A Banjo Pickup Alternative AND Trying to Understand Pickup Feedback and Tone — a fool’s errand

Abstract

(If I were a Lab with a Research Group, this would be an Internal Report, just to remind me what I did and learned — perhaps someday to return and do better — or maybe someone else will. Most people who have to deal with this stuff already know a lot more. So it will be more offensive than usual to some but more useful to others.) Armed with the rudimentary physics of pickups and feedback, I thought I could make some sense of people’s varied experiences and impressions. So I tried a variety of alternatives under controlled but necessarily artificial circumstances. It was frustrating, and the best I can conclude is, “...it depends...” On the other hand, I thought of a novel or at least not routinely mentioned alternative that is relatively inexpensive (i.e., $30 to $50 total), is not too feedback-prone, and delivers a vaguely banjo-like sound: a rare-earth guitar sound hole pickup mounted just by the rim used with a very light (e.g., 1.7 gm) bridge.