PowerGig video game controller - Unusual source for Hex pickups

Started by Elantric, February 10, 2011, 01:11:51 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Elantric

Yes, its basically split frets  - just like the 1960's Guitar Organ - but poorly executed.

autodidactic

Excuse the silly question (I don't own any gaming consoles) but what type of connections do the Xbox editions of these controllers come with? USB?
1965 Gibson J45
1979 Gibson ES347
90's Epiphone Joe Pass
80's Yamaha Classical
Bouzouki by Dekavalas

GtrGeorge

Another stupid question..so now its 2013 and I am wondering...are these pickups actually use-able?  I would love to love the GK2 on my strat and have one of these in my guitar...
  of course that brings me to my next question...I suck at wiring....does anyone here do these mods?  If so, how much?
               ....seems like there would a small market to be had..

                                       (experiment on someone ELSE's dime!!!!!)

                                               GtrGeorge

Elantric

You would have to have soldering skills and  experience (which sadly few electric guitarist's possess - never understood that)

These pickups work similar to the old SoundGarage pickups (see first post in this thread).

However, because these "PowerGig" PAF style pickups are mounted almost too far away from the bridge, If not adjusted just right and close to the strings,  you will have terrible crosstalk - which means poor Guitar to MIDI tracking.

So these remain a conversation piece.

Add that a real GK-3 (or GK-2A , ormy favorite Yamaha G1D / Axon AIX-100) mounted correctly will always outperform these left field third party hex PU, options.


GtrGeorge

Elantric,
thanks for the advice..I will eshew them.
  and why cant I solder???  Good question..I guess its because I  dont have enough need to justify the good tools.  Back in the day I was quite good at it..worked professionally at fixing car stereos.......but thats with a nice bench, good iron, good tips....these days I need to solder 2x a year..and the only close source of a an iron is RadioSheez   I have bought 3 irons from them and replacemtnt tips..all garbage..nothing works as it should.
  These days..I buy another cable..ya know?
                  Id rather do it all myself..but it actually costs more money and time than I have.
                            GtrGeorge

pycraft

Quote from: Elantric on March 17, 2011, 01:02:23 PM
It simply implies that the gain of the donor GK-3 preamp board must be changed when using the PowerGig hex mag PU.

I will post the changed resistor values on my GK-3 board once I get back on this project.

Did you ever get back to this project and come up with the new resistor values - and can you report on how effective the system is?

pycraft

Trying again:
Quote from: Elantric on February 27, 2013, 12:32:18 PM
However, because these "PowerGig" PAF style pickups are mounted almost too far away from the bridge, If not adjusted just right and close to the strings,  you will have terrible crosstalk - which means poor Guitar to MIDI tracking.

So these remain a conversation piece.

Add that a real GK-3 (or GK-2A , or my favorite Yamaha G1D / Axon AIX-100) mounted correctly will always outperform these left field third party hex PU, options.

Any word on whether these things work?  Has anyone tried them? It's not clear whether the crosstalk issue alluded to is borne of therory or practice.

Am curious as I'm looking to put a trem on my SG, and as far as I can tell there's no way to get a GK3 pickup between the PAF and, say, a Stetsbar.  Meaning either going down the Ghost route (would rather not, the electronics cavity on an SG Diablo is tiny and I am not routing it), using a Les Trem (OK, but not really got the range of the Stetsbar) or using something like this.

utensil

Have you considered the hex pickups from www.ubertar.com/hexaphonic/

I haven't tried them myself but they seem like what you are looking for.

montyrivers

Resurrecting a dead topic here, but I wonder how these pickups would do for straight up Cosm hex modeling, no guitar to midi.

Elantric

Higher Crosstalk on these forces player to avoid using COSM Alt Tuning functions

So in the end -  these odd  / salvaged PowerGIG Hex Pickups are more of a curiosity than a tool.

ellion

Hi all.

Just found this thread and although it sounds like these Power Gig's hex pickups are indeed sub-standard, I'm wondering if they'd suffice for my specific circumstance.

I'm simply trying to control the output of another guitar with my guitar......(hear me out, please)

I'm not too sure how familiar this board is with Pure Data but, long story short, while playing live, since I already have a guitar in my hand (and would like to control the effects of the 2nd guitarist's playing), I'd like to do this with the tool (i.e. the guitar) that's already "on my person".  (Obviously, it would be routed through various a/b/y boxes, etc. to do this.......I'm not worried about this at the moment.)

Just for clarification, my guitar would not be making sounds......just controlling the sounds that are being made with another guitar.

Barring all the routing config, etc., I'm wondering if the pickups in the Power Gig guitar would be reliable enough to accomplish this (e.g. just a controller and not a "sound-maker").  Or would crosstalk be a problem in this instance as well?

