Optical Pick Ups.

[WhiskeyJack]

IMHO i think this is a case of "Just because you can doesn't mean you should"

Optical Pick Ups - Premier Guitar

[Farview]

Are there any recordings of what these things sound like?

[Greg_L]

No no no. Fucking dumb. The limitations far outweigh any benefit.

[WhiskeyJack]

Are there any recordings of what these things sound like?

[WhiskeyJack]

No no no. Fucking dumb. The limitations far outweigh any benefit.

I'm with you.

I won't call it dumb becasue of the work and development that went into it, that part is admirable. But from a practical sense there isn't anything wrong with pick up construction that's available to today. What would warrant NASA / Elon Musk type of reinvention on something that didn't need reinvention?

[Greg_L]

I'm with you.

I won't call it dumb becasue of the work and development that went into it, that part is admirable. But from a practical sense there isn't anything wrong with pick up construction that's available to today. What would warrant NASA / Elon Musk type of reinvention on something that didn't need reinvention?

That's exactly my point. This is just a in exercise in mind wankery. Normal magnetic wire-wound pickups still sound great and work great.

[JD01]

I'm with you.

I won't call it dumb becasue of the work and development that went into it, that part is admirable. But from a practical sense there isn't anything wrong with pick up construction that's available to today. What would warrant NASA / Elon Musk type of reinvention on something that didn't need reinvention?

That's exactly my point. This is just a in exercise in mind wankery. Normal magnetic wire-wound pickups still sound great and work great.

I kind of get what you're saying... but people probably said similar things when the magnetic pickup when they were invented.
I'm not saying that optical pickups are going to be the next big thing or anything like that... but you never know.

[Greg_L]

I kind of get what you're saying... but people probably said similar things when the magnetic pickup when they were invented.
I'm not saying that optical pickups are going to be the next big thing or anything like that... but you never know.

I think people were pretty thrilled to have any kind of pickups when they were invented. All those lowly jazz guitarists could finally be heard in the back of the room over the trumpets and tubas. It's not like magnetic pickups were a crazy idea that replaced the pickups before them. There were no pickups before them.

For the most part electric guitars have resisted advancing technology. Or at least they're immune to it. They were pretty perfect from the beginning of solid body electric guitars. The best guitars and sounds that most people want are still the same designs that have existed for 60 years.

[vomitHatSteve]

I dunno. Kind of seems like a cool idea to me.

I can't picture it becoming ubiquitous, but I could see some clever guitarists coming up with some really interesting ideas with these things.
Tragically, it looks like their primary goal is to just reinvent the wheel with new technology, which seem pretty pointless. If you wanna sound like a magnetic pickup, install a magnetic pickup. If you wanna do cool things with light interference and individual string detection, this seems like a cool idea.

Oh, and they're definitely over-engineered. They talk about how to deal with interference from ambient light. Just put some kind of cap over the pickup. Or maybe use a less-common frequency.

[JD01]

I kind of get what you're saying... but people probably said similar things when the magnetic pickup when they were invented.
I'm not saying that optical pickups are going to be the next big thing or anything like that... but you never know.

I think people were pretty thrilled to have any kind of pickups when they were invented. All those lowly jazz guitarists could finally be heard in the back of the room over the trumpets and tubas. It's not like magnetic pickups were a crazy idea that replaced the pickups before them. There were no pickups before them.

For the most part electric guitars have resisted advancing technology. Or at least they're immune to it. They were pretty perfect from the beginning of solid body electric guitars. The best guitars and sounds that most people want are still the same designs that have existed for 60 years.

Yeah, I think electric guitar pickups are great. But I'm sure at the time there were people that said something like "what you need all this magnetic pickup bollocks for? Just stick a mic in front of it. Doesn't sound like a proper guitar anyway"

[Greg_L]

Nah, this is dumb.

[Farview]

I guess it sounds fine for a clean tone, but not better. I wonder what it does with distortion. You wouldn't have to worry about microphonics.

[Greg_L]

You can play faster with a strobe light!

