Optical Pickups - Not What You Think :)

[MasterMinds]

Ok, so this needs a new thread.

An electric guitar might be specifically called a electromagnetic guitar, more than an electrical guitar - this is because it uses magnets to convert changes in the electrons in the magnetic field into an electrical signal sent out of the guitar.

An optical perfect is hardly different, except the first step. It uses the change in a spectrum of light - not magnetism - and converts this into an electrical signal.

It's analog - not digital, at all.

The optical receptor uses an LED light to detect the vibrational properties of a signal string. It sends the entirity of the vibrational proper - meaning every overtone up to slightly beyond the auditory range - into the electrical signal (not out of the guitar at this point).

A pickup is like a permanent tonal color to a guitar. It will detect only a sample of the vibrational propers, each detecting it's own signature. This limits the coloring you can give the signal afterwards, because reviving lost tones is not the same as coloring them naturally.

Practical points are as follows

1. the system for the optics is a part of the bridge, it does not go in the pickup area, meaning you have nothing under the strings, the optics are at the bridge, where a piezo might detect them.

2. the system does not need anything "special" - it uses the same guitar plug in, same cables, same pot controls (if you want them) - nothing quarky like custom strings or anything

3. it's not digital, it's analog - it sounds like an electric signal gotten from a string, just like magnetic pickups - the different is the full tonal range, which at the point before pot controls is the full physical range unmolested

Benefits

1. magnets cause intereference in sound, they dampen the string vibrations by pulling on them, and they stop sustain. optical pickups - being light - do not interfere with the strings in any manner

2. buzzing and static - there's none from the pickups. no such thing as noise on a pickup at all, all that is detected is the vibration at that point in the chain

3. each string uses it's own pickup - which are combined in circuit - this means there's dedication to each strings qualities, only later are they combined.

4. string material is optional - these do not require steel strings. one can potentially use any matter, each of which will create a unique tone to it.

5. tonal color is not defined by the pickup - on a guitar, if you put a given pickup in, there are some tonal possibilities you cannot achieve. with the optical, your tonal shaping (done by tone pots if you want them, or EQ etc..) is really up to you. all using a standard guitar cable.

6. it's not digital i can't say that enough, it still sounds like a guitar if you plug right into a clean amp, hand slides, pick scraping etc.. - all sounds sound like a guitar, the only difference is a full tonal range which is up to you to shape,

This item has been tested for a while with user input. How, about 23 to 30 major manufacturers of BASS and GUITAR (and even some violin, cello etc.. and even drums) - have bought production to add them to their models.

soon enough these items will be sold to add in, but it might be a while.

[borge]

got an example?

soundbyte?

[MasterMinds]

surely if there is no tonal arrangement caused by this pickup, then there is no different between this and having no pickup at all (tonally wise obviously)

so what you get is the unaltered sound? correct?

but what i am saying, is that different pickups flavour sounds differently due to the magnets used, number of turns in the coil etc

i'm sure i'm missing your point completely, and you are missing mine too

←

You're right. What happens is, the optical pickups recombine with the piece in the guitar. It then is output just like the cable coming out of the pickup - a simple electrical cable etc So yes, the optical system sends the entire unaltered vibrational signature. Not sure if you know what overtone signature is - but it sends this, throughout the whole audible range (and actually a little more than humans can here)

You said pickups flavor sound, definetely they do. But that was my point. If you have a flavorful pickup in your guitar, you limit the choices after that pickup in your setup - right? In this case, you can - if you bypass the tonal controls of the guitar - send the signal out, unaltered, and then create your own flavor using whatever means necessary.

I should mention the guitar can have all the same tone pots etc.. you want - and customizations

I understand what you mean weezer by that you have a tone you like, and achieving it from this system will be like finding one vibration in the entire universe. That's certainly true - but you'd surely find many sounds you like and would be similiar enough.

It's not something someone who loves their perfect tone wants to jump into - but let's remember that with all the modeling amps around..........we can most likely achieve our goals.

weezer - dare i mention the idea of modeling pickups in the future? yikes.

[MasterMinds]

got an example?

soundbyte?

←

Off-hand the bass samples are more abound. Two reasons, firstly the bass pickups came out way before the guitar and acoustoelectric ones. Secondly, these pickups are particularly good because they handle lower frequencies awesomely better than magnetic pickups, due to the wavelengths. So they're being shown off more.

