Mounting pickups directly to body...?

[halenfan83]

Hi, how's it going?
Excellent site; the Van Halen-like axe section is particularly cool.
Anyways, I'm about to put a seymour duncan JB trembucker in a kramer focus 6000 that I have. I want to mount the pickups directly to the body to get as much tone and sustain as I can. I've heard in order to do this you would want to take a strip of wood that's long enough to stretch to both screw clips on the side of the pickup but just only as wide as those clips so that the wood doesn't obstruct the pole pieces sticking out the bottom of the pickup. Do I have the right idea here, or would it be wiser to just use two smaller pieces of wood: one at either end of the pickup for the mounting screws to go through before they go into the body?
Another idea that I've heard is to not have the mounting screws go through the wood spacer but rather to just have the mounting screws going from the pickup directly into the body with the wood spacer there to merely have the correct spacing from the strings.
It seems like having the strip of wood rather than having two small pieces would allow more vibrations to pass into the pickups.

Sorry to be so long winded here, but having looked at your site I know you guys are the ones to ask a question like this.
I would certainly appreciate any input that you might have, and I'll look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks for your time
-David

[hollywood5150]

NO!

don't add or take any wood from the guitar.

what you should do is get the pickups with the longer wings.

or what ever you call them. that way you can have the pickup at normal levels without having to add wood.

2nd, the closer the humbucker to the string the more sustain and volume you will have.

(trust me, I have done this before)

I own 4 kramers, 1 washburn, and several others i have built.

as a matter of fact you can even call me. If your interested let me know.

[halenfan83]

I wish I had that option. I've already bought the JB trembucker; it took 2 weeks to get it in. I know that the closer you get the pickup to the strings that better the tone..well as long you don't move them too close.
If you're into van halen you should check out www.jfrocks3.com. That site has a ton of useful info on it. The reason that I bring that up is that that guy has nailed the brown sound with kramer parts he put together and a crate gfx 212. What he has done is screwed the pickups directly into the body by using a wood spacer. Problem is, he isn't particularly specific about how he went about doing that and right now he's busy with making cd-roms for his site so I thought I'd post on here to see if someone had heard of this before.

[BrownSound1]

Have you actually heard the guy's sound clips? I'm looking, but I don't see any link for soundclips.

I'll be the first to admit trying the pickup mounting directly to the wood, and I'll be the first to admit that I couldn't tell any difference either.

[Don Corleone]

What you could do is to glue in a small peace of wood to mount the pick up on (there shouldn't be any tone penalty by doing this)

[GAR]

Originally posted by hollywood5150
get the pickups with the longer wings.

or what ever you call them.

"height-adjust feet".

[Eyes of the Night]

Mount those fuckers fan83! ... there IS a difference albiet very slight ...

[GAR]

.. but not slight enough that Eyes will do it.

[Nitro Express]

I just said fuck it and used a pickguard with hieght adjusting screws. Now I can use a screwdriver to fine adjust the pickup hieght. As far as direct mounting giving you better tone, I experimented with this and to be honest, I couldn't tell a difference.

[Drblacwood84]

dimarzio tone zones mounted direct work great

[Drblacwood84]

with direct mounting it picks up vibrations and shit better ik

[Nitro Express]

Why do you want to pick up vibrations and shit? A guitar pickup is an inducer. You have an magnetic field with a coil of wife inside that field. When something metal distrubs the magnetic field, the coils produce a small amount of electricity when the dynamics of the field are changed. That is how a pickup works.

Eddie and modern pickup manufactures now saturate the wire windings with wax. Why? To keep vibrations and shit from moving those wire windings around and creating an awful squealing noise.

The pickups are only going to pickup what the strings in the magnetic field are doing. They don't sense the vibration of the guitar, only the strings. But the wood and other factors have a slight effect on how the strings vibrate and effect the tone dynamic.

Direct mounting a pickup has more of a psycological effect than a real sonic effect. A lot of Van Halen songs were recorded with Ibanez and Gibson guitars with the pickups in bezels. Fire! on the first album was an Ibaneze Destroyer with the pickup in a adjustable bezel. Hot For Teacher was a Gibson Flying V with the pickup in an adjustable bezel.

Ed just did things because it was different or he liked it that way. Kind of how he just used eye screws and clips instead of buying some factory made strap locks.

The distance of the pickup from the strings has more effect on the sound and sustain than anything. With direct mounting you have to use shims or remove wood. It's a pain in the ass. With the bezel you give the screws a turn.

[Nitro Express]

The key to getting the best sound from a pickup is to mount it solidly so it doesn't rock or rattle in it's mounting. The old two screw Gibson styled adjustment bezels suck for this. You can rock and wiggle the pickup all over the place. It's much better to use a three screw mounting like Fender does or a four screw mounting like Carvin does. Unfortinately most aftermarket pickups only have the two holes for the Gibson type setup.

I would say your pickup performs better by direct mounting it to the wood because that pickup cannot move and affect the relation of the magnetic field and the strings. Pickups through a cranked amp get really sensative and pick every little vibration in the stings up. It's amazing and it almost sounds like the wood but it's technically impossible. I think loosely mounted pickups cancel out some of the vibrations because the pickup is moving slightly in relation to the strings. If anything, you are going to get more resonance transmitted and sustain through a solidly mounted pickup whether it's screwed to the wood or in some kind of mounting ring that holds it solid.

