Eddie Loves You

Individual piezo elements at the bridge will give you more separation; you'll have a lot of cross-talk trying to use individual magnetic pickups

Yeah I've checked unfretted, definitely a good source of info. Most of the discussion about actually making fretless instruments is about ripping out frets, though. I'm thinking some thin brass sheeting could be cut out and epoxied to a wooden substrate? I'm planning on a flat board but this could work for a radiused one too.

Anybody else?

Has anyone done it? What did you use (brass?)? How did you attach it (epoxy?)? Pics if you got 'em!

Yeah, if I make my own I may go that route (though there isn't much info on making those, either). I already have the pickups that I drew into Illustrator (which is why I wanted to know if they'd work, but I guess I could go with some different ones. The only 7 string rail pickups I know of are the X2N-7's. Maybe the 7 string Blackouts but I want to stay passive.

Yeah eventually I want to make my own pickups; spacing wouldn't be a problem then.

But the pickups would then effectively be reading the treble strings progressively closer to the bridge; that is what I hope to avoid by angling them. Are the magnetic fields really that small and concentrated? Do the fields around each pole piece overlap?

Will this pickup placement give proper coverage for the strings? I guess my main question is about the nature of the magnetic field surrounding each pole and how output will be affected by the strings traveling mostly over 1 pole in some cases and between both in others.

Awesome J, thanks for the info. That's exactly what I was worried about; dye running under the tape. Definitely post pics when you get them! Anybody have anything else to add before I go crazy on some test scrap?

Yeah there is a contrast veneer. In your experience, would a black-dyed veneer be a little more forgiving in that it wouldn't take up that much stain and therefore make it a little easier to get a clean line?

Any ideas? Very careful masking tape application?

It's really not too bad. I cut it down so that it will get a few turns around the post; this will usually leave a little of the winding sticking out so that you can grab it with some needle-nose pliers. Just start unwinding around the core (probably a few dozen times) and you're good to go.

Just unwind the winding on the lowest string down to where it goes into the tuner; only the core will go into the tuner. This way you can use any guitar string (d'Addario makes up to .080 I think)

Do you get these fairly regularly? I´ll be up in Portland at the beginning of October and would love to grab a board. Also, are there any good places for lumber I should check out when I´m up there?