Here is a list of music in which you can hear these pickups at work though, and I will get you some samples soon. Hired musicians for last years music with these artists:

keith richards, jeff beck, animal logic, the rite of strings, vertu, phil collins, rod stweart, diana ross, wayne newton, tori amos, stevie nicks upcoming, planet x, christina aguilera, dream theater derek shirinian.

I have not found guitar examples online yet, just heard myself. but if you just wanna get the sense of this not being some strange pointless digitalness, here's the best sample I found. I will find more tommorrow.

to be honest, you're not going to hear anything you haven't heard before. this system sounds no different than a regular guitar because it isn't any different than one in any way that ultimately affects the sound. Just imagine having a guitar with every single pickup in it so all the tone is captured, and then selecting what you'd want - that's what this is.

I could just pickup my own guitar and show you a sample...

Here's the company whose design has risen to the top and is being sold with guitars now. There's about 3 small samples on it. There electric section is down for preparing for the opening of them.

http://www.lightwave-systems.com

good night - time to start my 4-day work week.

Edited April 1, 2005 by MasterMinds

[crafty]

I really wish this site was like Slashdot so we could mod stuff as 'Flamebait' with zero points...

Optical pickups are nothing new. They've been around for a while for basses and such. The problem is that your so-called perfection is pure hype. No pickup system is perfect. For all intents and purposes, piezo pickups could be considered "perfect" because they can pick up vibrations outside of the human audial envelope even better than the best optical pickup. The problem is they sound harsh and boomy unless you put them through some sort of preamp equalization process.

Optical pickups are going to be the same way. They aren't going to sound like traditional magnetic pickups, which is the sound most people want, and you're going to have to spend a hell of a lot of money and time trying to get them to sound like magnetic pickups rather than just going out and buying a Les Paul.

If you want to make music with a guitar synth, go for it. But don't call others close-minded simply because they want nothing to do with an unproven system that isn't going to give them anything they really needed, anyway.

I'm starting to get a vision of your guitar as a flat piece of graphite with an optical bridge/pickup setup, untapered neck, no truss rod, fanned frets, no nut, and some kind of reinvention of the Steinberger or LSR tuners. And it's still going to sound and play like a piece of crap nobody wants. Ned Steinberger already went through this in the '80s, don't follow his path!!

BTW, modeling amps sound like crap. Might as well just get a Flock of Seagulls hairdo and learn how to play a whole song with one finger on the keyboard.

[fryovanni]

If a tree falls in the forest but nobody.......

Sorry wrong debate

[marksound]

I'm starting to get a vision of your guitar as a flat piece of graphite with an optical bridge/pickup setup, untapered neck, no truss rod, fanned frets, no nut, and some kind of reinvention of the Steinberger or LSR tuners. And it's still going to sound and play like a piece of crap nobody wants.

And don't forget, all the parts and materials are coming from Home Depot!

[onelastgoodbye]

got an example?

soundbyte?

←

Here's the company whose design has risen to the top and is being sold with guitars now. There's about 3 small samples on it. There electric section is down for preparing for the opening of them.

http://www.lightwave-systems.com

←

It's not being sold with guitars...they've been 'preparing' for the last 3 years , so the company is either dead or in need of a decent webmaster.

Apparently they're still alive though, because there was a guy here who built a bass using the lightwave system not too long ago.

[erikbojerik]

4. string material is optional - these do not require steel strings. one can potentially use any matter, each of which will create a unique tone to it

Not so, unless the string is somehow transparent to light (and I'm not entirely sure what effect that would even have). One opaque string will sound just like any other in an optical system; for example, bronze and gut strings would sound identical (thereby defeating the purpose of using different strings to achieve different tone colors).

My guess is the company is having problems at high frequencies...probably diodes are not the way to go with small string diameters and high frequencies, you'd probably need to go with tiny lasers. (now THAT would be affordable....not).

[ToneMonkey]

Mah, you can make a laser out of jelly and a jar (Gelatin to you americans)

[frank falbo]

No matter what you do, you can't duplicate phase relationships between pickups with EQ. About the only thing you can do in the analog world is limit the various frequencies until you are left with the approximate tonal footprint of a PAF, or whatever pickup you're trying to model. You'll never simulate combinations. Hey sometimes I like the dropout you get from bending a string off a vintage single coil's pole piece. The only way you can model other pickups sounds as well as their combinations is by, well, modeling. So you have to convert to digital if you want to make any recognizable sounds available. We all realize it's not digital. Neither are piezos, but the Variax is, and it sucks, both the electric and acoustic ones. (which blows my mind-how do you mess up a piezo in an acoustic?)

