Brian Posted October 1, 2002 Report Share Posted October 1, 2002 While I just stumbled on to Light Wave Pickups by accident, I have to admit the number of companys already dealing with them is very impressive. New concept in pickups and of course they are still in the testing phase with guitars, but worth checking out. I just wonder how long it will be before the price comes down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flix Posted October 6, 2002 Report Share Posted October 6, 2002 I checked out a couple of sites on this new type of pup and the ones I found were for bass only, is this true? From what I found they're described as reproducing the natural sound of strings/wood etc with no colouring of the tone whatsoever. While this may be acceptable for bassists it may not be so good for guitarists. Maybe that's why I couldn't find any for guitars? We use different pups on our axes in order to achieve a particular tone that we want, Vintage,JB, distortion, single coils,humbuckers etc etc Another thought is that these optical pups would highlight shortcomings in cheaper instruments so that you could only use them on axes made of quality timber etc whereas conventional replacement pups would help to shroud and/or enhance the crappy tone of a guitar made of inferior timbers. I guess this applies to basses as well. A Squire "P" bass can be made to sound a lot more like a MIA Fender "P" bass if you install pups by Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio etc etc . If you install one of these new optical pups then the Squire "P" bass might sound even less like the real thang, dig? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted October 6, 2002 Author Report Share Posted October 6, 2002 Actually I think the use of them would eliminate the need for tone woods altogether. Since they are based on string vibration alone, it would just be a matter of how well your bridge and nut are mounted don't you think? They probably are not offering them for guitars right now because of the tonal differences between them and basses just like you said though. I can only speculate but I'd love to hear one just to know what it sounds like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GEdwardJones Posted October 14, 2002 Report Share Posted October 14, 2002 I checked out a couple of sites on this new type of pup and the ones I found were for bass only, is this true? From what I found they're described as reproducing the natural sound of strings/wood etc with no colouring of the tone whatsoever. While this may be acceptable for bassists it may not be so good for guitarists. Maybe that's why I couldn't find any for guitars? We use different pups on our axes in order to achieve a particular tone that we want, Vintage,JB, distortion, single coils,humbuckers etc etc Another thought is that these optical pups would highlight shortcomings in cheaper instruments so that you could only use them on axes made of quality timber etc whereas conventional replacement pups would help to shroud and/or enhance the crappy tone of a guitar made of inferior timbers. I guess this applies to basses as well. A Squire "P" bass can be made to sound a lot more like a MIA Fender "P" bass if you install pups by Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio etc etc . If you install one of these new optical pups then the Squire "P" bass might sound even less like the real thang, dig? I'm not exactly sure what you're saying here. I'd figure there'd be a lot of applications for this especially in the acoustic and jazz realms. Hell, part of the reason EMGs were so hot in the 80s was because they're a pretty "neutral" pickup. If these don't end up being stupidly exspensive I'd love to see what they sound like on a couple of my favorite guitars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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