A guitar system includes an acoustics system and an electronics system. The acoustics system includes the head, neck, bridge, and body of a guitar. Typically, guitar strings extend between the head and the bridge. The acoustics system includes a slot for receiving the electronics system. The electronics system includes a base shaped to slideably engage the slot in the acoustics system. The module may be inserted via the (normally floor facing) bottom of the acoustics system. Mounted on the base are electronics include, depending on the module, pickups, a switch for selecting which pickups are active, tone and volume controls, and a jack for receiving a jack for a phone plug of a cable connecting the guitar to a guitar amplifier or the like to provide power to the guitar and return a signal from one or more pickups to the amplifier.

A sustaining device is described for prolonging the vibration of the strings of a stringed musical instrument, such as an electric guitar having two or three electromagnetic pickups. The pickups are all low impedance transducers that can function either as pickups or driver transducers, depending on whether they are connected to the input of the instrument pickup amplifier or to the output of the sustainer amplifier, respectively. When a transducer is being used as a sustainer driver, it cannot be simultaneously used as a pickup. Different methods of selecting transducers to function as pickups or drivers are described. The transducers, having only hundreds of wire turns instead of the usual thousands of turns for common pickups, have a flat audio frequency response that can be modified to produce a multitude of common pickup sounds by manipulating the transducer resonance frequency, bandwidth, and amplifier gain.

A hum-cancelling system includes two or more hum-cancelling coils configured in a distributed manner, connected in series with each other. The hum-cancelling coils form a series circuit that is electrically connected to at least one pickup. Each hum-cancelling coil includes a top plate, a bottom plate, and a coil of wire wrapped between the top plate and the bottom plate.

A pickup for stringed instruments with an interposed tone-altering signals process is described herein. In one aspect, the pickup can include a first coil wound around a first plurality of pole pieces, where a first end of the first coil is coupled directly to an amplifier output; a second coil wound around a second plurality of pole pieces; and a tone-altering signal processor coupled to an end of the second coil and the amplifier output.

This invention continues and adds to the embodiments under Non-provisional patent application Ser. No. 16/840,644, adding circuits using small dual-coil humbucking pickups made to mount in the same holes as and replace single-coil pickups. It also develops circuits to match the value of tone capacitors to the lumped inductances of pickup circuits. A mechanical switching system for 3 single-sized humbuckers can produce 21 distinct tonal circuits from 48 different switch combinations, using a 6-way circuit switch and three 2-way mode switches. A digitally-controlled solid-state switching system can avoid the duplicate circuits, and control even more pickups for more tones. With such a switching system, the user can set the order of 2, 21, 120 and 705 distinct tonal circuits for 2, 3, 4 and 5 single-sized humbucking pickups, with expected extensions to larger numbers of pickups, and the caveat from previous work by this inventor that tones tend to bunch together at the warm end, decreasing the number of audibly distinct tones.

The present invention relates to a mixer apparatus (30) for mixing audio signals from a musical instrument (10). The mixer apparatus (30) comprises plural input circuits (34) and an audio signal mixer (36). Each of the plural input circuits (34) has an audio signal input which, in use, is coupled electrically with and thereby receives an audio signal from a different one of plural musical instrument pickups (32) comprised in the musical instrument. The audio signal mixer (36) receives audio signals from the plural input circuits (34) and mixes the received audio signals with one another. Each of the plural input circuits (34) comprises a linear active circuit in an audio signal path between the audio signal input and the audio signal mixer (36).

A guitar pickup is provided that is divided into a plurality of segments that can be selectively activated by switching to produce tonal variations.

A universal pickup transducer mounting system for a string instrument having a neck and bridge between which a plurality of strings extend includes a receiving cavity formed in the string instrument's body and a multiplicity of exchangeable body blocks disposed in the receiving cavity and configured for releasable mounting therein. The multiplicity of exchangeable body blocks includes at least one transducer receiving block that has an opening formed therein configured for receiving at least one pickup transducer therein. The at least one transducer receiving block is mountable within the receiving cavity to locate the at least one pickup transducer at a user selected longitudinal position relative to the neck and the bridge.

A docking system for an electromagnetic pickup of a musical instrument comprises an electromagnetic pickup mounting plate upon which the electromagnetic pickup is mounted and a body mounting plate. The electromagnetic pickup mounting plate includes a first electrical contact configured to be electrically connected to the electromagnetic pickup. The body mounting plate includes a second electrical contact configured to electrically connect to the first electrical contact of the electromagnetic pickup mounting plate and configured to be electrically coupled to external electronics for receiving electrical signals from the electromagnetic pickup and a mechanical detent configured to mechanically interface with the electromagnetic pickup mounting plate to detachably secure the electromagnetic pickup mounting plate to the body mounting plate.

This invention continues and adds to the embodiments under NPPA Ser. No. 16/840,644, adding circuits using small dual-coil humbucking pickups made to mount in the same holes as and replace single-coil pickups. It also develops circuits to match the value of tone capacitors to the lumped inductances of pickup circuits. A mechanical switching system for 3 single-sized humbuckers can produce 21 distinct tonal circuits from 48 different switch combinations, using a 6-way circuit switch and three 2-way mode switches. A digitally-controlled solid-state switching system can avoid the duplicate circuits, and control even more pickups for more tones. With such a switching system, the user can set the order of 2, 21, 120 and 705 distinct tonal circuits for 2, 3, 4 and 5 single-sized humbucking pickups, with expected extensions to larger numbers of pickups, and the caveat from previous work by this inventor that tones tend to bunch together at the warm end, decreasing the number of audibly distinct tones.