Pickup unit for electric string instrument
AssigneeYamaha Corporation
InventorHiroshi Sakurai
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In construction of a pickup unit used for electroacoustic conversion of various vibrations produced on a string instrument, a piezoelectric assembly clamped between a string holder and a bridge is provided with a dual layer arrangement of piezoelectric elements kept in contact with corresponding positive electrodes. The piezoelectric elements closer to the string holder detect string vibrations and the piezoelectric elements closer to the bridge detects body vibrations of the string instrument so that electric signals from piezoelectric elements of different groups can be tactfully blended together for rich and voluminous generation of musical tones over a wide tone range.
Claims7
A pickup unit for a stringed instrument having a body and a plurality of strings, said pickup unit comprising:
- a bridge having a length and mounted atop said body of said instrument to which said pickup unit is to be attached;
- a string holder having a length and mounted atop said bridge and extending in a direction parallel to the length of said bridge for supporting each of the plurality of strings;
- and
- a piezoelectric assembly located between said string holder and said bridge, said piezoelectric assembly including first and second groups of piezoelectric elements, said first and second groups of piezoelectric elements being spacedly aligned in a direction parallel to the length of said string holder, each of the elements of the first group substantially overlying a corresponding element of the second group in substantial alignment with an associated string, the elements in said first group being responsive to vibrations of the string holder caused by vibrations of the associated string, and the elements in said second group being responsive to vibrations of the body caused by vibrations of the associated string, whereby in response to a vibration of a string, the piezoelectric assembly produces two electrical signals which differ from each other.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.