What Do We Know?
One of them makes music for a living. The other just really loves it. What Do We Know? is hosted by professional musician and producer Danny McCrum and hobby guitarist Mike Harrington. Each week they dig into the albums, artists, gear, history, and big debates that make music worth talking about. Expect strong opinions, genuine curiosity, and more laughs than they probably intended. Join the conversation.
What Do We Know?
12. Pick Me Up Mr Glyn
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Buzzsprout
If a tree falls in the forest and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound? Not if it doesn't have pickups! But how do those little magnets turn string vibrations into ear-piercing rock 'n' roll riffs? Pickup builder Mr Glyn is here to explain everything.
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Uh divided We are here with our very special guest, Mr. Glyn. Thanks for being here.
SPEAKER_01Oh, you're very welcome, yeah. I'm chuffed to be here.
SPEAKER_02And I've never actually met you before, so it's it's nice to find out.
SPEAKER_01We've both been in the music industry in in Auckland for years and years and never met.
SPEAKER_02And I think we've probably got a million mutual friends out there. Um I've been aware of you for years, it just our paths never crossed. Yeah, likewise. Yeah. So we're here to talk about you, and I've got a variety of questions, uh, various questions about pickups. Yeah. So we're not going to run out of questions.
SPEAKER_00Pretty constrained. Norman got like three or four pages going. Wow. Stickers one today.
SPEAKER_02Well, you were just talking about something interesting that we we interrupted. What was that?
SPEAKER_01Oh, well, you you you mentioned Gocular Music in Auckland, which is a shop everyone should have a nose at and I I I was saying I really liked it because I used to have a guitar shop in the UK. Right. Yeah. In Leeds, in Yorkshire, um, and it was kind of a bit like that. Yeah. Lots and lots of interesting secondhand gear.
SPEAKER_02With the vibiness of it as well. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01We tried to. Tried to have it like that, yeah. Um but that at that time in the 90s in the UK, there were a lot of old amplifiers kicking around, which which you don't see here. Right. So there'd be a lot of old orange or high what that weren't really valued. Carlsborough and Laney, um, that people didn't really weren't that into. So it was quite interesting having all that gear. You know, everyone was into Marshall and Defenders. But um, but yeah, it was before Orange became what they have now. Yeah. But the old ones were still alive.
SPEAKER_02It's kind of the nineties, wasn't it, when Orange blew up, is that right? Uh like the Brit Rock sound. Uh yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So it was just on the cusp of that.
SPEAKER_02Well so your store was new and second hand?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it would it could but basically because we couldn't get enough second hand. Right. So so there was some new stuff coming. Pre-internet days as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So uh, and that's really why I got out of that because the internet started and they could see what was going to happen. And uh it's when it started, uh it was all books in the music world, people would be buying, you'd buy your you know, whatever, tuition book, um, and then people wouldn't wouldn't dare use a credit card to buy a you know a Les Paul. Yeah. And that star started changing. And I had a look at the shop and I was like, can I be bothered to do all this work? You know, and I was repairing guitars from there as well, and I went and I just decided I I couldn't be bothered. So I sold a shop um and spent two years busking around Europe playing the musical Saw. Wow, cool.
SPEAKER_02Let's come back to that, but I was just gonna say on the end that um it took a long time for people to have faith in using their credit cards at all with the internet, didn't it? Because what was it probably about 2010 at least when people finally started feeling comfortable buying stuff?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but this was I think it was 03 when I sold the shop.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's what I mean. You're way before it wasn't just guitars, it was just anything. Yeah, you know, people were constantly afraid their credit card number would get pinched. And I'm honestly not sure why it doesn't get pinched.
SPEAKER_00That's a different part.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's lots of um encryption. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's interesting. So what do you mean the musical saw?
SPEAKER_01A saw, like a ripsaw played with a bow.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_02You're looking at me like that's obvious. Yeah. Come on. Those are the words I said, that's what I meant.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01So it was mainly um I was with an accordion player, and and it was mainly we played Viennese waltzes. Right. Oh, cool. So there was the umpa from the accordion, and 3-4 of me doing etc.
SPEAKER_02Now, how do you pick up the sound off a saw? Were they Mr. Glenn pickups on your saw?
SPEAKER_01Well, uh actually no, it's it's it's even more complicated. Now, the reason I played the saw was because I was playing the theramine before that. Oh, cool. Right? Yeah, but I wanted to go busking, and it's obviously a power issue with uh with the theramine. So I got the saw, which is kind of like an acoustic theramine.
SPEAKER_02Um Yeah, I guess that's true, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So that's how that happened. The acoustic logical each step, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I'm guessing you just had mics in front of you. Oh no, you're busking, so you didn't have anything. It's loud. Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_01The thing is, for if you're busking, um the saw is perfect. Yeah. Because it's indestructible, it's loud, it's novel, and nobody messes with you. Yeah, yeah. Got a built-in weapon. It's a 30-inch-long sharpened steel blade. So yeah. I could have used that advice over the years. Yeah, yeah. Whereas with the guitar you look a bit soft and vulnerable with a saw. Um, yeah, no.
SPEAKER_00Sorry, pardon my ignorance, but how do you actually play the different notes and stuff? Is it just in how you flex the saw?
SPEAKER_01So you you grip it between your knees. Okay, and that's the important bit because you don't want to let go. Um, and you bend it over with your left hand, you've got to make like an S shape in it, and then you play it with a bow. And then the the more you pull it over with your left hand, the higher the pitch.
SPEAKER_02Interesting.
SPEAKER_01Do you have the the the teeth pointing away from you? No, you point the teeth towards you. Why? Because the bow goes on the other side. Oh, of course, you know that. Yeah. So there must have been some accidents. No, you don't let go with your knees. I know that's the intention. No, no. Seriously. Never had any whoopsies? No. No. No. Really, with with if you've got that between your knees, you don't you don't let go. Right. Yeah. There's there's instinct in the stuff. There's just no option. You don't have to remember. It's yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I like the metal blade with pointed teeth pointing out yeah, you want to be you want to be pretty secure.
SPEAKER_02I like that because I because I sometimes talk about that in lessons. I'll often say to people, like, when you're on a high wire and there's a safety net, it's like less stakes. But if there's so no safety net, you're just not going to fall off. And there's something about live performance that is so immediate, there's no other option. You've got to stay in, you've got to make it work. If you make a mistake, you've got to recover. Like, there's something so immediate about it, um, and so high stakes, which is I think part of the fun of it too.
SPEAKER_01From a musical point of view, what was interesting was I stopped playing guitar for a few couple of years while I just played the sore. Right. And when I went back to guitar playing, I was different. So I I I I had a more of a sense of melody. Yeah. It's it's like being a singer. Yes. Because you're just playing a single note.
SPEAKER_00You've got no frets, do you? You have to it's all early.
SPEAKER_01And vibrato is really important. Um, like a violin player, it's great for fudging your notes, you know, give it a bit wide wobble. But the crack notes somewhere in that yeah, yeah, plus or minus, yeah, and and we're good to go. But yeah, but it it it changed the way my mind worked.
