New guitar pickup design offers natural 3D sound

Started by Elantric-fgn, February 03, 2011, 05:39:38 PM

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Elantric-fgn

http://www.gizmag.com/pauls-3dxy-surround-sound-guitar-pickup/16300/


New guitar pickup design offers natural 3D sound

By Paul Ridden







Each string on a 3Dxy guitar has two mini-coil pickup poles pointing at it, these are set at a 90 degree angle to each other down the left and right of the pickup so that string movement on both the horizontal and vertical axes is registered

The incredible guitar virtuosity from the likes of Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson and Stanley Jordan all rely on their string-picking proficiency being registered by the instrument's pickups. These vibrations are then transformed into electrical signals and sent off to an amplifier for our listening pleasure. Using such a setup, string movement can only be read on one axis, the horizontal. The 3Dxy pickup system reads each string twice, on both the horizontal and the vertical and is said to result in a rich, surround sound effect called natural stereo.


The 3Dxy system has been developed by Spain's Just L Pauls. Although not a guitarist himself, he is a musician and plays both saxophone and flute. He told Gizmag that after studying electronic engineering at La Salle Bonanova in Barcelona, he began searching for a rich, natural tone and started experimenting with magnetic coils.

Four months ago, he came up with the idea of having a pickup read "the movement of the string not only up & down but also left and right. That gives two different signals, but complementary, because both coils read the same point of the string. The resulting signals, one to the left stereo channel and the other to the right, makes the surround sound or what we call natural stereo."


Before taking a look at Pauls' 3Dxy system, a little bit about passive pickups as we've come to know them today. Although the design has changed significantly over the years, a pickup is basically a magnet with very thin wire wound around it many thousands of times. Magnetic poles sit underneath each string and as the string vibrates, the magnetic field is disturbed and an alternating current is induced through the wire coil. The resulting signal is sent through the volume and tone potentiometers and off to be considerably amplified via the instrument's output jack. Of course, if you're anything like me, a lot of distortion or other effects get thrown into the mix too.


A bit basic perhaps, but the important point to note here is that being positioned underneath the strings, the pickup only registers string vibration on one axis. A 3Dxy pickup, on the other hand, detects string vibration on two axes. Each string on a guitar using this system has two mini-coil pickup poles pointing at it. These poles are set at a 90 degree angle to each other down the left and right of the pickup so that string movement on both the horizontal and vertical axes is registered.

All of the left mini-coils in a series produce a left channel signal and all those on the right, well you can probably work out the rest. The two resulting ground wires are combined and a standard stereo plug configuration results – one ground, one left and one right.
The 3Dxy pickup is said to be of a similar shape and size to standard mono pickups, so there should be no need for messy internal body reshaping during installation. That said, in order to enjoy the "natural surround sound sensation" that the system is said to offer, it will be necessary to turn mono output into stereo... and you'd then need a stereo amplifier, of course.

Realizing that many guitarists don't use such an amplifier, Pauls tweaked the design to produce natural 3Dxy mono. This is achieved by combining the left and right stereo channels – the stereo surround sound effect is sacrificed but he says that the modification still delivers a more natural and rich tone than that offered by other, traditionally-wired passive mono pickups.

Other benefits of the 3Dxy system are reported to include a low 300 ohm impedance and a longer note decay. Each 3Dxy pickup is made to order and prices start at EUR120 (about US$152) for an electric bass and EUR180 (about US$229) for an electric guitar. Pickups for double bass and violin are currently being developed.

More here:

http://www.pauls3dsystems.com/3Dxy/


. . . the future ain't what it used to be . . .

MCK-fgn

Wow! This is very very interesting. Thanks for posting. I want to try one!
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https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=31267.0

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https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=31707.0

nosaintnick-fgn

I'm assuming the opposing pole pieces are RWRP, though since the signals are split left and right phase issues can be minimized a bit.