Now, maybe over time, optical pickups prove to be a more natural and useful way to start a modelling algorythm, or a midi conversion, but that's about it. Or maybe they're great for an acoustic. I'd like to see something done where the LED optically monitors the acoustic guitar's top, or bridgeplate, like an internal mic. Catching only the string vibrations is still limiting, the way a piezo is limited, and best when combined with a mic.

But by the way, I do agree they would be useful as another cool sound to play around with, like adding them to an existing guitar the way we do with piezo bridges. I mean a new, cool sound/feel is always welcome. And on bass, where we're less attatched to existing sounds, and more open to purer, more full frequency sounds, it could be great.

[lovekraft]

I think optical pickups are a great idea - anybody know where I can get a set?

As a bass player, I've been watching the Lightwaves stuff for years, and best I can tell, it's vaporware - too bad, I'd love to have a set, even if it was only for braggin' rights!

[sepultura999]

It's not being sold with guitars...they've been 'preparing' for the last 3 years , so the company is either dead or in need of a decent webmaster.

maybe they're just taunting us. Making us crave them but of course never releasing them so we just end up talking about them and asking "what if...?"

-Jamie

[thedoctor]

Hey LK! Know anybody in the CIA? They are reported to have laser pickups that work from across the street! Cheap, too, I'll bet!

[Primal]

I would have to agree with Frank. I think that the only true future for the Lightwave system is in the bass market. Being able to tweak every possible frequency of my bass tone really appeals to me. Being able to EQ your bass to sound like a Music Man, or a Wal bass, or a P-bass would be just awesome.

Another possibility for their use would be for people who like EMGs. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't EMGs sought after because of their pure tone and virtual non-coloration of the tone that allows you to EQ the tone that you like? Thats the only other option I can think of. Of course, if they are having trouble with high frequencies, then I doubt the technology will be ready for guitars any time soon.

[bassman]

I must chime in here..... I worked for Dammann Basses for a little while(www.dammannbasses.com), some of those older basses used the lightwave system. They did sound pretty good, they had good solid lows and clean highs but they were lacking in the mids a great deal. Ralph Dammann told me that Lightwave had been bought by another company, but I really dont know for sure. Last thing I heard was that they were revamping their preamp system to accomodate for the lack of mids. I was interested in using them, but they did not overly impress me for the price, but at this point I prefer piezo pups or good old magnetic pups.

[Kyle Cavanaugh]

Hey Frank, I'm about to prove you wrong about emulating pickups in an analog manner! So many people with knowledge in electronics will be kicking themselves in the @$$ going, "You're joking, how could it have been that simple?!?!" Better than the Variax it will be for sure, but of course you can't emulate the non-ideal characteristics exactly, not in a practical way at least.

[frank falbo]

That's why lightwave should just bite the bullet and start marketing them as a "blend-in" like piezos. Most bassists will blend piezos with the magnetics. I believe they could sell the idea better if it was an enhancement of all the sound you're not getting with magnetics. Leave the P's and J's and soapbars in and go from there. Why take something that performs well in certain frequencies and simply try to preamp it to death just to produce your sound? It's like acoustic piezos. They'll never sound like a mic, so professionals use an internal or external condenser and possibly the piezo as an enhancer, rather than EQ and process the piezo to best approximate the natural acoustic sound of the instrument. It just can't do it. So if they made a lightwave replacement bridge of good quality for $225 with a blender preamp, I think they'd be in the game. Right now they're stuck in the minor leagues, regardless of how many talent scouts sing their praises.

Edited April 4, 2005 by frank falbo

[lovekraft]

I think you've hit on the best solution there, Frank, at least so far as Lightwaves goes - hopefully they'll get it figured out for themselves.

I like really like the doctor's idea, though - there's something really appealing about having a little knot of GS-12s in dark suits and wrap-around shades wearing earpieces standing back at the sound board pointing a laser at my bass!

[frank falbo]

Hey Frank, I'm about to prove you wrong about emulating pickups in an analog manner!  So many people with knowledge in electronics will be kicking themselves in the @$$ going, "You're joking, how could it have been that simple?!?!"  Better than the Variax it will be for sure, but of course you can't emulate the non-ideal characteristics exactly, not in a practical way at least.

