Electromagnetic guitar pickups have been in wide use for more than 50 years. Not only are the basic operational principles unmodified, some of the most popular pickups are exact copies of 50 year old designs. This situation begs the obvious question of where pickup design is headed and where there are opportunities for improvements. There are only a few underlying physical phenomena that can be harnessed to sense string motion. However, it would seem that there is plenty of room for innovative applications of familiar physical principles. This paper discusses current trends in pickup designs, suggests direction for further development and describes an effort to update the design of inductive pickups.
Topics
Musical instruments
© 2012 Acoustical Society of America.
2012
Acoustical Society of America