Basic Resonant Peak and Q Factor Manipulation - GuitarNutz 2

Basic resonant peak and Q factor manipulation |
GuitarNutz 2
Post by antigua on Oct 21, 2016 at 6:01am
I typed this up in a reply on another forum, and so I'm just reposting here since it might come in
useful later, and some effort went into it. It's still rather quick and dirty, by no means comprehensive.
-----
Before resorting to spending $100+ dollars on new pickups, you'll save a lot of money to realize that
there is a good chance that you can get that 'new pickup' with a few cents worth of capacitors and
resistors.
The key ingredients are a resistor and a capacitor. The capacitor will move the resonant frequency,
upwards if it's in series with the pickup(s), downward if it's parallel with the pickup. The resistor
controls the Q factor, so that it doesn't get too out of hand.
So if you want more treble, you have the cap and resistor in parallel with each other, but in series with
the pickup:
The exact values vary depending on the pickup, but since you'd choose the values by ear, it doesn't
really matter. Realistic values are 47pF for the cap, and then the resistance will determine the degree
of effect, so it can be anything from 1k to 100k ohms. The higher the value of the resistor, the brighter
it will be. If you buy a box of assorted caps and resistors, you can just try values out until you find ones
you like, then solder it in, or even hook it up to a push pull pot so that you can switch the mod on or
off.
If you want more bass emphasis, you put the resistor and cap parallel to the pickup(s). For either of
these mods, if you want the effect to only apply to one pickup, you do this between the pickup and the
selector switch. If you want it to apply t the whole guitar, you just do it between the selector switch
and the output jack.
With this mod, you'd use caps with values between 100 and 1,000pF, and resistors with values
between 100k and 1 meg. The higher value the cap, the darker the pickup becomes. In general, as the
cap value gets bigger, the resistor would need to be smaller to flatted the Q out. The screen shot above
shows the balancing act, 500k ohms and 110pF capacitance, 400k ohms and 330pF capacitance, etc.
Since you would choose the values by ear, you can just feel it out. These LTSpice models are nice
because you can select values that are in the right ballpark, as I did above.
You can also see that the pickup much more readily becomes darker than brighter, so a bright, low
wind pickup serves as a better platform for curve shaping.
Last Edit: Oct 23, 2016 at 3:52am by antigua
Post by newey on Oct 21, 2016 at 12:55pm
As a follow up, if you are applying a cap and resistor scheme to the entire guitar, you can do your
testing external to the guitar, by sacrificing a piece of guitar cable. One can also build a "substitution
box" with a variety of values to test, so that quick A-B comparisons can be made.
A potentiometer can also be used to "dial in" the resistor value, for testing purposes. Wire the pot in
place of the resistor, turn it to suit your ears, then measure the resistance at that point on the rotation
with your multimeter, thus giving you the resistance value you seek.
Somewhere deep in our archives here is further discussion of using a cap substitution box. I'll have to
see if I can dig out that discussion.
Caps and resistors are cheap, so this sort of experimentation isn't going to break anyone's bank.
I go to 11 . . .Well, 10:30 anyway . . .