Thanks for any info!

Here's a proposed PD patch I got from the Pure Data mailing list for those playing along at home:

[adc~ 1 Main Guitar] <--This is the one making sound
|
|     [r speed]
|     |
[delay]
|
[dac~]


[adc~ 2 Controller Guitar] <---This is the one I'd be "playing".
|
[fiddle~] (or [env~])
|
[s speed]


Using a hexaphonic pickup (6 individual pickups) -> [adc~ 1 2 3 4 5 6] == check the env~, fiddle~, bonk~ for each strings and control various params.


Elantric

#37
Good reference for DIY Hex Mag PU's - they even reference our efforts

http://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/6014/diy-hex-pickup-project

Others hex mag pickups are here:

UltraMagnetics:
http://www.ultramagnetics.org/


Copeland
http://www.marksmart.net/gearhack/jazzpedalboard/copeland.html

Paul Rubenstein
http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2008/08/six-output-pickups-for-stereo-guitars.html
http://ubertar.com/instruments/

Bartolini
http://www.joness.com/gr300/XJ-S.htm

http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2010/Feb/Putting_the_Hex_On_the_Postmodern_Pickups.aspx
Putting the Hex On: the Postmodern Pickups
<by Wallace Marx Jr. >


All guitar pickups have the same basic components: a magnet, a coil, a bobbin and some sort of base or cover. While some pickups have a single blade magnet, most guitar pickups have individual pole pieces for each string. In either configuration, the vibrations of each of the six strings are captured and converted to an electrical signal, which is then sent to an amplification unit. Whether it's a strummed chord or a singlenote solo, the signal follows the same path. The sound produced is universally accepted as the pleasing sound of an electric guitar.

But back to those six strings. The normal output signal of our standard pickups is a combined signal of any or all of the six strings. Six pole pieces, six strings. Wouldn't it seem like a logical next step to separate the output signal of each string? In the long and varied history of guitar pickups it seems as if nearly every combination of materials has been tried and every shape and configuration explored. So how about this six-signal concept? It has been done, for various reasons and with varying levels of success. The beast in question is called the hexaphonic pickup.

The suffix hexa means six. Phonic means of, or relating to, sound. Six sounds. Just as a standard pickup does, the hexaphonic pickup captures the individual vibrations of each of a guitar's six strings. The difference is, rather than having a single output signal, the hexaphonic pickup has six. So who did it first, and what's it good for? And why aren't we all playing with hexaphonics?

In questions of firsts, I have two go-to sources: the US Patent Office and my friend and pre war-era guitar historian Lynn Wheelwright. An immediate problem in researching hexaphonics is that the word itself is a bit of a red herring in that it has not been the industry standard term. So in this particular case, I called Lynn first just to see if he remembered anything like it. He told me that the earliest pickup he had seen with anything similar to hexaphonic construction was on a Regal guitar from circa 1935–36. This particular axe had a pickup unit with six individual coils, one for each string. It was not actually hexaphonic, though, because even with the six poles the pickup produced just a single output signal. On to the Patent Office where the earliest patent I could find using the specific terms "hexaphonic pickup system" was awarded to Gibson in 1990. 1990 seemed pretty late. We know that Bartolini Pickups founder Bill Bartolini was producing hexaphonics for public sale as early as 1973. Additionally, experimentation with polyphonic pickups for the purpose of hooking up guitars to synthesizers began in the early days of synthesizer development in the 1960s.

A hexaphonic pickup can have a number of uses. The most obvious is to send separate signals to separate places. In the analog realm, this might take the form of sending the bass strings to one amp, the treble to another. That effect was achieved in the mid-1950s by Ray Butts, who designed a split-coil pickup for Chet Atkins. Theoretically, separate signals for each string could be sent to individual inputs in the same amp where each input had its own volume control, compression, etc. It's easy to see how rapidly the complexity quotient snowballs and how a standard amplification system might not be able to handle such an increased amount of information.

The first Roland synthesizer guitar, the GS-500, was introduced in 1977. It was with the Roland series of synth guitars, which continues to this day, that the hexaphonic pickup found its most widespread utilization. As a transducer for analog-to-digital sound, the hexaphonic pickup is the only way to go. For a guitar to control a synthesizer module (thereby allowing it to make sounds far beyond the normal guitar or guitar effects palette) each string's signal needs to be isolated. An analog-to-digital converter requires that sounds be isolated, from string to string, in terms of pitch, and note start and stop. Converted to a digital signal, the Roland systems take the information from the guitar and turn it into sounds such as percussion, keys, saxophone, etc. The latest synth pickups on the market, such as the Roland GK-3 and the Axon PU100 designed in conjunction with Seymour Duncan, represent the latest technology in the field.