SPEAKER_02I wonder, so I'll I'll put this on the table and tell tell me if you agree, and we were talking about this the other day, that I I was I was saying to you that sometimes I think being a guitar player, thinking as a guitar player can be a trap because you start to think about guitar player tricks. But if you think about like you take a solo and instead of thinking guitar, you think saxophone or something, then it forces you to think differently. And I think sometimes guitar players can just default to bend, bend, hammer, pull, um, and instead of thinking melody, space, you know, groove, that sort of thing. Is that sort of what you're saying?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. But I mean I was a worse guitarist because I hadn't been playing. Right. You know, dexterity was well, yeah. But but I was, yeah, yes, it's like it's it's like that. I was just thinking differently because I wasn't thinking of guitar.
SPEAKER_02Right, because on because on the saw, I don't know how hard it is to like literally accurately play a scale. Could you do things like that?
SPEAKER_01You can, it's hard.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, but you're obviously forced because you can only play one note at a time. So you're now forced to think in terms of melody and economy of notes, right? Hmm.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, absolutely. Very much like a singer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. I guess you can't shred.
SPEAKER_01You can't shred on a saw? You can't play fast, it just sounds like it sounds like nonsense. I mean it's funny, it's funny for three seconds. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Can you still play the saw? Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_01And you play often? No. Right. No, not anymore. Yeah. Um I think the last time I played, I did a little little Christmas ditty on my on my Instagram last December. I'm gonna have to go check that out. I'm very curious now. I actually stopped for a while because it made the dog howl. So he'd just throw his head back. But he's he's dead now, so I should get back to it. He was just accompanying you. Yeah. I I never I never figured out whether it was whether he didn't like it or he was howling along like a wolf would, or or whether he was he was in pain. But he didn't he he would sit there, he wouldn't go away, he wouldn't run away from it. Yeah, it's the same with harmonica, and that's quite common with harmonica players, is dogs, their dog will howl. Interesting. It's obviously just in the frequency that hits them, right? Yeah, and I think it's I think it's to them, it's a howling sound that comes out of their owner. Yeah. So, oh well, maybe the baby joining in. Maybe the pecs can have a good howl there.
SPEAKER_00It's interesting. I I have two dogs myself, and um when I start one of them's more of a horse, though, right? So they're they're different sizes. One's quite a bit bigger than the other one. Um, and whenever I start playing at home, the the bigger dog will come and curl up at my feet, and the the smaller dog, she'll piss off somewhere else in the house. She she hates it, but then the other one, as soon as I start playing, she's there. Um and and it really calms her down too, which is interesting. Yeah, because she's such a high-energy dog, she's a bit of a nightmare, to be honest. She's only two and a two and a bit. Um, but yeah, when I start playing guitar, she'll just sit and sleep. Um and it's the coolest thing ever. I love it. It's like a hypnotizer.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, the uh they're supposed to be able to pick up on your heart rate. So maybe it's my energy. So I wonder if it's you that's being calmed and the dog is mirroring you. Because they do that, you know. You know, if you do if you pretend to dig a hole like the dog, then they'll dig a hole with you and stuff.
SPEAKER_02So do you feel that, Mike? Like when you play, you like end up in a calmer state?
SPEAKER_00I mean, that's what I use guitar for, you know, like um had a long, stressful day at work. I come home, I unwind by just just throwing on a jam track and having a bit of fun there. So yeah, possibly. Maybe it is, it's it's maybe it's my energy level she's picking up on. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Interesting. Well, you're the you're the engineer, so you're the one who knows the technical stuff. I'm I'm probably like a lot of musicians, I don't know anything. Um, so I don't know if you want to kick off the actual conversation around pickups. I mean, all all I was gonna say at the start is I don't really a hundred percent know how they work, except for the fact that there's a magnet in there and it picks the sound up.
SPEAKER_00A magnet and some wire. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I guess people often ask me, and that's all I've got.
SPEAKER_01Well, I guess after you got back into playing guitar and stuff, like what was the natural progression to getting into, I guess, more of like a luthier mindset, and and were you doing that when you had the shop or yeah, be before backing up before I had the shop, um I went to college in in Yorkshire to to study guitar making and repair. So I did that, finished college, started repairing, started a little shop, ended up going back to the college and teaching guitar making um part-time, it was like six hours a week or something. Um so I was and one of my students has done really well actually, he makes guitars from At Bellamy, all those really cool things with a chaos pad and all that. So Tim's done great, but um, yeah, so I did that for a while, so that was that was my thing. Um and then after the Saw business, I came here to New Zealand and then I started up with the repair business here, which was what I know or what I knew before.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. When did you come to New Zealand?
SPEAKER_01Uh end of 2005.
SPEAKER_02Oh, cool. So that was initially repairs, not pickups?
SPEAKER_01Well, I'd always repaired pickups as well. Oh, okay, right. So right from the start, yeah. I I well when I was in college, there was a there was a pickup winding machine under a a sheet in the cupboard that I found in the workshop, and and I was like, ooh, what's this? And they oh we don't know about oh okay. So I had to figure it out and how it worked, and then I went and made my own and started there. But there was no information available at all. So is it all trial and error?
SPEAKER_02Just yeah, yeah, yeah. And and were you in the mindset of thinking about demand in the market? Like, do people want pickups? You know, like when I first heard that you're making pickups, I remember thinking, oh, I didn't know people bought independent pickups. I just bought the guitar and just you know, whatever pickups were in it, you know?
SPEAKER_00Well, you're unusual.
SPEAKER_02Yes, okay. Yeah, most a lot of people.
SPEAKER_00A lot of guitar players love modding their their gear, right?
SPEAKER_02Like I've I've I've had pickups changed in my guitars, but it's never been me. It's always been whoever's been looking after them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. People will spend a lot more time looking at stuff on the internet than they do practicing, as I'm sure you've noticed. Yeah, definitely. And and it's not just it's not just you know, how do I get the brown sound or how do I play corruption? It's it's it's the it's oh ooh, look, I can mod yeah this and that. So um bass players less so. Yeah. Bass players have this weird thing that if they want to sound better, they need to practice. Um of course we don't approve of that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um just buy a better guitar. But were you looking at the market going, I think there's something here? I think people Yeah, yeah, kind of, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and I actually started planning the whole thing in 2012. I started making the range then, but never had the nerve to completely jump into it.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01So I had most of it there, I had lots of stuff figured out, um, and had the little robot guy made and all this stuff, and then when COVID happened, it's like, well, sweet, whole job. So it's only that reason. I feel like you've been selling pickups for years. No, it was it was then that I went a hundred percent into pickups and not just partially I didn't realise that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So what was the um hesitation? Was it to do with being taken seriously or something? No, you've got to make a living. You know, it's not I've I've never whether it's viable.
SPEAKER_01I've never done it part-time. Yeah, whereas a lot of people they make pedals part-time and they've got their day job. Yeah, I've never done that. I've always been 100% into you know involved. So there's a risk. Yeah. So if I stop repairing guitars in my central Auckland workshop and I just make pickups and I'm out in Murawai, like, oh what's gonna happen?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, it might get really quiet.
SPEAKER_02Why why did why did you need to stop repairs? Apart from just the idea of being all in, but I mean, wouldn't it have made sense to straddle them?
SPEAKER_01I did try that to begin with. Nothing takes up more time than repairing guitars. Yeah, you must be spread so thin when you yeah, yeah. I know I know people look at a guitar setup and go, oh, it's just ten minutes, you've got to tweak this, tweak that, and you're done. And it's it's it's not like that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, everything takes a long, long time. And and it was and yeah, so it was if I'm gonna do this, I've actually got to do it. Yeah, yeah. You know, and and so I did.
SPEAKER_02And and what's it been like? I mean, has it been you know, has it taken off like a rocket or has it been a slow burn?
