A humbucker pickup device for active and passive guitars including a matched pair of elongated coil assemblies with two sets of ferrous pole pieces also includes two elongated, transversely polarized permanent magnets positioned between and parallel to the coils. The magnets are beside each other with opposite poles facing each other. The magnets and said two sets of pole pieces create two narrow magnetic fields under each string to interact with it at two points. The humbucker device includes an improved differential amplifier built from two or three operational amplifiers. Alternatively, the device may include a steel plate positioned between the magnets and extending to the strings for weakening a wide magnetic field between pole pieces of the different sets. Both embodiments, with and without the plate, are described.

Coils for receiving or transmitting electromagnetic signals comprising a plurality of concurrently wound and fully or partially interpenetrating windings for which the resonance frequency can be varied over a broad range. The presently described embodiments provide for electromagnetic pickups for stringed musical instruments; however, it is appreciated that other embodiments providing for a wide variety of devices comprising pickup coil sensors are apparent. It is also apparent that a wide variety of devices are possible in which coils with concurrently wound and interpenetrating windings will serve as transmitting coils.

An electronic stringed instrument includes: at least one linear string member to be plucked by a user; a plurality of string support members each supporting the string member at different positions in a longitudinal direction of the string member, each of the string support members being individually deformable in accordance with a plucking of the string member by the user; a plurality of sensors that output signals indicating respective deformation states of the plurality of string support members, wherein the respective deformation states of the plurality of string support members may be different from each other depending on a way the string member is plucked; and at last one processor configured to generate a musical tone control signal based on the signals output from the plurality of sensors.

A novel mechanical mounting and electrical connection system for electric guitar pickups. The mechanical mounting component generally consists of one electric guitar pickup baseplate with one or more male elements and an electric guitar pickup module with one or more female elements configured to be press fitted into the male element of the baseplate for securing the position. The electrical connection component consists of one electric guitar pickup baseplate attached with a printed circuit board loaded with one or more spring-loaded contact connectors and one electric guitar pickup module attached with a printed circuit board with one or more connections slots for securing contact and connecting electronically each component.

An integrated transducer-processor unit for use with a stringed instrument having one or more strings. When the instrument is played, the unit produces electrical output signals for conversion into musical sounds. A transducer converts mechanical vibrations of each of the strings into corresponding electrical signals, and a processor processes the electrical signals to produce selected analog or digital output signals for conversion into musical sounds. The unit processor is integrated with the transducer into a pickup, for mounting on the instrument in proximity to the strings without modification of the instrument. In addition, a gesture pad-processor system provides an interface for a user to send control signals to a device to control at least one function of the device. A touch pad receives positional and pressure inputs entered by the user making a selected predefined manual gesture for conversion into a control signal by the system processor.

A optoelectronic pickup for a musical instrument includes at least one light source which directs light to impinge a string of the musical instrument in at least one photoreceiver located to detect the reflected light, so as to generate an electrical signal that is responsive to string vibrations. A number of dissimilar filter approaches are included to control undesired effects of spurious light, the filter approaches may be structure-based, signal processing-based, and/or optics-based.

Systems and methods for a digital instrument are described, for example to simulate or be used in conjunction with a stringed instrument. A sensor system detects the deflection of one or more strings of the digital instrument, produces a measurement of the detected deflection, correlates the measurement to a musical note, and produces at least a portion of digital output based upon the musical note.

A single axis position transducer uses an elongate permanent three pole magnet having a radial magnetic field at a spot along the magnet in which the magnetic field has radial field lines that decay as 1/R. R is the distance from the center of the magnet along a radial field line perpendicular to the axis of the magnet. The spot has a first pole of one polarity, and the magnet has poles of the opposite polarity spaced along the magnet on opposite sides of the first pole of the radial magnetic field located at the spot. At least one magnetic field sensor is positioned proximal to the spot along the elongate member that detects the motion of the spot and electrically amplifies the sensor output.

A pickup unit for an electrical stringed instrument, such as an electric guitar, includes a housing structured to be connected to the stringed instrument and a number of pickups provided within the housing, each pickup being structured to produce signals corresponding to vibration of one or more strings of the stringed instrument. The pickup unit also includes a number of capacitive touch electrodes provided on or within the housing, wherein the pickup unit is structured to generate control signals in response to a user of the pickup unit touching one or more of the number of capacitive touch electrodes, the control signal being configured to control processing of the signals produced by the number of pickups.

A pickup for a musical instrument includes a first assembly, a housing, and a magnet. The first assembly comprises a base plate, a pole that extends from the base plate, and a coil of wire wrapped around the pole. A first lead wire extends from a first coil end and a second lead wire extends from a second coil end. The housing is user attachable to, and detachable from, the top of the first assembly, independently of any electrical connections made to electronics of the musical instrument. Moreover, the housing attaches to and detaches from the first assembly such that when attached, the pole of the first assembly is in magnetic cooperation with the magnet. Also, the housing is removable, thus allowing the magnet to be changed out to another magnet without removing strings or other hardware of the musical instrument.