Quick question re. lipstick tube pickups

[Bob Francis]

I have an electric upright that needs some bling.
Can I install 4 lipstick in line with the strings? They would be parallel to the strings and each other.

[Brian Evans]

I can't think of why it wouldn't work, but you can easily get one pickup, wire a jack on to it and see if you get a good response from it parallel to the string. You would need to experiment with series/parallel wiring, keep track of phase, and play with volume pot impedance to get your tone where you want it. You probably know that a high (1 meg) pot bleeds off fewer high frequencies and sounds a lot brighter than the same pickup with a low 100K - 250K pot, and having four pickups with play with that a bit.

[Bob Francis]

Thanks Brian!
I had convinced myself that in-line with the string was not functional.
Follow pics when I get it.

[Jason Rodgers]

I'm guessing Mr. King will have the correct answer, but will arco or pizz double bass strings have enough ferric content to be sensed by the pickups?

[Bob Francis]

I'm guessing Mr. King will have the correct answer, but will arco or pizz double bass strings have enough ferric content to be sensed by the pickups?

Good point. I bought these strings from Gollihur music with their recommendation for mag pickups.

[Brian Evans]

Trivia - Ampeg's first product, and the name of the company, was their pickup system for acoustic double bass - a contact microphone in the peg of the instrument. Hence "amp-peg".

[Bob Francis]

Just a quick edit Jason.
I really just want this for Pizz no bows. But I could pop a piezo on the bridge. . . hmmmmm

[David King]

I think it should work but I've never tried it. I don't actually know how the lipstick magnets are magnetized in terms of where the poles are. I'd assume that the North or South pole is facing the strings so the orientation of the tube under the string shouldn't matter. With 4 lipsticks you may end up with 4 times as much noise unless you can reverse the phase of two of them to achieve common mode rejection i.e. humbucking. Since you are picking up four unique signals you shouldn't need to worry about magnetic phase reversal -no one will know that the strings are out of phase with each other, all you need to do is reverse the hot and ground leads of two of the pickups.
That said lipstick tube pickups aren't terribly efficient and they may be quite insensitive at the distance from the strings that an EUB might require. I'd definitely follow the advice above of trying one first. The sensitivity of a pickup at a distance is dependent on the depth of the magnet, the deeper the magnet the further it can project it's field lines above.

[Bob Francis]

Thanks guys!
Will try a couple combinations on a temporary jig and post results.


1

[Beate Ritzert]

That said lipstick tube pickups aren't terribly efficient and they may be quite insensitive at the distance from the strings that an EUB might require. I'd definitely follow the advice above of trying one first. The sensitivity of a pickup at a distance is dependent on the depth of the magnet, the deeper the magnet the further it can project it's field lines above.

If i did something like this i would do 4 individual pickups - a coil around a large rod magnet - and wire them pairwise as humbuckers.

Here You see a few solutions on one of the earliest EUBs - the Framus (AFAIK there was at least one other model even before WW2). This bass has a magnetic pickup, and they changed it through the really long production time of the instrument: http://www.framus-vintage.de/modules/mo ... ID=9&cl=DE

[Bob Francis]

Understand the distance issue!
I think I'm going to try Beate's suggestion on their hookup.
I built it with the normal overstand of an upright.
Will advise. . .

[David King]

Beate,
those Framus instruments are so cool, thanks for bringing them to our attention. I just wish the photos were a bit bigger with more detail.

Bob,
Your simplest approach would be a standard precision bass pickup under the strings which would allow you complete control of the volume from each string by adjust the angle of each pickup. The P pickup is one of the most efficient and can handle wide string excursions. You could also try your hand at winding single pole pickups as some of the Framus basses are showing. These are extremely easy to fabricate with a rod magnet, a couple of fiber or nylon washers and 10,000 turns or so of 42AWG magnet wire. You don't need to count the turns just wind them on a drill with a known RPM for a set period of time.

[Beate Ritzert]

Beate,
those Framus instruments are so cool, thanks for bringing them to our attention. I just wish the photos were a bit bigger with more detail.

I found a few more on a site where i did not expect them (a japanese collector of German archtops, showing an image of the antetype of my problem child guitar): http://jazzgitarren.k-server.org/framus.html - please scroll down a bit.

[Bob Francis]

Those are great photos!