SPEAKER_01No, it's it's been very slowly expanding and it's just how I want it to. Yep. Because if it had suddenly taken off, I don't think I'd have known what to do. You know, it because I need to grow with it.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I guess I mean if if it all of a sudden does blow up too, like how do you maintain your quality control if it's you know, just is it just you at the moment? Yeah, so how do you scale?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, uh it it's me at the moment, but on on one day a week my partner works with me. Yeah, and hopefully that will be changed. I mean, there is a plan for how it how it will get bigger, yeah. Um, but only to a point. Um because I I I don't want to be employing lots of people and I don't I don't want to become an administrator.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I love that because so often these days the mentality, especially from certain people, is grow, grow, grow. You know, how can we make this a huge giant you know enterprise? And it's like we don't have to. What about having a lifestyle business? You know, what about keeping it small? What about not becoming a franchise franchise chain? But let's have a little boutique restaurant and just make good food and just have good customers and just keep it like that, you know? Yeah, yeah. It's funny how a lot of these a lot of the time that conversation these days is seen as defeatism or something, but it's it's actually it's it's cool.
SPEAKER_00What you don't want to become a monopoly and take over the whole world? You actually want to just focus on your product and your clients? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01But you have to you have to look at what what does success look like. That's right. And if it looks like me in meetings and doing office y stuff and not making pickups anymore, I don't want a bar of it. That's right. Yeah. You know, it's it's I I like making pickups. I like how they work, I like the physics. Yeah. And I and I I had this lovely moment, it was um last August. Um, you know, the come together group of people. They would the show, yeah. They were doing um Dark Side of the Moon. Yep. And Brett Adams had called me a couple of weeks before saying I'm after some strap pickups. Yep. So I sent him some pickups, he was happy with them, and he gave me a couple of tickets for the show. So I went with my daughter who was 11, and uh on the way home, she goes, Dad, why were you crying in the theatre?
SPEAKER_00And it's had a big part in that sound.
SPEAKER_01And I'm not I'm not a massive Pink Floyd sound, yeah, but comfortably numb through a proper PA system in a proper theatre, that that sound, and I'm looking at him and I'm and like I know what I wrote on the underneath of those pickups. Yeah, that's cool. That's awesome. Wow. Yeah, that's really cool. And that's yeah, I don't think I'd get that if I was Seymour Duncan.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And I don't know, you know, I don't know if that's something your daughter maybe appreciated as much, but I I wonder if years from now she'll she'll understand, I think, maybe a bit more.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Hope so.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've I think the question about success though is a really interesting one, the definition of success. We used to talk about that uh a lot in the old show. Um, but what I often think about is is each day, like what I want what do I want to do when I wake up each day? You know, how do I want the day to unfold? And I think it's so easy to think in terms of metrics, uh salary or status or some of these other things. Not that that not not that they're not valid for other reasons, but um but it's easy to forget, you know, what does your day look like? I mean, if you if you wake up each day and you're making a bazillion dollars but you're not seeing your kids, I don't know if I want that life, you know. Um I've I've certainly asked myself those questions in terms of how I navigate my career.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well I na I was getting up at five in the morning to drive into the workshop in the city to repair guitars. Now I get up at about six, do a bit of work, wake the girls up, make everyone breakfast. Yeah. Then I get the dog on the beach.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01So that that and I'm pretty much time for time swapped sitting in the car on the Northwestern Motorway for being on the beach with the dog. Yeah. Now pretty good swap. I mean it's amazing. You don't have to think too long and hard about which one to choose. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And how has that changed your sense of yourself? I mean, are you uh have you become do you feel healthier physically as well as psychologically?
SPEAKER_01Definitely, yeah. Definitely, definitely. Yeah, because uh what have you noticed? Well, I'm I'm you know, I'm walking for 40 minutes a day. Yeah. So I'm you know, I used to get a bad back and I don't anymore. You know, it's um and it's also it's also good time good thinking time for sure. Processing, you know, and even like like Mirawai Beach can get a bit rugged in the winter, but that's great too. Yeah, you know, you can be out there and all uh blowing a gale and it's fine.
SPEAKER_02Do you feel a sense of being more at peace with yourself? Do you know what I mean? Like less sort of in a state of constant stress and chaos?
SPEAKER_01Um not really, because I create that for myself. No, you know what I mean? I've got I've got that kind of ADHD brain where I get I get the hyper hyper focus thing. Yeah, yeah. And and and if I st I I I I set the alarm, I have to set the alarm for two hours to make myself go and do something else. Right. Which could be I I'll spend five minutes with a metronome, or I will move the chickens from one bit to the other, or I'll do something. But I have to stop myself. Right, yeah. Um, or I will just go straight through without Is this you too? I'm very much like that. Yeah, I'm thinking, wow, okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if there's two of you. If if I get hyper-fixated on something, it is it's physically hard to think about something else sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. You you got you need you need that discipline to pull you out. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But it's really useful. It's great. It's a great thing. Yeah. You know, I mean that's this is how I can I can have a pickup business that works. Yeah, definitely. You know, it's because I'm not distracted by other stuff. I really, I really love doing this, and that's that's that's me 100%.
SPEAKER_00And I think if you can tap into that hyperfixation, you know, on a on a positive topic or or or some sort of um productive endeavor, you know, you can you can create a pickup business for yourself. Like that's because you're gonna you're gonna learn things to a level that most people won't have the patience or passion to really get to. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean you talk to anyone who makes guitars or pedals or amplifiers or anything related, and this is a very, very common story. Yes, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Although some of them have struggled to complete things, right? Yeah. So that they're there's been forever with Working on something. So how are you at at that? Because you know that saying with painters, you never finish the painting at some point, you just walk away. It's probably true for everything that we do, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, lots of unfinished projects. Yeah. Um, and I do try and go, right, I'm gonna finish this one, I have to finish. Yeah. To you know. Um but but you can make yourself do that. You know, you can go, right, I'm gonna put I'm gonna publish the web page for that pickup.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So you know, I have to get that element.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's where the the business stuff I think is really helpful because time is money. You know, if you if you spend too much time on something, it depreciates you know what you're what value you're getting out of it, right? So if you've got a number of different jobs and you've got deadlines and you're trying to make a living and all those things tend to knock a lot of the stuff into into line, I think.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the way it works is you know, a customer orders a pickup.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, that's the first thing, and then that pickup has to be supplied. Now I have a lot of them partially made. Yes. Because it it it's a funny business. People go, Oh, can't you just send it straight away, isn't it? Haven't you got a whole stack of them finished? Well, the problem is there's 70-something pickups in the range. Right. Because even if you look at strats, there's a there's a there's a neck and middle and a bridge. Yeah. So you've got three there, and then you go, well, okay, so there's like five different kinds of strat set. Oh, so we just multiplied that, and then there's half a dozen cover options. Oh dear, and it's all, you know, and that's just strats. So I can wind have the coils wound, but the rest of it gets done later.
SPEAKER_02And how long would it usually take to take one of those partly made w uh pickups and complete one pickup?
SPEAKER_01Not a set, just one. It all depends on what kind of pickup. Um humbuckers are take a lot longer because I will I will wax pot them in their covers. Yeah. Um, but like let's say strap pickup, which would be the easiest. I mean, that's easy. I mean, I would just put the hookup wire on it, some sort um cutting the wire, blah blah, solder that on, cover it, tap the threads, put it together. Yeah, that's probably not going to take a long time, it's probably gonna take ten minutes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So back to my original question. How would you sum up quickly to someone like me how a pickup works? Right, right. Here we go.
