I have arrived at the electrics stage of my second CBG build, a 4 string license plate guitar. I want to keep the front of the plate as clean as possible. I have neck and bridge pickups, two P90's. I would ideally like to mount them under the plate and run the screws up though the plate (though some rubber grommets). Will the screws going up through the steel license plate or the pick ups being right under the plate cause me problems with distortion or interference? If so is there any kind of shielding I can use to isolate them?

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  • I made 2 resonators with pickups directly under the metal wok
    Needs to be ferrous and not ally but works
    About 2-3 mm off seems about right.
    See my bug radio tin guitar and art box resonator
    Both work ok.
  • That's cool!

    I'm going with the neck and bridge style to get those tonal differences.
  • Tom, i recently finished my 4th tin can single coil combination. I attach the pickups to the box, as close to the can as possible. Earlier builds i mounted the pickups under the bridge, This time i put them off to the side.

     If you want to hear it

    306102951?profile=original306104203?profile=original

    • You are dangerously close to a (perhaps, but not likely original) idea I have with a similar pup config.  I think the most important thing if you want to pickup on the vibration of the metal resonator is the pickups should be relatively stationary as you have them mounted here.

      • the best thing you can do with this imho is put one of em in upside down. which makes ithe pair noise cancelling on each other...

         

        ed i used to think that as well until i made the 'stick-up's..

        http://i950.photobucket.com/albums/ad348/jeflong/2012%20StickupIIth...

        you can move it around wherever you like on a tin guitar, picks up the strings and the body both and works great..

        re handling noise... yes well they are very alive.  If you stick with it it'll make you a better player, theres music in those handling noises..  I totally object to it being compared to a huge piezo.  A huge piezo plugged up would scream worse than a pair of wives.

        • If you place them facing one another, they wouldn't be noise canceling? The wives, I mean >:-E
          • Turning it on the axis it was wound on as in the picture actually achieves nothing but changing the shape. A north oriented magnet remains north oriented, a clockwise wound coil remains wound clockwise.
            If they are from a pricey matched set for example and one is the middle one from a strat set then yes, cos its magnet and coil are already flipped. But assuming identical cheap Chinese $5 jobs you wanna flip one over. Alternatively bust the magnet off the bottom of one and flip that, and wire one of em in reverse.
            The only way to make a clock appear to run anticlockwise is to build it transparent and view it from the rear :) (or take lots of acid)

            Being from the part of the world that you are I imagine you know more polygamists than I, ill certainly defer to your wisdom in that respect :)
            • No, I got the physics of the mag pups OK. As far as building anti-clockwise clocks go, they do actually exist in non-transparent form, and the only acid required to view them might be acetylsalicilic:

              http://www.amazon.com/Backwards-Wall-Clock-Counterclockwise-Reverse...

              And here's one that predates Amazon (and is very kewl in person):

              http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/9409827/Clocks-can-somet...

              Then again, being from the part of the world you're from, turning things upside down kinda makes sense. ;-) As far as polygamists go, I don't know any from Arkansas (not that they don't exist, I'm sure). I only know 2 personally where I currently live, and one of them would definitely be interested in noise canceling ;-).
  • I meant that in just handling the pup it was scratching and such. Not even near the plate...it sounds not unlike handling a piezo disk!


    It didn't pick up the strings when placed beneath the plate and the plate held up to a string guitars strings, so I'm planning on leaving the pup plastic cover on and winding the screws up through holes on the plate.

    The pup itself sounds bright and loud held next to a set of strings just by itself...can't wait, unless its as noisy as a b***h!
  • Well, it seems the plate does act like a shield. I think it will be better with the holes and the screws going up through.

    A surprising thing though. The pick up seems to act like a GIANT piezo disk!! Every scrape, tap and scratch picks up like I was handling a microphone. Is THAT normal?!

    Surely magnetic pick ups are less prone to that kind of thing? How can I reduce this effect? I want a guitar, not a 4 string stomp box!!
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