Post by antigua on Oct 21, 2016 at 7:04pm
I'll usually expose the end of the guitar cable and hook up alligator clips to it. I use trim pots for
variable resistance, or a full sized linear pot. Once I find values that are complimentary of the pickups,
I solder them in.
The parallel bass mod is not much different than how a tone pot works, except that's series RC and
this is parallel, and the treble mod can be done with a pot to function as a treble tone knob, so the
concepts apply to either a usable control, or a hard wire permanent tone mod.
Last Edit: Oct 21, 2016 at 7:04pm by antigua
I'm not saying you can't do series. In fact, for certain outcomes, it's necessary to do both.
Like I said, quick and dirty to get people started with experimenting. I also find that shorter narratives
are more accessible, so it's a win win for someone with a sizable agenda.
There's almost no limit to what can be done, the spice modelling makes it easy to try out concepts very
rapidly. I tried modeling series RC, but it didn't have as dramatic of an effect as parallel, so I just went
with parallel for the sake of demonstration. You see the same thing with RC treble bleeds; sometimes
they're series, sometimes they're parallel, sometimes both.
stratotarts
Wiring Expert Post by stratotarts on Oct 22, 2016 at 6:53pm
I found a great formula for loaded Q that takes both coil and load resistance into
account. Credit to Manfred Zollner:
link
L = coil inductance
C = combined internal and external parallel capacitance
R1 = coil resistance
R2 = load resistance
Guacamole in my
Q = sqrt(L*C*(1+R1/R2)) / (R1*C + L/R2)
shoes.
It can be useful in estimating physical losses, by subtracting the calculated peak
Posts: 293
that this Q produces from the actual measured peak.
Likes: 25
Post by antigua on Oct 22, 2016 at 6:59pm
Lately I've just been looking at the change in dB between the flat frequency response and the height of
the peak, because it's just very easy to do and it has some correlation to what you'd actually hear. All it
sacrifices is the band width, which tend to all be alike for, say a Strat pickup, then in the case of
humbuckers and Filter'trons the eddy losses are so aggressive that Q factor seems to lose all meaning.
stratotarts
Wiring Post by stratotarts on Oct 22, 2016 at 7:13pm
Expert
Guacamole
in my shoes.
Posts: 293
Likes: 25
Lately I've just been looking at the change in dB between the flat frequency response and
the height of the peak, because it's just very easy to do and it has some correlation to
what you'd actually hear. All it sacrifices is the band width, which tend to all be alike for,
say a Strat pickup, then in the case of humbuckers and Filter'trons the eddy losses are so
aggressive that Q factor seems to lose all meaning.
Yes, I always record that in a column of my spreadsheet. The idea of my "Loaded Peak
Loss" calculation is to obtain a rough figure-of-merit for losses that is more independent
of pickup and load parameters. I keep such analytical figures in the right hand columns,
as they are not as fundamental measurements. I also hide many columns because they
are seldom directly relevant for an evaluation or comparison.
I use:
Loaded Peak Loss = 20*log(Q) - measured peak
Last Edit: Oct 22, 2016 at 7:16pm by stratotarts
Post by JohnH on Oct 22, 2016 at 10:11pm
A couple of comments:
A guitar tone control is the easiest way we all have of adjusting Q. The upper half of the pot turn from
10 down to about 5 or 6 is all about the resistance and the tone cap value plays almost no part. It's
main effect in this range is to flatten the Q peak. If we add the ability to put small parallel capacitances
in addition, we can then tune the tones downward quite effectively. For example, taking a basic lively
alnico single with minimal damping, I reckon you can bend its response to be within +/-1 db of a
typical PAF, albeit at a lower output level, and without hum-cancelling (ie the original purpose of a
humbucker)
But when we get more into detail though and look at the tests, we are seeing peaks that vary in height
and in width, and these two parameters can vary more independently than is convenient. We can see a
small but sharp peak, or a small but wide peak, and that is probably related to the extra reactive (ie
not just restive) effects of the various damping mechanisms that are at play.

