MOTM

This is one of the most thought provoking questions I have heard in quite
sometime.  Since Eric has pointed out some of the facts and how the guitar
pick up is already your pick up transducer, maybe we should focus on how to
induce a signal into the guitar string, and if doing so would even be
useful.  Certainly, magnetic AC fields could cause the guitar string to
vibrate.   Some type of coil could be constructed to cause that to happen I
suppose.  However, I wonder if it would do anything interesting.  Once the
guitar string starts to vibrate, it would seem to me that the guitar pick up
will still just pick up the sound of the string vibrating at the frequency
determined by its length, tension, and finger placement on the fretboard.  I
cannot imagine that the inducing signal characteristics would have much
effect on the sound.  Still, this is an interesting idea for discussion.  I
would love to hear what some of you more guitar oriented people have to say
on the subject.  I am pretty guitar stupid.
Larry H


----- Original Message -----
From: alt-mode <alt_mode@...>
To: <motm@egroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2000 6:43 PM
Subject: Re: [motm] stupid electronics tricks


Celeste,

The output of the MOTM is an electrical signal, not a mechanical signal.
So, it
won't vibrate the string (well, not at the voltages from the MOTM; I'm sure
Stooge
Larry has some amazing high voltage wire bending stories ;).  What you would
want is
the output of a transducer that changes the electrical energy to mechanical
energy.
This would cause the wire to vibrate and yes, it is the basic principle of a
spring
reverb.  A guitar pickup translates mechanical energy (a vibrating string)
to
electrical energy.

Eric

--- Celeste H <celesteh@...> wrote:
>
> i was listening to Alvin Lucier's _Music on a Long Thin Wire_ and i got
> the idea that it might be possible to run the output from MOTM modules
> down guitar strings (Solder the tip of a plug to an aligator clip attached
> to the string by the guitar head, solder ground to a aligator clip
> attached to the bridge) and that perharps the fluctuating signal along
> the wire would cause the magnets in the pickups to bounce around and thus
> generate a signal out through the guitar's jack.
>
> Questions:
>
> Will this hurt the MOTM?
> Will this hurt the guitar?
> Could this harm somebody holding the guitar?  (i was going to play some
> led zepplin but i got a huge shock when i touched the strings!)
>
> Should I put a resistor in here someplace?
>
> Is there a way to electrically seperate the current running down the
> guitar string from the MOTM so that doing something weird like dropping
> the guitar in a bathtub full of saltwater would not hurt the MOTM?  Or
> would it not get hurt anyway?
>
> Is this how spring reverb works?  (now with string reverb!)
>
> thanks,
> Celeste
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> celesteh@...   http://www.casaninja.com/celesteh
>                                http://www.mp3.com/celesteh
>
>
>
>
>


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