Another Newbie Question - spacing for PU's

[whoofnagle]

I have enjoyed reading posts now for several months, but I am finally at the point where I am about to start giving my first guitar a shot. As I said, I have been lurking here for sometime, reading and trying to soak up as much info as possible. In addition I have read Hiscock's and Koch's books on building electric guitars. However, I have a few questions to ask before building my template. (I am leaning towards doing a tele style, but will do others in the future.)

In the Hiscock book, he says when making a tele - the front of the neck PU should be 1/2" behind the neck and the bridge PU should be 4 3/4". Is this always the case with a tele? What if I wanted to do a tele shape with P90s or Hums instead of the single coil - would the distances still be the same?

Also, is there a standard disstance for PU's on an LP style guitar?

Thanks in advance,

Bill

[Dr. Jabsco]

PU distance is baised on the antinodes on the strings. So really you can put them anywhere, they just sound better in certin places. You can look at tele plans on guitarbuild.com and see the PU spacing there. I dont know it off the top of my head.

[Andreas]

the string from my physics knowledge will only form one antinode and that is excactly the half distance between the freted or open note and the bridge.

[whoofnagle]

Okay- If some spacings are better - then which ones?

Just trying to learn

Bill

[Alexander]

And what is an antinode?

[truerussian558]

an antinode is the "highest" part on a standing wave, and the node is that part that isnt moving, in the fundamental tone, these are the two ends, but in the first harmonic, this is on the ends and in the middle, the second harmonic, its in the2 places on the string that divide the string into 3 and on the ends, the third harminic, they are the points that divide the wave equally into 4 parts, so there are 3 nodes. and the antinodes are the highest part on these divisions. you want to have the pickups under the antinodes, since the have the most amplitude, whereas you dont want to have them under nodes, sine its the part of the wave that doesnt move at all, but then this is all thrown out the window because, when you fret the string you are basically shortening the scale length, therefore the positioning of the nodes changes. but since the frets follow the "18" rule there is a way (mathematically) to find a spot that will never be under a node, but this is time consuming, so i wont do it right now

but i think your best guiess is take a look at some lp plans, or a real lp and just measure so you dont need to go through mathematical mumbo jumbo

[truerussian558]

the string from my physics knowledge will only form one antinode and that is excactly the half distance between the freted or open note and the bridge.

thats correct, but only for the fundamental tone, which the entire string vibrates, but the physics of the string cause it to create several overtones, each vibrate an octave higher then the last, and therfore diveide the string into the same number of parts as the number of octavbes higher then the fundamental it is, so each overtone has several antinodes each, and each overtone has 1 more antinode then the overtone before it.