I should have prefaced this better, this was from a thread about buying new pickups, and this was
presented as an alternative to wasting money on expensive pickups, so the idea is that you'd set the
mod and forget it, like you might with a new set of pickups. I've added a line at the top.
Post by guitarnerdswe on Dec 20, 2020 at 8:31pm
I typed this up in a reply on another forum, and so I'm just reposting here since it might come in
useful later, and some effort went into it. It's still rather quick and dirty, by no means comprehensive.
-----
Before resorting to spending $100+ dollars on new pickups, you'll save a lot of money to realize that
there is a good chance that you can get that 'new pickup' with a few cents worth of capacitors and
resistors.
The key ingredients are a resistor and a capacitor. The capacitor will move the resonant frequency,
upwards if it's in series with the pickup(s), downward if it's parallel with the pickup. The resistor
controls the Q factor, so that it doesn't get too out of hand.
So if you want more treble, you have the cap and resistor in parallel with each other, but in series with
the pickup:
The exact values vary depending on the pickup, but since you'd choose the values by ear, it doesn't
really matter. Realistic values are 47pF for the cap, and then the resistance will determine the degree
of effect, so it can be anything from 1k to 100k ohms. The higher the value of the resistor, the brighter
it will be. If you buy a box of assorted caps and resistors, you can just try values out until you find ones
you like, then solder it in, or even hook it up to a push pull pot so that you can switch the mod on or
off.
If you want more bass emphasis, you put the resistor and cap parallel to the pickup(s).
For either of these mods, if you want the effect to only apply to one pickup, you do this between the
pickup and the selector switch. If you want it to apply t the whole guitar, you just do it between the
selector switch and the output jack.
With this mod, you'd use caps with values between 100 and 1,000pF, and resistors with values
between 100k and 1 meg. The higher value the cap, the darker the pickup becomes. In general, as the
cap value gets bigger, the resistor would need to be smaller to flatted the Q out. The screen shot above
shows the balancing act, 500k ohms and 110pF capacitance, 400k ohms and 330pF capacitance, etc.
Since you would choose the values by ear, you can just feel it out. These LTSpice models are nice
because you can select values that are in the right ballpark, as I did above.
You can also see that the pickup much more readily becomes darker than brighter, so a bright, low
wind pickup serves as a better platform for curve shaping.
Necrobump!
Ok, I was thinking of trying the cap (or cap/resistor) to ground to shift the resonant peak of a bright
pickup down a bit. The little red bit has my wondering though. If I put one end of the RC-network on
the lug of a 5-way where the hot of pickup is connected, will it ONLY affect that pickup, even if that
position on the 5-way has another pickup activated?
Like, if I put it on the bridge pickup of a strat, will the middle pickup be unaffected in the
bridge/middle combo position? Or will the middle pickup also bleed through the RC-network to
ground?
Post by antigua on Dec 20, 2020 at 9:22pm
Necrobump!
ground?
The middle pickup would be affected also, since the RC is parallel to the bridge pickup. You'd have to
use a "super switch" to make it such that the RC was only active with the first position.
Solutions that are in series with the bridge pickup would only affect the bridge pickup regardless, so in
that case, you would run an inductor in series with the bridge pickup, so, let's say you have a 2.5 henry
bridge and a 1 henry inductor, that would result in 3.5 henries total, which would lower the resonant
peak by something like 700Hz. The Bill Lawrence Q filter, or any other pot core inductor can achieve
inductances over 1 henry without adding very much series resistance. The drawback is that you might
have to wind an inductor yourself, it costs more than a cap, takes up more space and it's harder to
conduct trial and error.
If you want to retain a good "quack" in the bridge+middle position, a super switch is the way to go,
and that's what people do with humbucker bridge pickups, they use the super switch to split the
bridge pickup in the notch position, but get full humbucking in the first position.

Necrobump!
ground?
The middle pickup would be affected also, since the RC is parallel to the bridge pickup. You'd have to
use a "super switch" to make it such that the RC was only active with the first position.
Solutions that are in series with the bridge pickup would only affect the bridge pickup regardless, so in
that case, you would run an inductor in series with the bridge pickup, so, let's say you have a 2.5 henry
bridge and a 1 henry inductor, that would result in 3.5 henries total, which would lower the resonant
peak by something like 700Hz. The Bill Lawrence Q filter, or any other pot core inductor can achieve
inductances over 1 henry without adding very much series resistance. The drawback is that you might
have to wind an inductor yourself, it costs more than a cap, takes up more space and it's harder to
conduct trial and error.
If you want to retain a good "quack" in the bridge+middle position, a super switch is the way to go,
and that's what people do with humbucker bridge pickups, they use the super switch to split the
bridge pickup in the notch position, but get full humbucking in the first position.
For my particular situation, I was think of doing a bridge humbucker in parallel, that's in parallel with
the middle single coil. And, a bridge humbucker in parallel, that's in parallel with a neck humbucker
in series.
In both cases, I'd like to lower the resonance peak of the bridge humbucker into more typical single
coil territory. Does a RC network have to be between the pickup and hot, or can it be placed between
the pickup and ground?
Post by antigua on Dec 21, 2020 at 7:50am

