Alright, enough of the humour, (although those who know me are used to the dry wit), this week it’s all about guitars, so all you hot chicks that don’t play guitar can go back to your “reality” shows.
The electric guitar began with George Beauchamp’s horseshoe pickup in 1931. It was powerful and sounded great. It was placed by the bridge and had plenty of treble. Later in the 1930’s guitarists wanted a more mellow tone so they added a “tone” control, which simply cuts high end causing a muddy sound. Then they added a second pickup at the neck position, as the vibrations of the strings there have different harmonics. The advertisements at the time trumpeted the “Highest highs, and the Lowest lows!” To this day you still see that now and then. Trouble is, as a guitarist, the last thing I want are screeching highs and muddy lows!
I’ve struggled with this for years, so I decided to make my own pickups to get sounds not available from the now generic single and double coil designs. I have split each pickup into sections that can be switched and combined, simple and all passive. With my pat. app. for “Dual Quad” pickups I can get sounds not heard before. Back in the sixties some of the off the wall brands used a similar four coil split design, but the wimpy single coils they used were too weak to sound very good. “Dual Quad” pickups are powerful and always humbucking.
The prototype “durantula guitar” on my guitar page sported my first coils and you can see in the pic here some of my later handmade pickups in regular size humbucking rings and in front, the first of the 3D printed bobbins. Once I have all the parts sourced I might be considering offering them for sale… I’ve had requests to build and sell durantula guitars but at the moment I don’t want to work that hard, I’m getting too old!
This is the first Guitar Blog with many to follow, so comment and keep tuned right here!
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