Some purists may balk, but my opinion is that synth guitar and its tonal possibilities would have been very popular with the players of yesterday. Alvino Rey used to have a sight gag in his act where he would "deliver" a baby lapsteel. I'd bet he would have loved to hook his lapsteels up to a unit that could make each note sound exactly like a crying baby. Taking it in another direction, I think of hexaphonic pickups and I wonder what it would have been like if one of the gods of guitar like Hendrix had had a separate Marshall stack for each string of his Strat. Perhaps cacophony; maybe brilliance. Either way, hexaphonic pickups and their ultimate utilization may be one of the last frontiers in the quest for the ultimate electric guitar tone.

(snip)

I would point out to Mr Marx the 1970 era  Baldwin  / Innovex-Condor GMS which had a hex PU in a Ovation Tornado ( 335) over 41 years ago:
http://guitarz.blogspot.com/2011/01/innovex-condor-gms-vintage-guitar-synth.html




http://www.ovationtribute.com/Catalogues/Storm%20Sheets/Tornado%20Brochure.html






admin

http://guitarz.blogspot.com/2013/03/sekova-grecian-hollowbody-electric.html



Here's another one you don't see come up for sale very often. It's a circa-1968 Sekova Grecian, made in Japan (although the exact provenance is not known)(EDIT MATSUMOKU)  and imported into the USA by U.S. Musical Merchandise of New York City.

Of course what makes the guitar so spectacularly bizarre and/or wonderful is that it sports SIX pickups, albeit six individual string pickups, i.e. a one for each string. You might think that makes it effectively a one-pickup guitar, but something else is going on here; just witness the number of switches and volume and tone pots. The Grecian is actually wired for stereo with the signals from the 3 bass strings and the 3 treble strings being separated. It's a nice idea, but quite crude compared to latter-day stereo guitar innovations, e.g. the Kramer Ripley guitar or the Gittler guitar where the output from individual strings can be panned wherever desired in the stereo spectrum.

alexmcginness

#43
WOW I havent thought about the Sound Garage stuff for a while. Ive still got this SG Strat assembly sitting on a shelf in my workshop.

VG-88V2, GR-50, GR-55, 4 X VG-99s,2 X FC-300,  2 X GP-10 AXON AX 100 MKII, FISHMAN TRIPLE PLAY,MIDX-10, MIDX-20, AVID 11 RACK, BEHRINGER FCB 1010, LIVID GUITAR WING, ROLAND US-20, 3 X GUYATONE TO-2. MARSHALL BLUESBREAKER, SERBIAN ELIMINATOR AMP. GR-33.


admin

#45
Quote from: Elantric on February 10, 2011, 01:11:51 PM
The old SoundGarage Mag Hex Pickups have not been available for at least 7 years.





While shopping at Bestbuy last Christmas, I spotted the PowerGig guitar  and  could easily see that this wired fretboard guitar / game controller  was using a standard size hexaphonic pickup

A few weeks ago I saw on Amazon.com that these PowerGig guitars were on sale for $68, so i took a gamble.



More here:
http://www.powergig.com/
I'm not a gamer, so within 10 minutes of delivery, I began taking the guitar apart.



After removal of the back plastic cover on the body, the "guts" were revealed, and there was my treasure -  Yes! A hexaphonic standard P.A.F. size pickup.

see the multiple wires emerging:




After a few more minutes of dis-assembly, I had the hex pickup removed from the Powergig guitar
Removal of the PU cover revealed the pickup's construction:



its actually a Hex PU, with an adjacent stacked single coil with a copper shield for normal guitar operation - a two in one solution!




for comparison, here is a pic with a Roland GK-2A PU sitting next to the PowerGig PU - note the pole piece spacing is pretty standard, and quite usable for hacking.. 


Each single coil on the Roland GK-2A measures 540 ohms

Each single coil on the PowerGig PU measures 840 ohms

I will interface the  PowerGig hex PU  to a modified old Roland GK-2A "head" preamp, and install on a Les Paul, and report my findings.

Buy more here: (the price fluctuates +/- 10 bucks each week).

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Gig-SixString-Guitar-Xbox-360/dp/B003N13ZRI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1297371987&sr=1-1


gumbo

Very interesting...

a shame though, that the pickup still causes the strings to go out of tune when you implant it in another guitar.....   8)
Read slower!!!   ....I'm typing as fast as I can...

admin

Quote from: gumbo on July 03, 2020, 07:31:21 PM
Very interesting...

a shame though, that the pickup still causes the strings to go out of tune when you implant it in another guitar.....   8)

Also surprised Google search never led him to THIS 9 year old " Unusual source for Hex pickups" thread doing this exact hex PU extraction on the same instrument
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3115.0