Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi everyone,

This is my first time posting on the electric board. I build acoustics, but Ihave toyed around with the idea of trying an electric for some time. I told a friend I would build him one so I'm committed to doing at least one. Depending on how it goes I may do more. I think the best way to describe the guitar is a cross between a SG and a Less Paul. It is a double-cutaway design with a slight arch to the top. Scale length is 24.9. 2 mini humbucker pickups and a Schroeder Stoptail bridge.

I'm just working to finalize the design and have 2 questions I would like some imput on. What is the best way to determine pickup placement and bridge placement? The one or two books I have on building electrics aren't real specific on these points. I am familiar with calculating compensation for acoustics and was planing on doing something similar for this guitar, but I was just wondering if there is a simple way to do this that I might not be aware of. Also for pickup placement is there a standard formula to go by? Or does it come down to personal preference?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Josh

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

Dang! Good questions.
I've often wondered the same thing. Maybe someone will come along and educate us both.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I think what most people do is try to space the pickups as far apart from one another as they can. This way they can get the widest possible variation in tones between the two.
I've heard people talk about locating them over something called a harmonic node(I think), but I've heard the counter to that argument is that once you fret the string, the node changes position. I think you just really have to decide if any of that makes sense. Me, I don't know how true that is. Don't care. I space them as far apart as I can( most times). It works for me.

Here's a discussion on harmonics that may be of some help.
http://www.tdpri.com/forum/just-pickups/188126-harmonics-what-makes-em-how-can-we-get-more-em.html

Here's one on general placement I read recently.
http://www.tdpri.com/forum/just-pickups/188126-harmonics-what-makes-em-how-can-we-get-more-em.html
hope that helps, and welcome to the dark side!

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Good question Josh,
and thanks for that link, Mike Baker.
I have always put the bridge pick-up close to the bridge,
with about an 1/8" space.
The fb pick-up I always put on the harmonic,
sounds great, but when I hit the harmonic on the 5th fret,
you can barely hear it.
Somebody on this forum pointed that out, and they were right.
I measured a couple of basses yesterday, Gibson EB-0,
and the pick-up is about half a fret away from the harmonic,
toward the fb.
I am going to measure more geetars, and see where they are.
I'm also thinking it would be better to stay off the harmonic.

I measured a Les Paul, an Ibanez semi-hollow body, and a Strat and came to the conclusion to place the neck p/u pole piece 1/4" from the harmonic....but dont' ask me for a rational reason beyond this.

Logic seems to dictate that the more space between pickups offers the most tonal variation but this has its caviats. The closer a bridge p/u is to the bridge, the less string amplitude it senses. This is the reason that bridge pickups are generally wound hotter when they are sold as a matched set. So...logic further dictates that as you plan to place the bridge pickup closer to the bridge, you'll want to see a larger difference between the impedance of the two pickups in order for them to work together as a nice, balanced set on a given guitar.

A loose rule of thumb is....placing the neck and bridge pickup conventionally (a little bit off the harmonic fro the neck p/u and not to close to the bridge for the bridge p/u) the bridge p/u has about twice the impedance. If you want to run really close to the bridge then shoot for a larger impedance ratio between the two. My guess is that a 3:1 ratio is a little too much. 2.5:1 seems about right with the pickup pole very close to the bridge....but I tend to place them conventionally.

Don't take my 2:1 ratio thing as a hard rule either because you'll find examples where this isn't true. I simply have factory guitars that measure out this way. The point is, the impedance relationship between pickups is determined by the factories for their guitars based on what sounds good on that guitar with that pickup placement. If you want to develop a sense of pickup placement and pickup choice it is best to begin with an understanding of the impedance ratio between the pickups and their general placement...

...so learn to measure impedance with a meter and start taking notes on the guitars you make and play. Then learn how the basic shape of a single coil affects the sound.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I designed my bass with the bridge pickup under the 4th octave harmonic (or where the 48th fret would be if it were fretted and the fingerboard were long enough). I then positioned the neck pickup roughly halfway between the bridge pickup and the end of the fingerboard.

None of these placements were done for any real reason, except that (1) it seemed like a good idea at the time, (2) the spread gives my right hand lots of playable positions, and (3) it looks good to me.

Hi,

My solution for pickup placement is to place the pickups in the same relative position as my favorite sounding guitar (for the application), figure out how far in each pickup is and transpose to new scale.

For me, the Les Paul is the ideal sound so 24.5625" = 100% (100/24.5625=4.07125)
Bridge pickup is 1.5" in (6.107% of scale length)
Neck pickup is 6" in (24.427% of scale)

Translate to 24.9" and Neck = 1.52" and Bridge = 5.9998"

Simple solution for me because i dont know the "whys" of placement.

Edit: these numbers are lies, btw. Forgot to mention that. Just made up some figures to make a point.

Thanks for all the replies,

That gives me a lot to go on and was exactly what I was looking for. I'll get out my drawing and start playing around with pickup positions.

Josh

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

Hi Josh,
Great question (You beat me to it!) I am on my first build and I have been thinking the same thing - on my build, I have taken several measurements from my PRS, so I am doing a 25" scale and ironically, I am installing "Dragon II pups" on my dragon guitar. My build however has a 24 fret guitar as opposed to my PRS Custom 22 and I am figuring I am going to lose some of the "bassiness" of this, so my neck pup will be right up to the fb and I am going for the range as well, so I will be placing the bridge pup approx 1/8" from the bridge. - the range is SMALL IMO because I have a 24 fret build - good luck man!!

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"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

I love this stuff from the UIUC physics department. Not necessarily the lightest reading, but excellent content. I also highly recommend their page on pickup measurements.

http://online.physics.uiuc.edu/courses/phys498pom/Lecture_Notes/Fourier_Analysis/PDF_FIles/Fourier_Analysis4.pdf

Maybe I'm wrong here, but they didn't mention duct tape once in the article.

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

All joking aside, this is a great find and there is actually some really good info in there - thanks for the share!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar