Quackology

Over a few months I've sampled a variety of guitar pickups

It began when I sensed a relationship between the bar magnet on the underside of a pickup and a strong attack in the sound it gave to an amplified guitar.

Last year I went overboard buying different types of guitar pickups and then trialling different wiring options.

Different pickups are often distinguished by their resistance, which accentuates the placement along the strings from the neck as higher amounts are favoured closer to the bridge.

While there are many aspects one would expect, such as dynamics and presence, I found the presentation of characteristics lack a specific quality.

There are charts showing brightness and darkness, treble and bass, harsh and muddy -- okay, I made up the last one -- but I can't think of any mentioning quack.

The quack of a pickup is a characteristic that exists on a similar spectrum and becomes more pronounced as one progresses from neck to bridge.

A quack is one expression of this sound, which begins more like a burr that becomes more throaty and pronounced as distortion adds harmonics.

I think telecasters are renowned for this honky character and I suspect the harmonics with placement of the bridge pickup are central to it.

However, many highly-wound and higher-output pickups seem to also accentuate this sound.

In my explorations I feel as though there's a scale of quack that begins with the Texas variety of pickup, then extends into bluesier and rockier characters as much as country.

As satisfying as the character sounds with a Tweed style distortion or a Marshall grunt, it's not always ideal.

For example, a serve of twang wouldn't sit with that classic stratocaster sound in the soaring leads of Clapton or Gilmour.

It's just a different flavour, yet the quack isn't as easy to pick as guitar builds.

I've figured out that I like single coils more than ceramic pickups, which use the bar magnet, and am now trialling double coils.

When I began installing different humbuckers I found that some had a twang, while others gave a harsh blast or a deep and thick sustain.

This is why I feel like a quack rating system is needed, and it could be represented with ducks.

I haven't paddled very deeply into the waters of humbucking, but I expect the pond is full of many styles of quack.

Potato Cake

Bought a guitar to try scalloped frets and am enjoying the expressive playing. 

Also amused by the "fig leaf" sticker placed over the counterfeit branding of this purchase from China. 

You can feel the cheaper materials in the shiny neck and plastic tuning pegs, as well as hearing a hum from the bridge pickup; but we live in an age where cheap guitars are made by automated routing in countries that don't respect IP -- so the playability is basically comparable with another Chinese guitar aside from copying the famous Swede.  

I'm debating whether to install bright '60s-style pickups, or surfier '50s, or gnarly Texas ones.  

Or a combination?

The name "potato cake" comes to mind, because they're called scallops in some parts of Australia.

The Flying Patch Monster

 

Disquiet Junto 0738 Speak Not

The assignment this week is: Saying something without saying it. 

Somewhat appropriately the phrase ‘I think therefore I am’ came to mind.

I’d spent the morning helping my son with his composition assignment and he had a riff-driven song that was going to be a scaffold.

After lunch the phrase developed into a call-and-response riff, which suggests that my son’s scaffold also became my own.

The phrase was answered, "I am therefore I think."

As this bassline from my phrase took on soul with organ and horns, and the percussion was another cue from the source/riff track.

All parts were programmed in Ableton Live and the video is from NASA.

Les Telecaster

I'm still chiselling cheap teles and am currently enjoying these PAF-style humbuckers with black hardware.

Naviarhaiku632 – slowly gliding

 

The haiku shared by Naviar this week offered a snail's perspective and I sought to do it justice by singing about powerlessness and communicating within shells.

Further inspiraton was sought from Seamus Heaney's republic of conscience.

The nature of the problem

 

Disquiet Junto 0737 Opening Ceremony

My child has musical homework and we were discussing the option of using an existing track to scaffold a feel.

The track they chose seems unlikely to me, since it’s nearly 50 years old, but it’s been a week for revisiting old songs and I’ve been enjoying the swing in this one.

I’ve heard that James Brown thought every instrument should sound like a drum, so I’ve made as many into percussion as I could handle in this cover of a Dr John song.

It's 1999

 

Naviarhaiku631 – Spring day

 

A bit tangentially related the to haiku shared by Naviar this week, as I wrote a song inspired by this poem and added a video of my recent haiga exhibition.

There is a thin layer of a theme in the sense that dust plays a role. 

Catherine O’Hara on the importance of having a sense of humor

My parents were blessed – they laughed until the end. That’s the best way to live, because there’s so much sadness. You’re really lucky if your sense of humor is encouraged, because I think we’re all born with it, and if it’s encouraged in your life, that’s a gift.