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what makes the pickup vibrate? The vibrating body.
the physics is simple- kinetic energy is not lost, just transferred elsewhere
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So you agree with what I have said. It has an affect as part of the whole system?
the thread title is correct, just not specific enough
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<bored now... I'm off>
That's a bit GCSE physics - it assumes that the two ends of the string are held at fixed relative positions, and that both exhibit purely nodal behaviour. Given that you can fairly easily bend a guitar, the two ends are clearly not held at fixed relative positions, so the behaviour becomes more complex.
As usual, exaggeration is a handy tool. First imagine the two ends are anchored to a massive block of granite or similar - so close to rigid as makes no difference. The string would behave in a GCSE physics manner.
Then imagine the two ends are fixed to a whippy bit of spring steel - stiffer than the string, but bent into a curve by the tension on the string. The two ends can now move relative to each other, which will affect the tension and thus the pitch, and - rather importantly - the vibration of the strings will directly influence the movement of the spring steel, and thus the vibration of the strings affects the vibration of the strings.
Wood is between the two - you can bend a guitar by hand (lots of players grab the headstock on a fixed bridge guitar to get pitch bending effects). How audible the effect is is open to discussion, of course, but it should be clear that a vibrating string in a GCSE physics problem is very different from a vibrating spring on a bit of wood glued or bolted to another bit of wood, with one end passing over a bone, metal or plastic nut and the other passing over a metal bridge saddle of some sort or other... both ends being secured beyond the speaking length.
And a bit of slide on a shovel. Sounds good to me. Must be that tone wood handle!
Yeah it affects it but not nearly as much as people think and not really in the ways people think. The clothes you're wearing can make a difference, what you ate for dinner can make a difference.
yes, a steel guitar will sound different to an aluminium one just like wood piece A will sound different to wood piece B. It's the same concept.
having said that, I fully agree you could make a guitar out of anything and it will still sound like a guitar. This is very different to saying the material has no effect at all
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Perhaps you are thinking of a Piezo pickup, which is generally used on an acoustic guitar, which a completely different kettle of fish.
Actually, the pickups sense the deformation of the electromagnetic field by the passage of the string through the field. The pickup cares not a jot whether the string is vibrating through the field, or the pickup itself is vibrating and the string is stationary. The phenomena between the string and the filed is the same either way (assuming the frequency and size of the vibration is the same).
Therefore, if the pickup *is* vibrating due to being not perfectly isolated from the structure holding the strings, then the vibrations of the pickup itself will produce a signal, albeit a small one.
Adam
I seem to remember Gibson were supposed to have done the caps basically because they could ( they had the machinery to do it from making other guitars already) and Fender couldn't so it helped differentiate them as a more premium product. Bit of googling says they were also going to launch a range of Les Paul finishes at the very start but got cold feet and only put the gold top ( which had a mahogany top at prototype stage)out for sale so the maple was possibly chosen for cosmetic reasons and the decision never reversed when only gold tops went on sale. Although the true version might be buried in history.
Again, you're using over-simplified GCSE physics.
The movement of the strings relative to the magnetic field of the pickups induces a current in the coils.
So if we assume (even though I've already explained it's an oversimplification) that the endpoints of the string are in fixed positions, and put the pickup in a rigid mounting between those endpoints, then only the string vibration is involved in that relative motion. However, as soon as the pickup is mounted to something that's not perfectly rigid - for example a bit of wood - it will also be moving relative to the endpoints (though much less than the strings). The movement of the pickup therefore also affects the relative motion of the strings in its magnetic field.
Given that tapping different bits of wood reveals that they have different resonances and frequency responses, and given that it's the relative motion of the pickup and strings that results in the signal from the pickups, it should be pretty obvious that different bits of wood can have an influence on the signal the pickups produce.
Simples, huh?
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I think you are just being awkward for the sake of it now.
The pickup can not be considered stationary and separate
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