It seems like an interesting concept but it's hard to tell from the crummy demos if it'd be worth the $. The guitars are out of tune and very poorly played. Plus the build quality apparent in those pictures looks terrible.

I'd like to try one myself but I had a less than ideal experience with the Q-tuner guy (a Dutch company) so I'm hesitant to trust foreign boutique pickup builders without an established track record. (The delivery of my q-tuner was months late after one was "lost" in the mail and communication was poor).

I have yet to install the q-tuner so I can't speak to the sound quality but the build quality on that thing leaves something to be desired. It's encased in Epoxy so the body is solid but the two, very small gauge lead wires just protrude right out of the epoxy encasing. They're too fragile and could snap off easily, making the pickup useless. I put some heat shrink tubing on them to stiffen them up a bit but I would have liked to see external wiring tabs or pin connectors like EMG. It's small details like this that can make or break start ups, as I sure you're all aware (not to mention costumer service).



vanceg-fgn

Very interesting indeed.
The demos on the website are surely not very compelling in terms of the playing or how well they show off the tone of these pickups...but...that said: I surely do hear a significant widening of the stereo field as we listen to the Stereo version.  That's not surprising at all - we are taking two signals that are slightly different and panning them left and right...and we know from a lot of stereo effects (such as chorus) that this can be a very pleasing effect. 

I'm interested enough to try one of these pickups. I've requested info on perhaps a hex version.  I'm wondering if the way these pickups are configured might not create particularly good string separation (maybe, maybe not...I could think of theoretical arguments both ways based on the limited information I have on the pickups at this point).

If I do get one in, I'll surely post info about it here.  Right after I get to the LAST two pickups that I haven't installed yet.  Darn "business development" keeps getting in my way of my business!

RogerGLewis-fgn

any updates on the Hexaphonic potential of these pickups Vanceg. I have come back to this thread a few times I had a look at the Bartoloni and Ubertar links in a post of yours the other day and the same notion occurred to me as to whether these stereo poles would improve tracking. I am looking at Hex magnetic alternatives to the GK3, the Studio extreme design of Bill Baxendale looks appealing
not sure of the price though.
http://billbax.110mb.com/gk%20studio%20extreme.html

vanceg-fgn

I confirmed with the manufacturer that he can build a hex version of the pickup and I tried to order one, but haven't heard back from him since then. I've tried a few times. He may be out of town or something.  I think the theory is great - I can't assess how well it will work until I try one. 

That's about all I have right now on this!

Vance

RogerGLewis-fgn

Thanks Vance,
I'll fire off an email to them as well.
Roger

RogerGLewis-fgn

#7
Exchange of e-mails self explanatory.
I will try to clarify if one has been made and what the output for each of the pole pairs is.

I am assuming that the output could be wired into  a Din 13 both stereo signals I suppose could go into a pin for each of the strings 1-6 giving the natural stereo for each string as opposed to the summed natural stereo effect described on the web site. I am assuming it would work without a preamp the same as the GK3? I see the GK3 does have a preamp, would two stereo poles produce sufficient signal to remain passive? are there perceived advantages to this. ( just thinking out loud really)

Link to DIN 13 wiring for beginners like me

http://johnp.net/projects/guitar-synth/roland-pinouts.html

For pins 10 and 11 the s1 and s2 buttons on the gk3 i imagine a switch could be wired into the guitar body at the most convenient place to ones own tastes.



Hi,

As tou know, 3Dxy technology has two mini-coils by string (L and R). The pickup is the same, but the wiring is different.  I wire six outputs (one per string) with separated ground.

The price is also the same.

Best regards,

Just L. Pauls



El 26/03/2011 7:18, Roger Lewis escribió:
This is an enquiry e-mail via http://www.pauls3dsystems.com/3Dxy/ from:
Roger Lewis<rogerglewis13@gmail.com>

Could you quote for a Hexaphonic output, what is the output on the steroe pair poles, they appear to have self contained windings so I assume they will produce individual string outputs?
Thanks,
Roger