[muttley]

I kind of get what you're saying... but people probably said similar things when the magnetic pickup when they were invented.
I'm not saying that optical pickups are going to be the next big thing or anything like that... but you never know.

I think people were pretty thrilled to have any kind of pickups when they were invented. All those lowly jazz guitarists could finally be heard in the back of the room over the trumpets and tubas. It's not like magnetic pickups were a crazy idea that replaced the pickups before them. There were no pickups before them.

For the most part electric guitars have resisted advancing technology. Or at least they're immune to it. They were pretty perfect from the beginning of solid body electric guitars. The best guitars and sounds that most people want are still the same designs that have existed for 60 years.

This ^^^^^^^^^

Despite agreeing with all that it would be true to said that advancements eventually find their way into the market via niche applications. My brain always goes "where can I see that working" and I can already see uses for these, I'm actually pretty excited to to try them as an alternative to transducers in certain situations and the potential for Ubass, stick Bass, and all gut or nylon or silicon strings is out there. Amplification for them has stood still since the introduction of the ceramic transducer. Things would have to move on though as the biggest drawback of the current technology is the fact that is limited to pretty small string vibration as I understand it.

[muttley]

I think people were pretty thrilled to have any kind of pickups when they were invented. All those lowly jazz guitarists could finally be heard in the back of the room over the trumpets and tubas. It's not like magnetic pickups were a crazy idea that replaced the pickups before them. There were no pickups before them.

For the most part electric guitars have resisted advancing technology. Or at least they're immune to it. They were pretty perfect from the beginning of solid body electric guitars. The best guitars and sounds that most people want are still the same designs that have existed for 60 years.

Yeah, I think electric guitar pickups are great. But I'm sure at the time there were people that said something like "what you need all this magnetic pickup bollocks for? Just stick a mic in front of it. Doesn't sound like a proper guitar anyway"

Not really, all the big guitar players of the era were lining up to get amplified. Charlie Christian, Al Casey, Freddie Green, even Django. When you have heard the power of a full 18 piece big band or even a small five piece Jazz combo you understand why. In the folk and bluegrass world they resisted but in truth, they still do.

[Lt. Bob]

If you wanna do cool things with light interference and individual string detection, this seems like a cool idea.

back in the early 70's Ovaion had one of their guitars a stereo guitar but the way they did it was to send every other string right or left.
So the E, G, and A strings went right and the B, D and big E went left.

Sent to 2 amps it sounded freakin' AMAZING!!!! Fingerpicking sounded like you were two guitarists.
i've never forgotten that sound even though it clearly didn't make any waves.
I've never seen it anywhere else although I'm sure it exists.
But it really was an amazing sound.

[Farview]

The Kramer Ripley had 6 pan pots and two outputs so you could do that. That didn't take off either.

I assume it's because you have to be standing between the amps to get that effect, which an audience rarely will. Also, since it was an electric guitar, the distortion reacts differently to a chord, when some note are going to one amp and others are going to the other amp. Imagine a low E and the octave coming out of one amp and a B and G# coming out of the other amp over there.

[JD01]

If you wanna do cool things with light interference and individual string detection, this seems like a cool idea.

back in the early 70's Ovaion had one of their guitars a stereo guitar but the way they did it was to send every other string right or left.
So the E, G, and A strings went right and the B, D and big E went left.

Sent to 2 amps it sounded freakin' AMAZING!!!! Fingerpicking sounded like you were two guitarists.
i've never forgotten that sound even though it clearly didn't make any waves.
I've never seen it anywhere else although I'm sure it exists.
But it really was an amazing sound.

Sounds like an idea that was ahead of available tech. With modern amp sims and stuff now it would probably work well.

[Armistice]

I grant you I'm only listening on my phone but the strat tone in the vid seems off the mark for a clean strat tone, to me. Something is missing. No idea what it's plugged into either...

[Armistice]

I also have a deep antipathy for vids that start with someone saying "Hey, what's up?" irrespective of what they're about....