what the hell is so stereo about a guitar?!

[electro samurai]

ive heard of a stereo guitar.
and then got confused, how does that work?
1 pickup for left, 1 for right?
3 strings left, 3 right?
1 string left, 1 string right, 1 string left..................?
i just dont get it.
plz, if anyone here has any idea were i can learn, i would be glad.

thanks in advance...

 

[leadbelly]

I had a look at a few schematics. This looks like the most versatile way to do it, by Rickenbacker. Of course, to avoid having this many knobs, switches, connectors, I would leave some out:

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

 

[phase_accurate]

The correct answer is: It depends

I can only talk for some bass guitars.

First there were the old stereo Rickenbakers. One pickup could be sent to the left channel and the other one to the right. The whole thing is just some effect that you may like or not.

But there was once an expensive stereo bass rig manufactured by "Glockenklang", named Bugatti. It used two three-way (!) speakers.

I have a CD by Victor Wooten where he plays a bass that is equipped with piezo pickups. One pickup per string. The strings are panned to either one of both channels and the effect is quite astonishing.

Regards

Charles

 

[sreten]

The best way of looking at is two seperate outputs usually
from different pickups. This can be very useful.

E.g. on a "stereo" bass you can apply chorus to the treble
output and then mix it back with the bass pickup signal.

sreten.

 

[phase_accurate]

E.g. on a "stereo" bass you can apply chorus to the treble

Some bass amps have a crossover in the effects loop for that purpose.

Regards

Charles

 

[muskgrave]

i always kinda had a feeling that the guitar in "sunshower" by chris cornell was stereo..is seems when he strums it that it just kinda flows from one side of the stereo spectrum to the other (as if each string is panned equally throughout the stereo field)..it makes a very close enveloping guitar sound...

 

[bill mcdonald]

I built a bridge for an electric guitar, i had 6 seperate piezos in it. one for each string (this made it sound acoustic). with this I was able to put 2 leads on each piezo, and run each of those 2 leads to an on off switch, then to a left or right output jack.

this is the switch I used.

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

this allowed me to actually put each string on the left or right chanel.
so I could play string 1, 3 and 5 on only the right channel
and strings 2 4 and 6 on the left channel.
With an on off switch on each string, per channel I could put any string I wanted, on either channel, or both channels.

and there you have stereo

If you want more info on how I built it, I posted in the "piezo transducers as contact microphones" thread in little more detail.

 

[Sangram]

Guitars are very difficult to do in stereo due to phasing issues, where you get a massive hole in frequency response when you pan opposite parts of the sound. Not a big problem except it won't playback well in mono (such as AM, or when the FM subcarriers drop). So commercially, there are ways to get the 'Stereo' guitar sounds, such as phasing a mono signal across the stage width, etc. Stereo pickups are not succesful. But a guitar sounds big when certain tricks are employed, but tracked/recorded best in mono...