Notes_Norton Posted June 18, 2008 Share Posted June 18, 2008 I rented a DVD about the great Les Paul last night. One of the "Extras" on the DVD skimmed over the history of the electric guitar from the first guitar he made in the Epiphone factory to the present. At the end, he stated that his pickups are not like regular guitar pickups, but low impedance pickups. Does anybody know about low impedance pickups? Mostly what I found on google was advertisement and not information. I'm not planning to purchase these things, but I am very curious about how they are made and what their advantages and disadvantages are. Thanks Notes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RotcanX Posted June 18, 2008 Share Posted June 18, 2008 The main advantage to low-impedance pickups is that they are not affected by your cables as much... you can run through really long wires with no loss of your top end. They are also very clean... ultra-clean. You haven't heard clean until you've heard a Les Paul Recording. I figure this is not a bad thing as you can always add distortion... but you won't get any bite out of low-impedance pickups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carverman Posted June 18, 2008 Share Posted June 18, 2008 I rented a DVD about the great Les Paul last night. One of the "Extras" on the DVD skimmed over the history of the electric guitar from the first guitar he made in the Epiphone factory to the present. At the end' date=' he stated that his pickups are not like regular guitar pickups, but low impedance pickups. Does anybody know about low impedance pickups? I'm not planning to purchase these things, but I am very curious about how they are made and what their advantages and disadvantages are. Thanks Notes[/quote'] Depends on the construction. Some low impedance have active circuits requiring a battery. Low number of windings and low output impedance..typically 100 ohms to 300 ohms. You can also using matching transformers on standard 10k pickups to bring down the unbalanced guitar output to 200-600 ohms. This eliminates hum and you can run football field lengths (well almost) of shielded cable into your amplifier, which should have a balanced input (signal transformer or differential op amp) as well. Usually you just use XLR (3 pin connector) that has signal/signal and shield. The advantage in recording (studios) is that you can run the guitar right into a mixing board directly like a microphone. We used to do that. So unless your amp has an XLR balanced input connector, the lo impedance pickup isn't going to be that effective. There are external low impedanced to high impedance matching signal transformers, but these are very expensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Notes_Norton Posted June 19, 2008 Author Share Posted June 19, 2008 The main advantage to low-impedance pickups is that they are not affected by your cables as much... you can run through really long wires with no loss of your top end. Like a low-impedance microphone (that makes sense) They are also very clean... ultra-clean. You haven't heard clean until you've heard a Les Paul Recording. I'm very familiar with Les Paul's recordings. Seeing him on the DVD during the 50s and 60s was either inspiring or discouraging' date=' depending on how you look at it. Flying fingers, and even in a fast flurry of notes, he is bending strings intentionally. I figure this is not a bad thing as you can always add distortion... but you won't get any bite out of low-impedance pickups. The "no bite" would be the only thing that would concern me. <...>You can also using matching transformers on standard 10k pickups to bring down the unbalanced guitar output to 200-600 ohms. This eliminates hum and you can run football field lengths (well almost) of shielded cable into your amplifier' date=' which should have a balanced input (signal transformer or differential op amp) as well.[/quote'] I once saw a video of Buddy Guy playing a concert, and he walked all over the stage and had a person behind him paying out a very looooooooooong guitar cord. I suspect this might have been how he did that. <...>So unless your amp has an XLR balanced input connector' date=' the lo impedance pickup isn't going to be that effective. There are external low impedanced to high impedance matching signal transformers, but these are very expensive. [/quote'] Thanks. I'm not interest in replacing my P90s, as I love the sound but I was very curious about the lowZ pickups. Notes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carverman Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 I'm not interest in replacing my P90s' date=' as I love the sound but I was very curious about the lowZ pickups. Notes[/quote'] Some of the guitar players on stage nowadays, plug their guitar into a wireless FM mic box on a belt. Eliminates tripping on the long cords and they can walk around in the audience or jump/roll on stage. This way, you keep your favorite p_ups and the sound quality is 50-15,000Hz relatively flat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Notes_Norton Posted June 19, 2008 Author Share Posted June 19, 2008 Some of the guitar players on stage nowadays' date=' plug their guitar into a wireless FM mic box on a belt. Eliminates tripping on the long cords and they can walk around in the audience or jump/roll on stage. This way, you keep your favorite p_ups and the sound quality is 50-15,000Hz relatively flat. [/quote'] Saxophonists do this too. I saw a guitar playing friend of mine do this, and it was quite odd, since he was out in the audience making no sound at all, (it was all on stage). Even to this musician who knew what he was doing, it didn't seem like he was playing the guitar at all. On the other hand, the sax player who does this makes enough music out of the horn itself so the audience isn't disoriented. Notes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie brown Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Speaking of "Wireless"...which is a really good system, that doesn't cost a fortune....or is that "yet to come?" LOL! CB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carverman Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Speaking of "Wireless"...which is a really good system' date=' that doesn't cost a fortune....or is that "yet to come?" LOL! CB[/quote'] Wireless FM mics range in price from $300 to astronomical prices depending on the bells and whistles. Shure microphone make an economical system starting around $300 (and up)..Shure PG14, check it out on MF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Notes_Norton Posted June 21, 2008 Author Share Posted June 21, 2008 I guess I'm hijacking my own thread here but it came in the same DVD..... In the history section of Les inventing his solid body electric guitar, he talked about first using a railroad tie and then the densest wood he could find to increase the sustain of the guitar. So far so good. Then there were a lot of wonderful clips of Les playing, and he never seemed to sustain a note. His leads were clean, precise and fast and his rhythms were usually staccato chunk-a-chunks. Now I'm not dising his playing, it was both an inspiration and discouragement (I'll strive to but never play that well), I am just amused at the contrast between the statement and the playing. At 90 he lost a lot of his speed, but is still gigging once a week. Go Les!!! Notes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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