foam under pickups to prevent movement ?

Ang3lus

Junior Member
Messages
150
since i don't like the idea of not being able to set up my pickup height (aka mounted to wood)

i was thinking, anyone tried filling the cavity with foam ?
will that prevent movement and those unwanted frequencies ?
 
Foam will prevent squeal, but i don't know about what you mean by movement? If a Humbucker is in its ring and the ring is screwed to the body it should not be moving.
 
Foam is one of those useful things to stash, as it come up in your life - packing foam, pickup-height foam, guitar case-fitting foam.... along with varying thickness of shim plastic & wood screws & tubing, my foam collection is my pride & joy!  :hello2: I try to keep a package of this stuff around:
http://service.maddak.com/catalog/766900183.asp

The tan stuff is 1" diameter, you can cut down sections to put into pickup cavities, wrap towels around it to make pads to make a guitar fit tightly in a case, beat on yer cat with it.... unlike cheap foam it's not gonna decompose inside your guitar in a year. Any drug store that carry canes and pads and stuff for handicapped people can order it.
 
My hollow body Strat was made to mount the pickups direct to wood - some small pieces of foam were used to set the pickup height - seems to work perfectly.
 
I was doing some repair to a late '80's Charvel and noticed the single coil pickups had foam under them to keep the pickup at a proper height.  As a side note, I was really impressed with the grounding job that Charvel did.

I'm going with a direct to wood pickup mount on a project guitar and chose the surgical tubing method of height adjustment.  It is a H/S/H configuration.
I'm using this.  http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Hardware,_parts/Electric_guitar:_Screws_springs/Flametop_Single-coil_Pickup_Mounting_Screws.html

I think the screws are going to be too large for the humbuckers though.  May have to intriduce them to the drill press.

James



 
I have done this, don't know if it prevents squeal but it does allow for height adjustment. Go for it. Just make sure you cut the foam slightly smaller than you think you need -- on my guitar, you can see this bright green foam poofing out from underneath the pickup!
 
My old man's Fender P-Bass had foam under the split coils and I gotta say, it sounded like the best bass around. I kinda regret taking it out after it got passed down to me.
Give it a shot, but the foam has gotta be a little more on the firm side.
Cheers,
          Floyd
 
It's the one part that's included with some new pickups, but isn't listed on the inventory.  The foam that it's packed in works great for height adjustment.
 
craft sticks, aka tongue depressors, aka ice cream stick, are GREAT for solid mounting a pickup.  Just glue together what ya need, shape to fit... and have at it.  Solid mounting... has its following.  The 90's in my SG are solid mount, non adjustable.  What tone!
 
Solid mounting can only have "benefits" if your pickups are microphonic, i.e. if they are picking up mechanical as well as electrical vibrations. If you can sing into them or beat on them and they make noise, it's possible that solid mounting may transmit more of something that's desirable to you. If my pickups are microphonic I replace them because I consider it to be an electromechanical fault, but as CB says - they have their following.  :toothy11:


(Many, other, people actually try to isolate pickups from mechanical coupling - foam, rubber tubing etc. Perhaps we need government intervention)
 
So.. if  can mute the string, and take a wooden stick... a chopstick.. and tap the pickup and hear it thru the amp, then there's benefit?
 
wait do you mean if you tap the wood? because wouldn't that cause excess noise when your playing onstage and moving around?
 
Unless you mean to tap the wood  :laughing7:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF8nhSj0WzM
 
I direct mount all of mine, I usually do as CB had mentioned. I cut some scrap pieces of wood the thickness I desire to fit between pick up and body. Then use some metal bushings under the screw mount tabs...Works like magic.... :headbang1:
 
So.. if  can mute the string, and take a wooden stick... a chopstick.. and tap the pickup and hear it thru the amp, then there's benefit?

Not to ME there's not - I want my electromagnetic pickups to pick up the vibrations of the strings through electromagnetic means, if I wanted a contact mike I'd install a contact mike (Zappa and others did....). However, Eddie Van Halen says you should mount them direct and he's a big star, so if you want to be a big star you obviously need to mount your pickups direct too.
Oooh I bet I'd look good in some of them stripy overalls.... :party07:
 
-FenderMan- said:
wait do you mean if you tap the wood? because wouldn't that cause excess noise when your playing onstage and moving around?

No I mean tap the pickup... it was said that mechanically... some pickups dont benefit from direct mounting.  So I asked if you could hear the pickup, then would that be enough to tell if direct mounting would make some change.

It was a leading question - because - direct mounting can make a change no matter what, especially compared to loose mounted pickup (one of those half floppy humbuckers for instance).  Not for better or worse, but different, as the dynamic of string, body, and pickup change.
 
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