired for stereo or hexaphonic output. When mixed to mono it is humbucking as the coils on one side are reverse wound with reverse magnet polarity, although the sound is single coil in character.

Here's serial number 002 being mounted into a friend's guitar.

I have extra boards and bobbins, and will be winding a few of these for sale - if anyone is interested please drop me a line.

 

[zayance]

Thanks a lot for the kind words Stewart, nothing much here really, happy it turned out good for you.

 

[wave]

I think this is pretty sweet. I want one.

Dave

 

[tchgtr]

  Oh my! This is a very interesting thread. I need to examine it closely again when I'm not exhausted from a long weekend.
Thanks to Stewart for sharing this project, and to everyone else for the nice links.
Let me add one,
Here's Dave Bunker @1960:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip6-Ed5TZJ0&feature=plcp

 

[okgb]

Great d.i.y. spirit & craftsmanship , inspiring, that my stuff should look half as good

 

[zebra50]

Thanks guys,

I am more than happy to supply either completed pickups, or any/all of the parts, if anyone wants to have a go. 

That Dave Bunker clip is great! What a bonkers creation. Love it!

update.... Here's one in a 'toaster' style cover. Looks pretty smart!

Stewart

 

[abbey road d enfer]

I did a bit of further digging into polyphonic pickups, and the earliest that I could find is this patent by James Webster & Gretsch, applied for in 1956. They describe split coils for bass and treble strings, and then go on to describe a system with a pickup for each string.

http://www.google.com/patents/US2964985

So it seems strange that these guys also claim to have invented similar systems in the recent past...

http://www.stereoguitar.com/Investors.html
http://www.google.com/patents/US7982123

As you know, the devil is in the details. They may claim priority on the color of the wire or location of the trimmers.
I recently read an article (probably VGM) where they said that Gretsch first experimented with the alternate scheme (1-3-5 on one side, 2-4-6 on the other) and that several testers found it weird, so they made 1-2-3 on one side and 4-5-6 on the other. Chet Atkins, who played melody on the 3 thinner strings and bass on the others was quite pleased with this arrangement. It may not suit everybody (I think Hank Marvin couldn't play Apache). I think the sensible way is to have pan-pots on each string and distribute the signals from left to right according to the natural position of the strings. It would be a tad complicated.

 

[ubertar]

Hey, nice work. It's always interesting to see what other people are doing. I've been making hex pickups and other polyphonic pickups for sale for some time now: http://www.ubertar.com/hexaphonic and I've been coiling pickups for a little over 20 years.

DIY is great, and I'd assume your friends here would want to buy from you if they want to buy a hex pickup, and that's as it should be. But when those run out, or if people want to consider another option, please give mine a look. I also have various breakout box options, seven string poly (heptaphonic) pickups, quad bass pickups, and more.

Thanks,
Paul