←

Um, whaa? I don't think I ever put out a challenge, but if you're using any device that attacks and sustains differently than the magnetic you're tying to emulate, you're dead in the water. The modelers are already able to show graphs with two identical wavelengths, one "real" and the other modeled. The problem is when the guitar is being played by a real player with nuances. You can't turn the attack and decay of a piezo into a strat single in the analog realm without lots of frequency specific expansion. And in the digital realm you're only closer by a little bit. Sounding right and feeling right are two totally different things. I hope you figure out a way to do both. Then again, traditional guitar pickups on an OEM basis run between $5-$30 or so. If it aint broke....

[ToneMonkey]

Hey LK! Know anybody in the CIA? They are reported to have laser pickups that work from across the street! Cheap, too, I'll bet!

←

Loads of people have got them, I know the person that designed it. Hell, they work from further away than across the street too.

[Kyle Cavanaugh]

Hey Frank, I'm about to prove you wrong about emulating pickups in an analog manner!  So many people with knowledge in electronics will be kicking themselves in the @$$ going, "You're joking, how could it have been that simple?!?!"  Better than the Variax it will be for sure, but of course you can't emulate the non-ideal characteristics exactly, not in a practical way at least.

←

Um, whaa? I don't think I ever put out a challenge, but if you're using any device that attacks and sustains differently than the magnetic you're tying to emulate, you're dead in the water. The modelers are already able to show graphs with two identical wavelengths, one "real" and the other modeled. The problem is when the guitar is being played by a real player with nuances. You can't turn the attack and decay of a piezo into a strat single in the analog realm without lots of frequency specific expansion. And in the digital realm you're only closer by a little bit. Sounding right and feeling right are two totally different things. I hope you figure out a way to do both. Then again, traditional guitar pickups on an OEM basis run between $5-$30 or so. If it aint broke....

←

I'm not using piezo pickups, I will be using my own design of magnetic pickups that are very hi-fi, at least for magnetic pickups, you'll see. Since they'll go in place of real pickups (in this case they'll be humbucker sized) they will be picking up the strings just as any normal magnetic pickup would, but less colored. There is about 3 or 4 different aspects that need to be addressed in the electronics department which will easily allow me to allow switching on a 4-throw switch (rotary or lever) without needing to even come up with a logic circuit for it, I could do many things with just one throw then! What I can't do though, is emulate how much the strings will be pulled by the magnets in the pickup, unless maybe I made electromagnets... The string pull's actually going to be far less than normal pickups anyways, allowing more natural sustain. Regardless of that matter, even if they don't sound just like the real thing, they won't have the bad side effects commonly associated with them, think EMG's taken about 10 steps further. Sorry to be a brown noser, I shouldn't be saying this BS until my theory is made into a reality. But since this is a senior project for my electronics class and it's due May 1, it won't be too long until the first prototypes roll around. My entire design is near completion.

[frank falbo]

If you're going to make a Hi-Fi magnetic that can be tailored to match different sounds, that's about the best you can do. Bartolini does a lot of that. I guess you could say they're somewhat of an EMG x 10 too, but they don't do modeling per se. That's basically the only kind of "all in one" guitar I'd be in support of. That's how you can get a guitar to still feel traditional from a dynamics standpoint. Don't worry about the string pull (or lack thereof) that's not a priority amongst most players, myself included. I have some Bartolini systems that can emulate vast amounts of guitars very well. I think that's the way to go, and they can stuff the idea of emulating magnetics with items that don't respond the same way dynamically. Just remember that a very low output coil will squash the dynamics too. So just by the pure nature of your design you may move away from the natural dynamics of traditional magnetics. And there's virtually no way to simulate that later. You could try different, softer saddle material, though.

[Kyle Cavanaugh]

Hopefully the dynamics will be present! LOL I plan on using Neodymium in my design (mainly for space reasons...) and my Nd heaphones seem to have pretty good dynamics all acrossed the spectrum! (I owned basically the same pair before, only with ceramics and those were brittle and weak) Kinda bassy, but I might just need that accentuation!

[frank falbo]

While I wouldn't use N/D headphones as a reference, it sounds like at the very least, you'll produce something that is pleasant sounding, regardless of how closely it reproduces it's benchmarks.