Fishman's 3d printed pickups

[Jet-Jaguar]

I've been reading about 3d-printed everything lately, but I was still kinda surprised to read about 3d printed pickups:

http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/20082-unwound-fishman-rethinks-the-electric-guitar-pickup

It's a 3-page (ish) article, here's a paragraph:

While there have been thousands of pickup variations and refinements over the last 80 years, most of today’s magnetic guitar pickups aren’t all that different from Beauchamp’s invention. In a conventional pickup, a continuous length of copper wire is wound thousands of times around a bobbin or coil former, surrounding the magnet or magnets. (The wire doesn’t short itself out because the copper strand is coated with a thin layer of insulating material.)

Fluence, however, is based on the notion that coils can be applied rather than wound. Like traces on a circuit board, concentric spirals of “coil” can be printed. Picture, for example, a racetrack- shaped printed circuit board the size of a Stratocaster pickup, with an opening in its center reserved for magnets. One board can hold one spiral, and because it’s printed, each copy is perfectly consistent. The next step involves stacking multiple layers of printed coils and interconnecting them until “pickup” ability is reached. It’s a technique used in the aerospace and telecommunications industries, though it’s never been applied to guitars.

 

[Cagey]

You'll forgive me if I'm skeptical, but I would like to hear the evidence and see a pricing schedule. Sounds promising enough, and modern technology does produce the occasional miracle. We'll see how this one pans out.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Well yes, the theory is good, but who cares? We just want to hear how they sound.

 

[SustainerPlayer]

And will they sound better if Abigail were to print them?

 

[Jumble Jumble]

One thing's for sure: you'll need a vintage cloth-covered USB cable from the computer to the printer if you want the best tone.

 

[drewfx]

Interesting, but the decision to attempt to launch largely by trying to replicate existing PU's seems questionable to me - it goes without saying that the vintage and boutique guys will hate them regardless of what they sound like and if they aren't cheaper what do they really bring to the table? And the idea of using active electronics to shape a PU's response is not exactly new either.

The potential for different sounding and more available switchable options is more intriguing to me.

 

[TroubledTreble]

This is interesting for sure. It certainly shows that there are still ways to "rethink" pickup design. I have a new one swimming in my head and it's really a matter of technology or material sourcing that would make it happen.

I think most pickup makers are looking at this as interesting but not the end all to be all. It's another active pickup. It also requires a battery, which they have addressed very well. To me there is nothing better than good old straight forward "analog" design to get that good ol' gut feel.

This may very well be a foundation or starting point for something else in the future. It will be interesting to see how it evolves, how well it is received and how it gets used. I'm sure it will have it's niche. A tip of the chapeau for execution.

 

[Jet-Jaguar]

Interesting, but the decision to attempt to launch largely by trying to replicate existing PU's seems questionable to me

I see what you're saying, but unless they could replicate existing sounds - In other words, the "single coils" sound like a single coil "should" sound - I'm not sure that they'd be accepted by the customer base of modern players.

One thing that has surprised me, since I started playing a few years ago,  is how modern players are chasing 20+ year old sounds. When I was growing up, the guitarists that I knew were all trying create some new sound and be the next Eddie Van Halen. Now they just want to be EVH.

 

[stubhead]

If they do a quarter of what could be done with this it'll blow away an awful lot of the "normies." Quite some time back, Peavey used a system where the tone control rolled a pickup from humbucking to single coil - but then they went and put it on a Peavey! :laughing7: :laughing11: :laughing3:

By "printing" taps off of various locations in the coils, they could, in theory, come up with pickups that could do ANYTHING. But like the gents say, they will run into the most slothful and mud-stuck of all creatures - rock 'n' roll historic recreationists.

In every previous failing culture, a society goes through a period known as the "classic era." This isn't the BEST of it, it's right after the best when people are grasping at what they thought were the best parts. The late Egyptians were building low-rent little crappy pyramids, the Romans were all pretending to be cultured Greeks, and Hollywood honestly thinks the best source for movies is... 1960's sit-coms!

There are any number of "artists" like Prince & Sheryl Crow who's every single little bit can be traced to prior music. Like a late 1950's doo-wop vocal over a Stevie Wonder synth bass and an 80's guitar part. And of course a mixing of sources has always been important since the advent of recordings, but they're getting SO obvious about it. I get the impression that Elvis and Chuck Berry liked both country and rhythm 'n' blues, though in Berry's case it was mostly the story-telling element of country.

And nowadays it's more like a big juicy BARF after a five-course meal. Or maybe the propulsive plops, and mommy didn't tell them not to play with other people's poo. :sad1:

 

[drewfx]

If they do a quarter of what could be done with this it'll blow away an awful lot of the "normies." Quite some time back, Peavey used a system where the tone control rolled a pickup from humbucking to single coil - but then they went and put it on a Peavey! :laughing7: :laughing11: :laughing3:

By "printing" taps off of various locations in the coils, they could, in theory, come up with pickups that could do ANYTHING. But like the gents say, they will run into the most slothful and mud-stuck of all creatures - rock 'n' roll historic recreationists.

But I don't think they're doing that - beneath all the newfangled technology it sounds like they are just producing a flat, low output, low impedance PU and then using active electronics to boost the signal and mimic the resonances of different PU's.

IOW, minus the new printed coil stuff, they're just using the same basic idea Alembic came up with 40+ years ago.