SPEAKER_01I've only been playing for 35 years. I think I should have a good time to learn. Right, yeah. So so all you need to know as a musician is its witchcraft.
SPEAKER_00Yeah? I knew it!
SPEAKER_01I get up just before dawn, I go out, I go out to the to the ancient stone down the road, and sacrifice a goat. Um, and then we're good.
SPEAKER_02Right, yeah, sorry.
SPEAKER_01So high school physics, yeah? Yeah. So you've got a magnet and you've got something metal near it, which is your string. The core of your string is steel, so it's mainly iron. Um so that string becomes connected to the magnet by you know it becomes a temporary magnet because it's so close to it. So when that string moves, because you've hit it with a piece of plastic, um, it disturbs a magnetic field. So if you're picturing that apple core-shaped magnetic field that the string passes through, the string starts wiggling, it's going to disturb that magnetic field. Right, okay. Now, you've got a coil of wire around that magnet. Now, copper wire basically is, or one of its great properties is it's got lots and lots of electrons that are just hanging out with nothing to do, dying to be electricity.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01Now, electrons, as you know, are negatively charged, so basically they've got a charge. You destroy the magnetic field, you create some electricity.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's it.
SPEAKER_02Interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Now the amount of electricity is very, very small. Yeah. And somehow, I mean I always find it amazing, there's enough to get down your cable and into your amp.
SPEAKER_02But that's why you need the amp to then enhance it.
SPEAKER_01Because it's yeah, because there's almost no electricity. It's teeny teeny, like it's like it's really hard to measure.
SPEAKER_02Like for argument's sake, you couldn't just wire a guitar right up to a speaker. It wouldn't really do anything, right? You need something in between.
SPEAKER_01You need something to amplify it. To amplify. Yeah. So oh, that's where the name comes from. So this so this wire, so if you imagine a piece of wire that was a kilometre and a half long, right? That's a really long piece of wire. And it is so thin that you can wind it into a strap pickup. That's the strap pickup. So that's how thin.
SPEAKER_00Is that how much wire is used?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Holy didn't know that. I wouldn't have guessed that.
SPEAKER_01Fat strat's a bit closer to a kilometer, but it doesn't matter. You know, it's a it's a that's a lot of wires. It's so thin. I mean, people talk about it being like as thick as hair and stuff, but it's it's hard to it's hard to imagine it. Yeah. Um, so it's very, very, very, very thin.
SPEAKER_02Huh. That's great. So there you go.
SPEAKER_01That's the basic, actually kind of high school physics version of it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. It was probably too advanced for me, but you know. But again, did you finish high school physics?
SPEAKER_01Didn't finish high school. But but stuff that matters there, stuff that you can change the sound with is the strength of the magnet. Right. So you can change the shape of the magnetic field by having like a short, wide magnet or a tall, thin magnet. You can change the shape of the coil. So if you had a quite a tall coil like a strat, it sounds very different to a wide flat coil like a P90. Or a ja a Jazz Master, it's probably a better um comparison. And where you put the magnet makes a difference. But also it it hears the string. So the str what the string is attached to makes a difference. So if you attach that piece of string to a lump of steel, it's gonna have a lot more high end for the pickup to hear than if you attach it to an ES335. So the it it hears, it's not an independent thing, it hears what the string is doing, acoustically.
SPEAKER_00It's a complex system, after all, right? There's so many little parts that are going together in it. So yeah, you're never I I kind of bristle a little bit when I hear people say like the guitar doesn't matter, it's just the pickups. And I always kind of think, I'd be curious to hear what your thoughts are, but I always thought like the pickups probably 90% of the sound, but that extra 10% is still doing something, you know, it is still coloring the sound.
SPEAKER_02I've never heard people say that before. Do they say that?
SPEAKER_00You you see that you see that online quite a bit, um, where people will start talking about like tone woods and how that's um a bit of a a myth or snake oil. Um I think it might be exaggerated, but I definitely don't think it's pure pure snake oil. There's there's definitely something to it. Surely every component plays. I mean, if you've ever This is one of the things that I love about a store like like Gokula is you know, I can go in and play a real, you know, 1960 Gretsch Chet Atkins or something like that, where the wood has actually had that time to age and all the components have had time to age and stuff, and there's something there. I don't know if it's something that necessarily the audience is gonna hear, you know, like you you might be able to just get a squire and and a nice pedal board or something, and that probably gets you 90% of the way there, but that extra five to ten percent is something there there's something there, there is a vibe to some of these instruments, and I always kind of think it's probably more on like the the play, the playability and the feel for the actual player. Um, but there's something there, in my opinion, anyways. Be curious to absolutely, yeah. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01I really wish that the guitar didn't matter because as as someone who makes pickups, yeah, I could say the pickup's everything. Right, this is your sound, this is everything, but it's not, it's not true. There was a a video went round YouTube that keeps going popping up every now and again of a guy proving that it the pickup is everything. Um I saw that, yeah. Yeah, it's bollocks, yeah. It's bollocks, it is not, it really isn't. If you play a 70s strat, a heavy ash body, you know, those really uncomfortable ones, and then if you play, let's say, a squire made out of basswood or palowino or one of those really light woods, you can hear the difference.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, what about the big steel block that they reduced the size of somewhere in the past? Do you know about that?
SPEAKER_01Oh, the the trend block.
SPEAKER_02Um, sure.
SPEAKER_01In in in on the strap bridge. Yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_02Like am I right? In the past it was much bigger, and in was it 70s maybe they reduced the size of it to save money? Is that right?
SPEAKER_00There's a few examples. Yeah, there's a few examples like that, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and it's often cited as one of the reasons why the original ones arguably sound better.
SPEAKER_01I mean there's lots there's lots of things, but yeah, you you you the way what I've concluded because from 25 years of repairing guitars, and and I do like to think about the things that I'm repairing, you know, why is this like this? You know, someone hands you a guitar and I'd always have play the game of I am I will assume I make an assumption of what this is gonna do, and you play it and see if I'm right, and it's great if you're wrong, because then you can try and figure it out. But my conclusion has been that a heavy dense wood, like ash, not not swamp ash, but ash or maple or something, is reflective of string energy. So it will it it's too it's got too much mass to vibrate much itself, so it reflects the string energy back into the string, giving you a lot of treble, a lot of sustain, like your old Les Paul Customs. Um whereas if you have uh an instrument that's lighter, like basswood, then that is that softer wood will vibrate more. So that will absorb string energy. It'll put some of it back into the string, but it delays it slightly because this thing is vibrating and then it puts some back. So that will tend to sound loose and open. So my thought is tight tight and precise or loose and open. Right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'm really careful with language not to judge which is uh what one is good and one is bad. Just options. Because they're just different. I know what I prefer.
SPEAKER_02So do you, when you're working with a client, do you tend to see like try to hear them play or ask them questions about how they play or anything like that so you can tailor it a little bit to their style?
SPEAKER_01I I what I was when I was repairing, yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yes, but not so much with the pickups?
SPEAKER_01No, I don't make one off pickups.
SPEAKER_02Oh right, okay.