in series.
I'm not sure what you're doing exactly, it would help if I saw a summary of what the control layout
would be all said and done, but the key thing is that to lower the resonant peak, either a capacitor has
to be parallel with the pickup (hot to ground, the same as how a tone control works) or an inductor in
series with the pickup (between pickup and hot, which is electrically the same as adding more turns of
wire onto a pickup). I think whatever the case may be, you'd need a super switch, and then it's just a
matter of figuring out the wiring for the super switch.
in series.
Let's take the HH superstrat as an example. In the middle position, I want the neck in series, the
bridge in parallel. Kinda going for a Keith Richards telecaster tone.
The problem is, the bridge pickup in this scenario kinda dominates the neck pickup, making it
disappear. The parallel bridge is almost hifi-like in its tone, and doesn't blend well with the neck. I
think this is because parallel mode yields a tone that's way too bright, with its resonance peak at a
higher frequency than a telecaster, or even when compared to a stratocaster bridge single coil.
Moving the peak a bit lower might give more pleasing results when combined with the series neck
humbucker. Or simply when used by itself.
I think the reason for the problem is the fact of having the bridge in parallel. When two pickups are in
parallel, each is a mutual load upon the other. The higher the load, the quieter the pickup. The series
neck pickup has an impedance of, let's say 8k ohms (and beyond as the frequency rises) while the
parallel bridge has an impedance of only 2k, so what happens is the voltage output of a bridge pickup
is relatively unaffected, but the voltage of the neck pickup is severely reduced as a fact of it's being in
parallel with a pickup that only has an impedance of 2k (again, that figure rises with the frequency).
Does that make sense?
The think about Keith Richard's Tele is that the bridge pickup is perhaps 7k ohms and the neck is
maybe 8k, hard to say because it's authentic vintage hardware and not idealized modern recreations.
The relative matching of the impedance means that the pickups will be relatively balanced, so the
bridge + neck bell tone will become especially rich. If you split the bridge instead of running it in
parallel, it would sound better, especially if you have a hot bridge, such as a JB or Super Distortion,
since they have higher impedances for each coil.
Thanks for your detailed response! Now it becomes clearer to me why the pickup in parallel tends to
overpower the one in series in a dual humbucker guitar. The solution could be to run both in parallel
and then filter out some of the highs (for me at least).
A question though: Is the impedance of a pickup directly tied to the resistance, or are they completely
independent? I noticed your estimated impedance values also match the expected resistance from a
vintage tele or a dual PAF guitar.
I do find it fascinating that a humbucker by itself loses output when wired in parallel, but gains
perceived relative output when combined in parallel with a series humbucker.
Post by antigua on Dec 23, 2020 at 9:59am