 

[SustainerPlayer]

Oh - that would be modeling! OMG 

 

[OperatorAce]

If they do a quarter of what could be done with this it'll blow away an awful lot of the "normies." Quite some time back, Peavey used a system where the tone control rolled a pickup from humbucking to single coil - but then they went and put it on a Peavey! :laughing7: :laughing11: :laughing3:

By "printing" taps off of various locations in the coils, they could, in theory, come up with pickups that could do ANYTHING. But like the gents say, they will run into the most slothful and mud-stuck of all creatures - rock 'n' roll historic recreationists.

In every previous failing culture, a society goes through a period known as the "classic era." This isn't the BEST of it, it's right after the best when people are grasping at what they thought were the best parts. The late Egyptians were building low-rent little crappy pyramids, the Romans were all pretending to be cultured Greeks, and Hollywood honestly thinks the best source for movies is... 1960's sit-coms!

There are any number of "artists" like Prince & Sheryl Crow who's every single little bit can be traced to prior music. Like a late 1950's doo-wop vocal over a Stevie Wonder synth bass and an 80's guitar part. And of course a mixing of sources has always been important since the advent of recordings, but they're getting SO obvious about it. I get the impression that Elvis and Chuck Berry liked both country and rhythm 'n' blues, though in Berry's case it was mostly the story-telling element of country.

And nowadays it's more like a big juicy BARF after a five-course meal. Or maybe the propulsive plops, and mommy didn't tell them not to play with other people's poo. :sad1:

FUD

Everything in history has largely been a stepping stone off of something else. We've not gone backwards, or stopped progressing in any way.

 

[swarfrat]

Innovation in this market requires an enigmatic star to endorse your product, get famous, then kill himself. Functionally, it's the same school of thought as EMG's, which sound fine, but have never been able to break through thick headed skulls. I'm convinced guitarists LIKE hum. I suspect if you could perfectly remove the hum from a 54 strat pickup, then play a decent facimilie with hum, your average purest snob would pick the humming one every single time, because he associates hum with 'the real deal'. Guitar players don't like buffered outputs. Even though some folks will make a point of using the short possible cable.

Ultimately, I don't care about the mechanism. If Fishman can make multilayer PCB pickups cheaper and they're acceptable, more power to ya. But I think marketing wise they would have been better off encasing them in a layer of beeswax, then epoxy and just calling them 'potted', while making mention of the beeswax.

 

[Cagey]

I'm convinced guitarists LIKE hum.

Hehe! Yeah, I've had that same thought.

 

[Ddbltrbl]

I'm convinced guitarists LIKE hum.

Hehe! Yeah, I've had that same thought.

Isn't that the 4th of Cagey's laws?
  1. Slow down to speed up
  2. Always use a metronome
  3. Dare to suck
  4. Make it hum!
:dontknow: :laughing7:

 

[Cagey]

No, I don't think so. In fact, I don't have any guitars here with a single coil pickup installed, or even a way of splitting/tapping one to get that. Can't stand hum. Sounds faulty. I hear hum and the first thing I wonder is "what's wrong with that damn thing?"

 

[stubhead]

The single-coil neck pickup sound - I just think of it as the "Little Wing" one - is something I really like to have, but with a good "silent" single coil, like the Lawrences, you get really close. It's the same narrow field, but with another coil underneath running about 30% as strong, just to knock out the hum. Just walking into a situation with a Telecaster with unshielded, humming pickups is pretty much unprofessional, IMO. With a Strat you've at least got the 2 and 4 switch positions. It seems to me like it's getting worse, too - between the cell phones and wireless computers, wireless big-screen TV's and all, you've got to have some sort of "bucking" or as KG says, there's something wrong with it. 

 

[Dan025]

well normal 3-d printing is slow and not cost effective for more than prototyping, but i'm not sure that's what is going on here. winding can also be slow, not 3d printing slow. but that's another story. it looks like its stacked printed citcuits. it is probably a lamination of 2d layers that can be etched into a spiral.. i don't think there is an actual helix. this might not be too costly or time consuming. i didn't read the article but i have a feeling some of the information is misleading. but it's still kinda cool. and in this case every pickup has the possibility to have near identical specs.

 

[swarfrat]

3D Printing is a bit of a misnomer here for marketing purposes. It's a multilayer PCB printed circuit inductor.  About the only thing 3D printing is good for in mass production is making molds.

 

[Strat Avenger]

I hate hum, and I'll never understand why some guitarists insist on having single-coil pickups that hum. It's technology that's 60+ years-old. This is the 21st century, and while most of us still appreciate the classic/vintage styling, it makes no sense to not desire modern performance.

Dimarzio has nailed the hum-free single-coil tone (and with less magnetic string pull). It took them decades, but they did it. Better than the Fender "noiseless".

I remember saving my pennies in the '80s for the HS-3s (and HS-2 for the middle) because that's what Yngwie was using.
When I got them, I could never get a tone I truly liked out of them (not to mention that their output is incredibly weak).
They didn't sound like a humbucker, nor did they sound like a vintage single-coil. I couldn't get any "quack" from the 2 & 4 positions.

Times have changed.

The Area-series and "Injectors" have redeemed Dimarzio as far as I'm concerned. 

The only legitimate reason for having the old stock single-coils in a guitar is if that guitar is a valuable collectors item, which is worth more in 100% original condition.