SPEAKER_01Because they've got to be tested so much.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, I'll I'll record, I'll A-B them against pickups that I know, I'll put them in a few different guitars, which just shows that I know the guitar's gonna make a difference, and I'll gig them. Um so I'll play in two covers bands, and one is more rock, that I'll use humbuckers, and another one is kind of a more old school covers, and I'll use single coils. So I've got two really good test beds, yeah. But where you can hear how it performs, and being covers, you've got all this gamut of songs that you have to learn that aren't necessarily what I'd want to play, because that's the nature of covers, but but there's lots of different ways in which to test them. So everything gets tested. So if someone says to me, Oh, hey, can you make me a humbucker 8.2k ohms with an Lico 2 magnet, then I'll go, yeah no. So no, no, I think I I actually make something really similar to that anyway. Yeah, it's been tested really thoroughly.
SPEAKER_02That's a that's a good business trick as well, isn't it? Uh I knew someone years ago who made tiny homes, and they would make like every tiny home would be boutique, it'd be you know, two-order sort of thing. And it always took way too much time, and they never I don't think they made a profit on any of them once you added everything in. And one of the guys that worked for them, who was how I knew them, um, would try to constantly say you should you should try and have like templates or some sort of consistency to your models, you know, so that you can become more efficient, and they just they weren't really interested. And I I that makes a lot of sense to me for you to actually narrow it down a little bit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Although having said that, if someone suggests something to me and I think it's a really good idea, yeah, you're gonna go, yeah, okay, if you don't mind bearing with me for a bit through all this long testing process, because then I can make something that will be a product that I can sell on my website.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I it's funny that you brought up the point about the different sounds and stuff. I heard you say in another podcast, all sound is good. And I thought that was really interesting because you know, with something like this, it is so subjective. Um, how do you actually I I always struggle just even talking about tone because it's kind of buzzwordy, you know, you don't really have anything concrete to go from. So, how do you work with your clients to like if they say, I want that 8.2 ohm, I'll need go to pickup? Do you already in your head have an idea of what that would sound like or what they're trying to go for? And then you can kind of um steer them in that direction?
SPEAKER_01Or I asked them to give me musical examples. Oh, that makes sense. Right. Because all our language is visual, yeah. And and and and we and you can't describe a sound. And and you think you're describing the sound, but does the other person actually understand what you've just said in the way you think, and and and it's it it can't, it doesn't work.
SPEAKER_02It's also a context thing. I I I I I rem remember making this mistake years ago in the studio where the producer we're making an album, and the producer said, Um, can you bring us examples of drum performances in? And I was like, You've got to listen to this one. The snare drum on this album's incredible. Um so we put it up on the board, and when we got it playing, I was like, Oh crap, it doesn't sound very good. And what I realized is that I loved the performance, I loved the song, I loved everything about it. I'd never really paid attention to the snare before. Like the actual sound of it. Yeah, and I just assumed it was a good snare sound once I thought about it. And I had to, you know, tell between my legs, go, just turn it off.
SPEAKER_01But how do you describe a snare sound? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like a rifle or like a you know, you can't do it. So so so you so why try really? So that's what I get people to give me musical examples and then I will describe back to them what uh what I think I understand about what they've said. Right. To see if we can find that we're talking about the same thing.
SPEAKER_02But there must be some kind of across the board capture that you have to make sure you get, i.e., when I produce stuff and I'm recording things, I need to make sure that I'm I'm getting a good, honest capture that does have information at the low, mid, and highs and whatever. So it goes to the mix engineer, they might decide to duck half of it out, that's fine, but at least they've got options rather than just giving them something that's super limited and narrow because I wasn't good at my job, right? There must be something where you're delivering something that kind of can cover the spectrum somehow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, um obviously there's there's the those the three the three things the bass, metal, and treble I'm listening for. Yeah, um, it's very, very tempting to make the bass too boomy. Right. Yeah. And you don't find out till you're live.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01When you're loud, then you go, oh yeah, that neck pickup's got no clarity. Right. Whereas but if you're in a in a studio, you go, oh, it sounds great in here, in this quiet little, you know. So that's that's important. The treble, obviously, you don't want the treble, you need treble because that's your definition, but uh you don't want it harsh. And telecasters are the ones where you've got to be really careful to keep. Yeah, you've just got to sand the corners off a little bit, you know, just gonna make sure it's not too harsh. Yeah, and then the mid that there's it, there's your there's your personality, yeah. That's your character, there's your vowel sound that you that that that uh when I was doing the repair thing, mainly with describing acoustic guitars, they used to have a um if it sounds gning or gong or gang because you haven't got words. Yeah. So just to show those middle frequencies, because you can go, oh yeah, it's you can really hear it at 800 hertz. But most people don't understand what you mean. So what why would what's the point in using language no one understands? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because another version of context also is like uh uh put if you record, let's say, electric guitar and you've just got just the guitar and a voice, the guitar's doing a lot of work in terms of filling the whole thing up. As soon as you're mixing into a band, a lot of the lows are scooped out anyway, um, because so they don't interfere with the bass and the keys and whatever else, you know. Um so yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll just just remove that frequency, yeah, or those frequencies.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Which I know is a different subject because that's more a mixing thing, but it's not though, it's not though, because the same idea. Yeah. You have to think of that, and then you have to and then there's the balance between pickups. Right. Um and that's an interesting one as well. So if you have a HSS strat, do you want them balanced? Yeah. People people think balance is a nice word, all but I want balance. But actually you probably want the bridge pickup to be a bit more fierce than the other two.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01Because that isn't that the point?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've always wondered why people default to the back pickup so often. I've always seen that as a bit of a beginner move. Like I love staying on the middle pickup and and leaning into the front one. I just find all the tones there for me. Yeah. Very much about playing style, I guess.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, I I like I like the middle as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's my default usually.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. But um yeah, and also you have to you might like one thing and somebody else likes another. Absolutely. And so we're so there's yeah. And obviously there are different the pickups for different stuff. Yeah, I make a pickup, I make one for doom metal. Yeah. And that has that is quite a specific thing. You know, so that has to hit a fuzz pedal that's turned up way too much, but still have come out the other end with some definition. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Um, and that's about magnet strength.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, Mike is now looking for an N to um do an ad reading. And he's trying to do it organically so that we don't struggling. Yeah. I thought I'd just give him the new. So maybe I'll just go into it. Yeah. He also always leans into the mic and makes it sound very formal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you gotta do it, right? Do it right. Are you feeling stuck as a guitar player? Have you picked up a long list of bad habits and adopted the sort the sorts of shortcuts you find online? Oh, I noticed typos on this before. You've changed it on me. Have you been learning from random YouTube tutors or may or may not know what who may or may not know what they're talking about, and who can't give you personal feedback? Have you been leaning into the easiest approaches instead of the best approaches? There's a lot of information out there, and you need to figure out how to make sense of it and want and want to focus. Jesus Christ. I could have I could have like checked it. I know. I wrote it quickly. This is this is like your first ad read. I'm gonna start over on that last one. There's a lot of information out there, and you need to figure out how to make sense of it and want to focus on in what order.
SPEAKER_02What? And what to focus on.
SPEAKER_00Oh, sorry, and what to focus on in what order. This is why it makes lots of sense to learn from an experienced professional guitar player who can give you personal feedback and tailor a plan to suit your personal journey on the instrument. Head to aucklandguitarlessons.co.nz or email info at aucklandguitarlessons.co.nz to find out more. I don't know how you're gonna fix that one up in post, but good luck. I don't see anything needs fixing. I thought it was the whole thing.