Thanks for your detailed response! Now it becomes clearer to me why the pickup in parallel tends to
overpower the one in series in a dual humbucker guitar. The solution could be to run both in parallel
and then filter out some of the highs (for me at least).
A question though: Is the impedance of a pickup directly tied to the resistance, or are they completely
independent? I noticed your estimated impedance values also match the expected resistance from a
vintage tele or a dual PAF guitar.
I do find it fascinating that a humbucker by itself loses output when wired in parallel, but gains
perceived relative output when combined in parallel with a series humbucker.
Impedance is the combination of DC and AC resistance, also stated as "resistance" and "reactance",
also stated as "real" and "imaginary" resistance. DC resistance is what is obvious, the spec listed for
every pickup, and then you add to that the "resistance" that comes from the inductance of the coil
when the electrical signal is alternating, which can be as high as 50k ohms at the resonant peak.
Last Edit: Dec 23, 2020 at 10:00am by antigua
ms
Master Post by ms on Dec 23, 2020 at 3:52pm
Diagnostician
Posts: 716
Likes: 48
Thanks for your detailed response! Now it becomes clearer to me why the pickup in
parallel tends to overpower the one in series in a dual humbucker guitar. The solution
could be to run both in parallel and then filter out some of the highs (for me at least).
A question though: Is the impedance of a pickup directly tied to the resistance, or are
they completely independent? I noticed your estimated impedance values also match
the expected resistance from a vintage tele or a dual PAF guitar.
I do find it fascinating that a humbucker by itself loses output when wired in parallel,
but gains perceived relative output when combined in parallel with a series humbucker.
Impedance is the combination of DC and AC resistance, also stated as "resistance" and
"reactance", also stated as "real" and "imaginary" resistance. DC resistance is what is
obvious, the spec listed for every pickup, and then you add to that the "resistance" that
comes from the inductance of the coil when the electrical signal is alternating, which
can be as high as 50k ohms at the resonant peak.
Let's look at this from the point of view of a meter, Extech or other. If you set it up to
measure inductance, you get two numbers. One of them can be expressed as Q, D
(dissipation) or R. The last is what some people mean by "ac resistance": it is related to
power dissipation, but at the frequency of measurement, rather than at dc. The other
number is the inductance, which is an impedance at the measurement frequency, but
since the current is 90 degrees out of phase with the voltage, there is no dissipation of
power, and it is better not to refer to it as a resistance, but as a reactance.
For a pickup at resonance, the effect of the inductance and capacitance cancel, and the
resulting high value of ac resistance can be as much as several hundred thousand ohms.
But you might not measure such a high number unless you use a technique that
removes (nearly) all the loading effect of the measuring instrument.
So basically, for a noob like me: Impedance is somewhat equal to the resistance at low frequencies
(from what I could gather by reading up a bit). But, then the impedance increases at higher
frequencies.
Is there any rule of thumb on how much it increases? Does the impedance of a series humbucker
increase more or less compared to the same pickup wired in parallel?
ms
Master Post by ms on Dec 24, 2020 at 1:15am
Diagnostician
Posts: 716
Likes: 48 So basically, for a noob like me: Impedance is somewhat equal to the resistance at low
frequencies (from what I could gather by reading up a bit). But, then the impedance
increases at higher frequencies.
Is there any rule of thumb on how much it increases? Does the impedance of a series
humbucker increase more or less compared to the same pickup wired in parallel?
Yes, the impedance of a pickup is just the winding resistance at very low frequencies. It
is a resistor in series with an inductance, and the impedance of the inductor starts to
matter as you go higher than the lowest guitar frequencies. The impedance of the
inductor is the inductance value times the frequency times two times pi (3.14...). But
the impedance of the resistor and the inductor are different kinds of quantities, and so
you cannot just add them to get the total magnitude of the impedance. You have to
square them, add these squares, and then take the square root. (Yes it is more
complicated than we would like.) At higher frequencies, the capacitance matters, too.
Antigua has a lot of plots of the frequency responses of various pickups on this site.
This is controlled by these impedances.
I have to admit, things got complicated fast there. But looking at frequency plots, it appears that a
series humbucker gets its resonance peak dampened a lot more than a parallel one, when measured
with a load applied. Can one therefore assume that the impedance of a series humbucker rises more
with frequency than a parallel one?
I have to admit, things got complicated fast there. But looking at frequency plots, it appears that a
series humbucker gets its resonance peak dampened a lot more than a parallel one, when measured
with a load applied. Can one therefore assume that the impedance of a series humbucker rises more
with frequency than a parallel one?
Series wiring results in both higher real resistance and higher inductance, so, yes, both the q factor
and resonant frequency will both be lower, but its the latter difference that is mostly audible.
Post by roadtonever on Apr 15, 2021 at 3:36pm
Related, but there's some overlap here, the parallel cap can be used to expand the tonal palette on a
pickup that's already well tuned. Here's a demo by Lindy Fralin where he talks in the context of non-
standard tone cap values:

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Post by antigua on Oct 21, 2016 at 6:01am

Last Edit: Oct 23, 2016 at 3:52am by antigua

Post by newey on Oct 21, 2016 at 12:55pm

I go to 11 . . .Well, 10:30 anyway . . .

Last Edit: Oct 21, 2016 at 7:04pm by antigua

Post by antigua on Oct 22, 2016 at 7:26am

Last Edit: Oct 22, 2016 at 7:35am by antigua

Post by antigua on Oct 22, 2016 at 6:59pm

Last Edit: Oct 22, 2016 at 7:16pm by stratotarts

Post by JohnH on Oct 22, 2016 at 10:11pm

Post by antigua on Oct 23, 2016 at 3:54am

Last Edit: Oct 23, 2016 at 3:54am by antigua

Post by guitarnerdswe on Dec 20, 2020 at 8:31pm

Post by antigua on Dec 20, 2020 at 9:22pm

Post by guitarnerdswe on Dec 20, 2020 at 11:02pm

Post by antigua on Dec 21, 2020 at 7:50am

Post by guitarnerdswe on Dec 21, 2020 at 7:38pm

Post by antigua on Dec 22, 2020 at 9:52pm

Post by guitarnerdswe on Dec 22, 2020 at 10:24pm

Post by antigua on Dec 23, 2020 at 9:59am

Last Edit: Dec 23, 2020 at 10:00am by antigua

Post by guitarnerdswe on Dec 23, 2020 at 8:16pm

Post by guitarnerdswe on Dec 25, 2020 at 11:00pm

Post by antigua on Dec 26, 2020 at 1:41pm

Post by roadtonever on Apr 15, 2021 at 3:36pm

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