[GAR]

Originally posted by Nitro Express
When something metal distrubs the magnetic field, the coils produce a small amount of electricity when the dynamics of the field are changed. That is how a pickup works.

I wish you could explain why the pickup goes KUNK KUNK when I thump it on the edge with my thumbnail, being that since my thumb is nonmagnetic it defys your explanation of how it shouldn't work.

This is the problem and also the reality of direct mounting: it is not supposed to work in theory, but driving the pickup feet into direct contact with the body adds string sustain naturally by transferring body vibrations along with electromotive vibration thru the transduction of the pickup to the amp.

[Nitro Express]

Originally posted by GAR
I wish you could explain why the pickup goes KUNK KUNK when I thump it on the edge with my thumbnail, being that since my thumb is nonmagnetic it defys your explanation of how it shouldn't work.

This is the problem and also the reality of direct mounting: it is not supposed to work in theory, but driving the pickup feet into direct contact with the body adds string sustain naturally by transferring body vibrations along with electromotive vibration thru the transduction of the pickup to the amp.

Wow. I was screwing around with some pickups tonight and if you take the strings off a guitar and then tap or try and get the pickups to pick up noise it's tottaly different. I screamed into the pickup on the guitar with no strings and heard nothing through the amp. Then I did the same with the guitar with strings and I could hear my scream. This is through a cranked amp.

All I know is those guitar strings pick up a lot of vibrations and amazingly, those passive pickups get very sensative through a cranked amp. Now through a cranked amp, my Wolfgang sounds better than my Les Paul with Duncan Seth Lovers which of course are unpotted. Yeah, I think there is something to direct mounting, theres a subtle increase of pickup sensability to the dynamics going on. For harmonics and tapping it seems to work better.

[Frankenstraat]

the correct way to do this would be using the correct pickup, you should measure the cavity first because it will need to be atleast 11/16ths deep for a true direct mount.. If its not then the strings won't lay above the pickup correct, there should be atleast 1/8th distance between them. Another option would be to strip all the paint from the cavity and glue in a piece of hard wood and make sure you press out all the extra glue as thios will interfere with tone transfer.

[Nitro Express]

Also you have to have that pickup height compatable to what kind of bridge you are using and how that is set up. Not all Floyd Rose bridges are the same. The cast ones are thicker than the origianl forged steel ones so the string hieght is different.

You also have to have a backangled neck pocket for a flush mounted Floyd.

So the trick on a Van Halen type guitar is to have the depth of the pickup cavity route the right depth for the particular Floyd Rose you are using and then a back angled route in the neck pocket. Without the back angled route the string angle on the neck will be wrong and you will have to use shims to correct it. Shimming will ruin the guitars sustain.

[indeedido]

You are not going to get any more tone out of your guitar by adding a wood spacer under the pickup. You could put a piece of foam under it to elevate it, it won't matter. You're wood is not one piece when you do this. The resonance will not be there. It will be like a dead spot, any string vibration will be killed where your wood joints meet. All you can do it add the pickup by this method or foam and achieve an asthetic look without a pickup ring.

[Frankenstraat]

Foam really doesn't transduce tone well. When I make bodies I route the neck pocket 5/8ths deep and the pickup route 11/16ths deep so that I can mount a PAF style pickup with long legs brackets and use an original Floyd. I'm not a big fan on putting an angle on the neck pocket but it does help if something goes wrong, such as the neck being thin...

[Dino.]

Originally posted by indeedido
You are not going to get any more tone out of your guitar by adding a wood spacer under the pickup. You could put a piece of foam under it to elevate it, it won't matter. You're wood is not one piece when you do this. The resonance will not be there. It will be like a dead spot, any string vibration will be killed where your wood joints meet. All you can do it add the pickup by this method or foam and achieve an asthetic look without a pickup ring.

I don't know that I can honestly tell a difference in tone when the pickups are mounted directly to the wood, but common sense tells me that a wood spacer will help transfer resonance better than a piece of foam. :rolleyes:

If you're lucky enough to own a body made by Frankenstraat, you won't need a spacer. But there are alot of bodys made from other manufactures that will require some sort of modification.

I always try to "mock" build my projects in anticipation for things like this. Coincidently, these two bodys (Customwoods and KnE) both needed 1/4" spacers. Here's a simple way to make spacers that maintain a clean look.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a274/DinoBonanno/template.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a274/DinoBonanno/DSC05235.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a274/DinoBonanno/DSC05253.jpg

[Frankenstraat]

my bodies don't need that!

[Dino.]

Originally posted by Frankenstraat
my bodies don't need that!

Hence my quote ... "If you're lucky enough to own a body made by Frankenstraat, you won't need a spacer." ;)

[Nitro Express]

I think you lose the advantage of direct mounting going with any kind of shim. There's either going to be airspace of a glue space that's going to kill off certain vibrations and ressonance. You might as well mount the pickup on springs on a bezel.

The obviouse way to go is get a body that is one solid piece of wood and have the pickup hole routed to the exact specifications for the pickup and bridge. You have to know the realation of those two variables and then hard mount the babies.

[indeedido]

There is no real resonance to be had. It isn't an acoustic guitar. The magnet picks up the vibration of the strings above it. Not really the wood below it. Pickups create a magnetic field. That is why if you put the strings too close to the pickup, the strings don't vibrate as well. It is EVH hype.