SPEAKER_02I thought it was perfect. I think it flowed beautifully. Cool.
SPEAKER_00You mean you kind of mentioned how you gig your different um pickups as sort of a testing ground. What's your number one? Like what where do you feel at home base? Um okay.
SPEAKER_01Well, the gig I've got tonight, which is the more rock band, um, my main guitar is a flying V, because this is, you know, giving the illusion of flashness. And and it's that sort of, it's a very exuberant band. So it's a flying V. I've got a humbucker size P90 in the neck, which I call my black sand, and I've got my Cloud9 bridge pickup, which is a kind of rock type pickup, but it backs off really nicely so I can with the volume, so I can play the you know the more timid songs that way, and and it's really nice for the fingers as well. You can just back off with your hand and it and it'll it'll behave itself. And if you dig in, you know, because we're we're we're we'll be playing um centeria and stuff like that in the beginning, but by the end, it's you know, I believe in a thing called love and crazy train and sandman, and you know, so um so it's got a and I don't like cut swapping guitars during a gig. Yeah, because I just think it's a bit naff. So you find the P90s are pretty good for do-it-all? That's a humbucker size P90 in the neck. Oh it's a humbucker in the bridge.
SPEAKER_00Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_01Um and the humbucker size P90 is a little um clearer, so it hasn't got that one hasn't got as much of a woody clunk in the mid-range as a normal P90 does. Um, so it's clearer for you know, child of mine intro or whatever. Um actually this the other this the spare guitar I've got is P90s. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um now isn't it I might I'm I think I understand the difference between a like a single coil strat pick up a P90 and a humbucker. So I'm gonna just see if that's right. Um so uh single like a strat and a P90, they're both single coils. Um it's just the the width of it. Is that all that's changed really? So you your your electromagnetic field, I guess, is a little bit wider, the the area that it's picking up on the strings is there more to it.
SPEAKER_01Big difference in the magnets. Okay. It's really easy to forget about magnets. Um so with the fender type pickup the magnet is inside the coil. Okay. Yeah, so that the so if you think of a strap, there are six individual rod magnets. All pieces, yeah. Yeah. And they that makes a big difference if they're inside the coil. You get a lot more of that high-end percussor percussive articulation than if you put the if you put them outside the coil. Like a P90 has two bar magnets. So if I don't know if you've ever seen a humbucker magnet, but they're basically two humbucker magnets underneath, okay, both facing south in, but pushing south up through the steel in the middle. So that's the main difference. Yes, the coils are different too, because a P90 is coil isn't as high and it's quite wide, and so there's more of that coil further. Away from the m from the magnetic field. So they end up they're actually completely different, really, in in most aspects. And there's a lot more wire on a P90 as well. And the more wire you put on, yes, you get more power, but you also shift the EQ towards the base. So you take a little bit of top off and you add it underneath and the bottom.
SPEAKER_00I think that's why I like P90 so much.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I like I like P90s. I mean I I've I've only got that as the spare just because the other one, the other spare, has got an experimental pickup in, and I'm I I'm not comfortable with this gig tonight. So I so I want everything to be really familiar. I don't want any surprises, so I just picked that one up. And it'll do everything all night if I'm if it needs to.
SPEAKER_02And then how does a humbucker compare? Because in my ignorant mind, a humbucker's like two single cores stuck together.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02I always thought I was gonna get laughed at for that. No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01Well, there are two single coils, yeah, and they're wired in series, so you can add them up, but they there's quite a few reasons why they have that big fat, especially mid lower, mid-push. Right. The magnet is outside the coil, but also the whole thing's quite wide, so you're listening to quite a lot a lot of string. So rather than that really narrow band that you listen to with a with a with a single coil, there's a lot more harmonic content, so you're hearing a lot more fullness.
SPEAKER_02Okay, that's interesting, because in the past I put a hot stack humbucker into a telly, so that wouldn't have had the same effect, right? Because it simply wasn't covering the same amount of string.
SPEAKER_01It wouldn't have had as much of that effect, no. But the every little thing are just little things. Yeah, for sure. You know, obviously they add up to being a big thing, but um so yeah, that humbucker thing, the way they're white they're wired, does give you that that lower mid push, and that magnet underneath does um rather than being individuals. So whereas whereas a wide range they are magnetic poles inside the coil. Right. Um so that is part of the difference in the sound in a wide range. And they're quite weak magnets. Yeah. Um because they couldn't make them stronger. Yeah. So the reason they used um what were they called those magnets? A cuneife. Okay. The reason they used cuneife magnets is because it's a magnetic material you could cut a thread into.
SPEAKER_03Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER_01And Seth Lover, who was in who was uh Fender had taken from Gibson and said make a humbucker like Gibson have, and he went, Well, I'm gonna do it completely different. Because he held a patent on that on the PAF anyway, so he wasn't gonna do the same thing again. So he thought, oh well, we use these Cunefe magnets because we can cut a thread in them. So they used those, but they're quite weak, so to uh offset that they made quite big coils to still get some power out of it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But hence the whole thing had to be physically larger. And they stopped making them because the main use for CUNIFE threaded CUNIFE magnets was in speedometers of cars. And you could calibrate it by screwing it in or out. Oh. Calibrate the speedar. Yeah. And then cars moved on to something way more sensible and accurate, and so they just stopped making them. Yeah. And so that they weren't available for the pickups anymore.
SPEAKER_02W when you're playing the gig tonight, will you be in your head about the tone and everything? Or is it is it similar to when you practice and you do the work at home and then you go to the gig and turn your brain off? Like, are you are you able to turn off the technical part of your brain and just play?
SPEAKER_01Probably.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, probably. I think so. Yeah. That's the goal. Right? I don't know. It's like you can you'll think about it occasionally. It's like you're driving along in the car. Do you know, do you know how a car works? No. Right. So, Mike, you'll know how a car works, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Honestly, I'm not agreeing to the mechanics. I think I understand uh at a high level, but no, I don't I don't know very well. But but okay. But I know what you mean, where um I do the same with things that I'm more passionate about where I I really think about how the the whatever it is actually works. And it might be in the back of my mind if something happens where you know you start to hear a clunk or something in the car, and you might actually think, oh, what's going on in there? Um but yeah, no, it's sorry, just the car is not a great example for me.
SPEAKER_01Because every now and again I'll be going along and I'll go, God, isn't it amazing how those valves can go up and down at that speed and it's and it's really reliable. Yeah, oh well. It's just me.
SPEAKER_00No, I do I understand I understand the the mindset that you're talking about. It's just yeah. So what so what sort of engineering is is your thing? Uh structural. I'm a structural engineer, so um I design and build cell phone towers, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, so just steel and concrete. Yes. Pretty pretty boring. You should get into how acoustics are uh are made. It's fascinating. I am into that. Um so I it's one of those things where like that's why I say uh guitars for me is a better example because when I'm playing, I will be thinking about that sort of stuff. Um Luthery in general is something that I've always found incredibly interesting. Like I I will sit and just watch luthier videos um sort of in the background. I find it quite soothing, you know, just um watching somebody who's really skilled at um shaving a brace or something. Yeah, it's so fun to watch. I don't know, maybe this is for me, but you know, so I'll think about it in that.
SPEAKER_02I love any kind of anyone who's good at craft, yeah. It doesn't matter if I know nothing about the thing. Yeah, because anyone who's really good at it is fascinating to me.
