Guitar pickups, part three

[Don Tillman]

   From: tom at synth-diy.you-bastards.com
   Date: 24 Jul 2000 00:20:56 -0700

   Right on!  But shouldn't the response for a single pickup be symmetric
   about the center of the string?  E.g., shouldn't the response at the
   5th and 24th frets match, or am I missing something?  

The response of individual harmonics of the open string should be
symmetrical about the center of the string, yeah.  But the rest of the
curve, the stuff in between those points, comes from the different
notes being fretted.  And fretting different notes is going to be a
different sitation for those two pickup locations.

   The peaks and valleys look correct at the bridge (a node for all
   frequencies), 24th, and 12th frets, but at the nut the response is
   not zero like I would expect. 

If you place a pickup at the nut, there are nodes at the string open
frequency and all harmonics.  So it's effectively silent.

   On a further note, I can't get the note fretting feature to work
   (netscape 4.7 on linux), 

Hmmm, works for me (just now trying it out on Netscape 4.72, Linux
6.2, Pentium).  Could you try it again; the note fretting feature is a
little fussy about where you click.

   and could you please add the pickup position information from the
   articles to the reference number section? 

Good idea.

  -- Don 

-- 
Don Tillman
Palo Alto, California, USA
don at till.com
http://www.till.com