personally i'd steer clear of this. people want custom guitars - their own spec of woods, necks, neck join, bridge, pickups etc, but most people will want BKP Aftermath or EMG 81 or Seymour Duncan 59 or some PAF Pro or whatever pups in that design; tough to break that perception!

mgh


personally i'd steer clear of this. people want custom guitars - their own spec of woods, necks, neck join, bridge, pickups etc, but most people will want BKP Aftermath or EMG 81 or Seymour Duncan 59 or some PAF Pro or whatever pups in that design; tough to break that perception!

Excellent example of how different people can be.
I don't care what "people" want and in no way do I try to change their perceptions.
 
What I do care about is what I can do and how much I enjoy doing it. That has worked
out very well for me for many years so why change?
 
So maybe in the future while "most people" are buying their pups....I'll be building mine
and we'll all be happy....and no they won't be for sale but may be available on a custom
guitar I build. :)
I think what you may be missing is that NOTHING I do with music in any aspect is for
monetary gain or marketing. It is purely for my enjoyment and if others enjoy it with
me...excellent.

spacey

mgh


personally i'd steer clear of this. people want custom guitars - their own spec of woods, necks, neck join, bridge, pickups etc, but most people will want BKP Aftermath or EMG 81 or Seymour Duncan 59 or some PAF Pro or whatever pups in that design; tough to break that perception!

Excellent example of how different people can be.
I don't care what "people" want and in no way do I try to change their perceptions.
 
What I do care about is what I can do and how much I enjoy doing it. That has worked
out very well for me for many years so why change?
 
So maybe in the future while "most people" are buying their pups....I'll be building mine
and we'll all be happy....and no they won't be for sale but may be available on a custom
guitar I build. :)

True that, have fun with it Michael.
 
That's the most important thing!

which is fine. and sometimes people will trust their custom builder enough to get them to supply the pups. and you want the challenge, clearly. game on! good luck!

alexoosthoek

spacey

mgh


personally i'd steer clear of this. people want custom guitars - their own spec of woods, necks, neck join, bridge, pickups etc, but most people will want BKP Aftermath or EMG 81 or Seymour Duncan 59 or some PAF Pro or whatever pups in that design; tough to break that perception!

Excellent example of how different people can be.
I don't care what "people" want and in no way do I try to change their perceptions.
 
What I do care about is what I can do and how much I enjoy doing it. That has worked
out very well for me for many years so why change?
 
So maybe in the future while "most people" are buying their pups....I'll be building mine
and we'll all be happy....and no they won't be for sale but may be available on a custom
guitar I build. :)

True that, have fun with it Michael.
 
That's the most important thing!

Thanks Alex. I edited my post to MGH. It's so easy for people to think that the basic reason for
doing something is for money. Easy to see why folks try to make their living doing something
they may love but man I'm working on staying healthy for retirement in a few years lol...I'm not
some young cat trying to fiind my calling...I'm an old cat trying to enjoy the ride.

mgh


which is fine. and sometimes people will trust their custom builder enough to get them to supply the pups. and you want the challenge, clearly. game on! good luck!

Thank you Mark.
 
I should clarify..."I don't care what people want" was in context of what I may try to learn.
Clearly should I be building for somebody or as I have done, I care very much about what they
want.
 
It's not really about the challenge so I can do it for others either. It is however a BIG challenge
to myself so you are correct. I love to challenge myself and have done so since I can remember.
 
I can say that this one is very weird...not only in that there are so many aspects completely new
but so many factors to sort out.
I know right now that building pups is going to be harder than building a 1969 Chevelle SS396
or a guitar or a ........number of things I have experienced. Tuff game this will be if it starts.

I keep returning to the idea of making an electric vibraphone,  which for at least 3 octaves is going to mean 36 pick ups to make

Scoot


I keep returning to the idea of making an electric vibraphone,  which for at least 3 octaves is going to mean 36 pick ups to make

.....good luck and post a recording...in the songs forum. Nothin' to it. :)

I think getting the magnets is going to be hardest part. I don't know how far you've gotten into the process, number of winds in relation to the particular magnet strength, as well as the type of copper wire and type of magnet to acheive a "hot" pickup verses a flat pickup. I'm sure we've all seen and heard and felt, rare earth magnets, alnico magnets, etc. and so on. There's quite a bit of theory and science involved in magnets, even for a guitar pickup. Beleive it or not, magnets are closely monitored because some of their uses can be dangerous. The ones you will want will come from specialty makers of course and it might be hard to get the proper sets for a pickup. 

And most of the rare earth magnets now come from China where they're becoming stingy with the supply.  It's caused some very dense permanent magnet generators that we use (48-pole) to almost triple in price over the last three years...