SPEAKER_01Agreed. Yeah, yeah. But see, this acoustic which we have next to us here, that's an air pump. You can view it like a new musical instrument if you like, but uh I I'd look at that as an air pump, and the way the bracing is this bridge can move in one of three directions. Yeah, so it can twist like that, it can twist like that, or it can pump. And have a good look at all the bracing, and you see it's all designed so that that will pump air. And then so that's a that that that's your diaphragm that acts as an air pump, and then we've got a volume of air behind, with this determining the size of the sound hole, determines how much air pressure is inside there, and therefore how far it's going to project, etc.
SPEAKER_02So you're saying that's literal, that bridge moves up and down or whatever. Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that's why you'll notice that the the back, your back bracing is always quite a bit stiffer compared to like the front, because your soundboard that's what's supposed to move. Right. That's what gives you that amplification.
SPEAKER_01And that would normally, the back would normally be a 20-foot radius satellite dish focusing the sound out the front. Normally the top would be wouldn't be a 28-foot radius, which is kind of hard to conjure with in your head, but it means it's about three mil higher in the middle than the outside.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that is mainly because that gives it, makes an archway so it's stronger, so you can make the top thinner and still have some strength.
SPEAKER_00There's a lot of pressure from those strings.
SPEAKER_01About 75 kg of pull all the time. Wow. Yeah. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02So what do you think, in terms of the future of the technology of pickups, and also the past, you know, pickups were invented what, early 1930s or something like that? And I'm sure they've developed a lot of. Do you know? I think it was one that Rickenbacker had. Was it the frying pan? The frying pan. Oh, cool. George Bocamp and Adolf Rickenbacker in about 1931. Adolf Rickenbacker. No one's called Adolf anymore. No, no. It's weird how that went out of fashion. Yeah, I don't know why. Not sure why. Um, but I I I don't know how pickups have evolved since then to now. Um, we were talking before about I I mentioned how smartphones they sort of started to run out of ways to make them more interesting. They keep adding lenses. It's like they kind of topped out, you know. But where do you think pickups could go? Like, what's missing? Are there problems that are still unsolved? Like, what are the possibilities going forward?
SPEAKER_01Okay, I I would say in the guitar world in general, very little has changed since 1958. You know, that's thought of as the year when everything happened and and so not much has changed. Now, these active pickups and that's its own thing. I think there's a different there's a less organic, more sterile feel to those. Um, and if you don't and if you're using high gain all the time and uh compression is your friend, then that's that's all good. I don't know the the thing is they have to run in parallel with all the other gear. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you can make the most efficient uh device that there is to pick up vibrating a vibrating string, uh but it might not work with everything else. Yeah. So you have to be able to put it into an amp, you have to put it into pedals or modelling or all that. So I I don't see anything massively different. There's the noiseless thing. Now noiseless pickups are stacked humbuckers wide in parallel. Right.
SPEAKER_00So it's just a little single coil, another single coil below, just reverse.
SPEAKER_01Now in parallel, now on a strat, positions two and four on a strat, people call that out of phase, which is incorrect. Is it? And anyone who ever has ever used that phrase should be punished horribly, I would say. Wow, that includes me. Yeah. Not that I gave it any thought. But not out of phase. Right, okay. It's two coils in parallel. It does sound out of phase, though. No. No, no. It's out of phase. Have you ever played a pickup out of phase?
SPEAKER_02I was gonna No, but I uh my comment there was based on if you've got two mics in a recording session and they're they are actually out of phase. That's the sound that that creates until you flip the phase.
SPEAKER_01But with if you think of those two, if you had two strap pickups and they were out of phase, they're really close to each other. They're hearing almost exactly the same with the string.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, good point.
SPEAKER_01And the closer together they are, the more the more out of phase they get. So you hear it's very thin and very nasally. Um I mean that there's you know the Gary Moore greeney stuff where that but that's a humbucker, two humbuckers out of phase and all there's ports. They're quite far apart. Oh, okay. So it's reasonably usable on a strat. It's it's dire on a strat. Right. Uh where was I going? Yes. So that sound of two uh coils uh in parallel, which is a nice sound. So what the way they make the the the a noiseless one is they have two fairly powerful coils because they use stupidly thin wire, which they have to because there's no space in there, and they put them in parallel to try and make them sound like a strat. And the thing is they don't feel like a strat. They can sound a close-ish and you can record it to sound pretty good, but they don't feel like it. They haven't got that spank thing if you if you play percussively. Um and I think that's the other thing with pickups that uh it isn't talked about much is the feel. Because you can't demo the feel.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's that's one of the things I always think is a bit of a sticking point when you have these conversations, and um, you know, it's such a common you'll see it on the internet in the comments all the time where people say, Oh, there's no point. You know, it sounds exactly the same as so-and-so, that's $200, and you've just spent three grand. And I always try to tell people it's not about getting that sound to be perfectly close, because at that stage the returns are in the feel, it's in the playability, it's in what it ends up becoming a very inspiring instrument. You know, I don't think people who don't play guitar realize how much it can actually change from one guitar to the next.
SPEAKER_02Also, when you turn it up loud in a big venue, you know.
SPEAKER_00But that's a whole different ballgame.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think a lot of the people who make a lot of comments are often bedroom players and nothing no shade against bedroom players, but it's it's different at a low volume in a bedroom versus big venue turned up loud, you know?
SPEAKER_00No, my boss katana sounds perfect.
SPEAKER_01But that's but that's fine. And yeah, like we said before, yeah, there is no bad sound. Yeah. It's just different situations in which you can use that sound. That's right. Yeah. But no, the feel the feel is I think I think very important. Agreed. So with a humbucker, like I was saying with that cloud nine, where uh you can back off and it'll and it'll be really timid and and well behaved, and it'll you can get back in the shadows a little bit even without touching the volume. Yeah. But then when you dig in and it'll do the pinched harmonic thing, which is always always so satisfying. Yeah. When you hit it just right. Oh, yeah, yeah, and you and and yeah, nobody ever el nobody else ever notices, but damn, it feels good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because I remember noticing or thinking about it one day when I was playing some gig, and I I just realize how little control I have over what goes out the front because you know, whatever mic they've chosen and what angle they put the mic on, and then it goes into the b the the board and then how it's EQ'd and so on. There's so many different more parts of the chain that I've no control over, and I thought, God, I isn't it funny, I put all this effort into sounding good and I don't know what's coming out the front. You know, I'm at the mercy of the engineer. Uh, but what it did make me think was a large part of this is just making sure that I'm delivering the best tone that I can, and it's like giving it the best shot, you know. But also it's sort of more about me, you know. Do I feel good when I'm playing? You know, is it responding to me the way I want it to respond? And if they end up doing something funny with the EQ out front and it works for the band, then okay, I guess that's not my job.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. A front house engineer is a member of your band for that night.
SPEAKER_02That's right.
SPEAKER_01And like every other member of your band, you trust them. Yes. You trust them to do their job. I always think front house is none of my business.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, I've just got to and and my own in-ear mix is that's up to me. I need to raise my hand if I'm not happy, and um there you go. And you just g and you just gotta pretend that it sounds amazing at front. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, even if it doesn't, right? If you pretend maybe you make it real.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you've got to look like you're having the time of your life the whole time. Yeah. You know, it's it's this is yeah, it is entertainment.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and often it's acting. Yeah, yeah. That's what I learned. Yeah. You're on a big stage and you can't hear yourself and you're like, oh, I guess all I have now is pretend. Yeah. Well, I'd strike a pose.
SPEAKER_01I've I've started practicing over the last year, I practice smile with smiling the whole time while I'm practicing.
SPEAKER_00That's a good point. I don't most people probably don't even think of that, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because because mid and mid mid-set the middle of set two of two or three, when you when you're just drifting off a bit. Yeah. That's fine, as long as you can still play and you look fine. So I try not to stop moving, and I try and if I've practiced my face looking like I'm happy, yeah, then um then I don't just turn into that grumpy bloke.
SPEAKER_02That's a good idea, because m musicians often have their playing face, don't they? When they're yeah, I do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Oh, I mean guitar face, it's a it's a whole meme in and of itself.
SPEAKER_02You don't even know what mine is, but I know it's not very um personable.
SPEAKER_01I'm sure, I'm sure Gary Moore wasn't feeling every note like that. No, you know, it's acting. Yeah. This is theatre.
SPEAKER_00100%. Well, I mean, it's something, you know, if I'm having a bad day or I'm feeling off, I'm just on a computer screen. So nobody's gonna notice that. But if your your job is getting up and playing in front of people, you gotta you gotta make people believe it, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's a big part of it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, we're we're kind of coming into land. I I just was gonna ask if there were any misconceptions about any of this stuff that you know you feel the the burning desire to correct, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the the whole out of phase. That made me think of it. Yeah, is there any other pickup myths uh that you wanna that that bother you?
SPEAKER_01Not really. Not really. I mean my I've got a pet hate about jack sockets. But people people call it an input jack. Right. You know, where it's clearly not. It's clearly an output jack.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, I never really thought of it either.
SPEAKER_01I know you put your lead in, but that's to enable the signal to go out.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's a very good point. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I'm now going through my memory thinking, have I actually called it an input or have I just called it a jack? I can't remember.
SPEAKER_00I would probably call it an input jack, but I mean if you think of a pedal, you know, you've got an input jack and an output jack. Yeah, of course. Guitar only has an output. I've never thought of that before. These things that catch on. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But no, apart from that, I'm you know, I'm really relatively stress-free with terminology. But the the thing is you can't expect everyone to know. You know, people who are buying pickups on the whole are not happy with something. You know, they've got there's some aspect of their guitar, they're trying to they're trying to get an advantage, they're trying to sound better, and they don't I mean I don't you don't necessarily know who they are or what they know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's that's a good point. Because like as as a musician, often you're playing for artists who don't know much about music theory, let's say, and uh they will use sometimes poetic language to describe what they're looking for. You know, you could be tempted to be dismissive and condescending and you know that sort of thing, but it's it's not fair, you know. They're they're the singer or they're the writer or whatever, you know, they're they're coming from a different place, and to get that balance right between you know you don't want to start schooling them. Yeah, you know, but you still want to help them get to certain answers.
SPEAKER_01You have to be careful with language, you know. Yeah. Um I'm I I'm I you don't want to go high pass filter. Right. You know, you don't want to use a phrase like that that isn't in common usage to people to to to ordinary people, you know. It's it's like I I quite like it trying to explain things in as simple a term as possible. Yeah. Because that's important. It's you want people to understand. Yeah. And I I I see a lot of, especially YouTube people, and they will use all the terminology they possibly can, and you look at it and you go, yeah, that's that's fine, but you're just showing off. That's like a way to sound smarter. Yeah, and like yeah, what's that that's not the purpose? No. You know, I'm I'm I'm planning on making a little series of videos just explaining guitar wiring. Just the simple this is how it works. And soldering. You know, soldering is not some great ninja druid skill that only a few ever mind. I'm pretty sure it is. I'm not pretty sure it is. No, no, no. It is it is the opposite of guitar playing. It is all about the gear. It's really, really easy if you've got decent gear. And and and that's it.
SPEAKER_00Like, like my daughter was I mean with most tools, you know, you you kind of do get what you pay for, um and varying degrees depending on the tool, to be fair.
SPEAKER_01Well the soldering iron I use cost me a hundred bucks. New and it's brilliant. It was recommended by Tony from Pepper's Pedals down in Dunedin, and and I thought, well, I'll take and it's been brilliant. I recommend it to heaps of people. It's great, it works really well. If you get a soldering iron from Bunnings, you have not got a chance. Doesn't matter how experienced you are, you you will not be able to use that properly. Right. But a half decent soldering iron, and it is easy. Like I I I taught my daughter, who was 11 at the time, to solder in about three minutes, and she's great now.
SPEAKER_02Amazing.
SPEAKER_01It's it's not it's not hard. And so I want to try and hopefully make a little series there, and and also guitar wiring. People will look at a wiring diagram and just follow the diagram, but it's actually really easy to know what all the components do, yeah, and therefore be able to just put it together yourself, you know. Um so I'm gonna make try and make a few videos doing that, but I've got a lot of orders in right now.
SPEAKER_00So it's like well, I look forward to when those come out because I'm you've actually just given me a little bit of confidence to give this a shot. That's sort of I've never um I like messing around with my guitars and modding them, but like pickups and the soldering is the one thing that I kind of shy away from.
SPEAKER_01So it's really it's a really common story, yeah. But it's actually quite it's it's it's not it's not as daunting. I know you open it up and you go, ooh, there's a lot of colourful wires in there. But it's quite it's once you know what each of the does, it's like it's like looking at a mixing desk. You go, Whoa, there's a sea of twiddly things, you know. But when you know there's just oh, this there's one is just in columns. Yeah, exactly. And then oh well there's some gain stuff, and there's some tone stuff, and then you know all of a sudden it's not so scary. It's it's it's it's just whittling it down. Yeah, and we've only got about five components in a guitar, you know, a volume and a tone and a jack and switch, yeah, and a pickup. An output jack.
SPEAKER_02We like to we like to finish the episodes with um what are things we have learnt? Uh what's our conclusion or what's what's what are some things we've learned. And that's definitely that and what was the other one? Um, the out of phase thing. That's kind of blowing my mind a little bit. It's just one of those things that you you know you inherit ideas and you never question them. Yeah. It's not like it's not like I sat and deliberated over it. I just you know, people call it out of phase and I just rolled with it. Yeah. But as soon as you said that, I'm like, oh yeah, I'm gonna be out of phase.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. And I I don't know where that started. Yeah. Um, and I haven't really, I'm not quite arsey enough to try and go back to the source.
SPEAKER_02Right. Well, that's what I've learned. Have you what have you learned today, Mike?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'd say probably the same. Um just picking up on on picking up on some of the different changes of the different pickups. Um, you know, it's one of those things that I kind of had it in my head of what they were, but hearing from somebody who's actually an expert who actually understands is is is um it's yeah, it's nice to hear.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Have you learned anything? You're the one you're the one who's been teaching us.
SPEAKER_00On the off chance. I've been I've been talking a lot. Learn I shouldn't talk so much.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00If you're enjoying the show, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or tell a friend. It helps us grow and we really appreciate it. We've also got the uh private Facebook group. Um join that and uh have a chat with Danny and I. You know, we're really we're really reactive on there and um we'd like to hear your opinions. So make sure you subscribe and you you never miss an episode.
SPEAKER_02Yep. So shall we play something? Sure. Have you got a tune for us?
SPEAKER_00Uh sure. D major? Yeah.nz or email info at aucklandguitarlessons.co dot nz to find out more.