A pickup IN the neck???

[jackthehack]

A guy I work with that knows absolutely zilch about guitars was looking at my $100 build thread and asked me what at first seemed like a completely ridiculous question:

"Can you put a pickup in the neck of the guitar? What would that sound like?"

But after thinking about it for a while, you COULD put one of these in a hole you drilled in the neck and run the wiring back:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Pickups:_Guitar,_acoustic/Fishman_pickups/Fishman_Thinline_Undersaddle_Pickup.html?tab=Details#details

and wire it up stereo with a separate vol knob, like on Townsend's current Stratocasters...

Hmmmmm...

 

[mayfly]

or just under the neck in the neck pocket as a shim.  I believe that these things do need a solid contact otherwise they will not work.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Yeah, they've gotta have actual vibration on it, like under a bridge.

 

[rockskate4x]

haha, this reminds me of being a noob and thinking that the phrase "neck pickup" meant having a pickup in the neck. I didn't really know what pickups were at the time. The lumps of stuff under the strings between the fretboard and the bridge were just who knows what. I figured that the neck pickup was some magical device embedded deep into the fretboard...

 

[drewfx]

The Epi LP Ultra-II has a "NanoMAG" PU in the neck:

 

[Paul-less]

The Epi LP Ultra-II has a "NanoMAG" PU in the neck:

Oh! Sneaky bastards!

 

[drewfx]

Supposedly Frank Zappa also had a guitar where he had a piezo installed in the headstock! I believe it was the burnt Hendrix strat, burnt onstage by Jimi in Miami, and given to him by one of Hendrix's roadies.

Can't find any pictures/confirmation though...

 

[erogenousjones17]

My old Samick electric acoustic had six screws at the 12th fret that I later discovered (I was a total n00b at the time) were the pickup. Guitar sounded awful plugged in, and the neck eventually warped to the point it was nigh-unplayable. It's still sitting in a closet at my parents' house.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

If the pickup was at the 12th fret, what did it sound like if you went past the 12th fret.  Instead of going higher, it should go lower because it's now pickup up the string between the nut and your finger, which is lengthening.  It's not unlike using a slide with the neck pickup and sliding on towards the bridge past the neck pickup.

 

[erogenousjones17]

To be honest, I have no idea. I was just starting out, so I think anything beyond the fifth fret was uncharted territory.  :laughing7:

But when you keep going up towards the bridge with a slide, don't the pitches get higher and higher? You can get all manner of unholy bird/Nintendo sounds up there.

 

[JaySwear]

that could be really cool. it would probably pick up more of the string noise than notes if you know what i mean. might end up sounding more like an acoustic

 

[bagman67]

There's a fella named Hans Reichl (at least, it MIGHT be spelled that way) who was in Guitar Player magazine in the mid-late 1980s in part because of some wild stuff he was doing with guitar-like instruments.  Among other things, he was putting pickups at both ends of the neck, and amplifying the string vibration behind the point at which it was fretted, leading to some weird overtoney stuff.  I dug it, but it sure wasn't meat-n-potatoes guitar.  Nowadays I think his primary instruments are his self-designed "dachsophones", "dachs" being  German for "badger."  He decided on the name because the instrument (actually a collection of various lengths and shapes of different woods played with a bow) sound like an animal growling or snarling - think of cats giving that warning yowl before they claw your dog to ribbons that sort of thing.

My point is this - a good reason  NOT to put a pickup north of where it is, up in fretted-note territory, is that ampliifed behind-the-fret vibration will be very much at odds with whatever intentional sounds you are trying to make - unless the sound you make is supposed to be that particular one.  But if you like that whole prepared-guitar vibe, go for it, and send in an MP3 for us all to scratch our heads over.

Peace

Bagman

 

[Tonar8352]

Supposedly Frank Zappa also had a guitar where he had a piezo installed in the headstock! I believe it was the burnt Hendrix strat, burnt onstage by Jimi in Miami, and given to him by one of Hendrix's roadies.

I remember reading the interview with Zappa in Guitar Player where talked about puting a pickup in a neck.  I don’t remember the details because it was 1000 years ago (and I never exaggerate) but I’m sure it was the one were he was on the cover with the burned Hendrix Strat. You might want to check and see if you can find that issue and see what he had to say.

 

[Mor Paul]

I don’t remember the details because it was 1000 years ago (and I never exaggerate)

Yep, Tonar's been around a while. He remembers the first rock group!

 

[OzziePete]

Supposedly Frank Zappa also had a guitar where he had a piezo installed in the headstock! I believe it was the burnt Hendrix strat, burnt onstage by Jimi in Miami, and given to him by one of Hendrix's roadies.

I remember reading the interview with Zappa in Guitar Player where talked about puting a pickup in a neck.  I don’t remember the details because it was 1000 years ago (and I never exaggerate) but I’m sure it was the one were he was on the cover with the burned Hendrix Strat. You might want to check and see if you can find that issue and see what he had to say.

I remember that too.! 

I don’t remember the details because it was 1000 years ago (and I never exaggerate)

Yep, Tonar's been around a while. He remembers the first rock group!

Go to your room Max......not only Tonar remembers that interview... :icon_thumright:  :icon_jokercolor:

BTW isn't that stone assembly a Spinal Tap stage setting?  :laughing7:

 

[Cagey]

Similar, but apparently off-scale. Spinal Tap's Stonehenge prop ended up being only 18" tall, and quite the embarrassment.

 

[Panthur]

Fred Frith has a zero fret/nut pickup thingy on his guitars. But then he's not really playing them in a convential sense so I don't know how much use it would really be. One of the cool things with this extra pickup was he could capo the guitar somewhere down the neck and have effectively two guitars on one neck. Pretty crazy stuff.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-NrmZoeM_U&feature=related[/youtube]

The above kinda demonstrates how a pickup on the neck produces two tones from one string etc. It's all a bit odd to me though.

 

[jackthehack]

If they had LSD and crack in the 1920's and Django Reinhart simultaneously overdosed on both, it might have sounded like that...

 

[Graffiti62]

Fred Frith has a zero fret/nut pickup thingy on his guitars. But then he's not really playing them in a convential sense so I don't know how much use it would really be. One of the cool things with this extra pickup was he could capo the guitar somewhere down the neck and have effectively two guitars on one neck. Pretty crazy stuff.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-NrmZoeM_U&feature=related[/youtube]

The above kinda demonstrates how a pickup on the neck produces two tones from one string etc. It's all a bit odd to me though.

Sounds like the intro to the long version of "No Time" by the Guess Who.

If I remember reading right one time, the old Wizard of Waukesha himself wanted Gibson to contemplate putting a pickup in the neck of the Les Paul Acoustic when it came out in the seventies. I think they stopped at the point where he made them put a low impedence pickup on a flat top.

 

[pabloman]

It might have been right under the fretboard not sure but I think Kurt Cobain had a pickup in the neck. :dontknow: I do know he had a hole in the.........................Nevermind arty07: