The Bizarre Physics of Electric Guitars

[@danieljensen2626]

Weird that they decided to lie when "can make weird/unique guitar sounds" is WAY more interesting than "you can pick while awkwardly holding your hand 4 inches from the strings".

[@richsackett3423]

The distance on the product video was crazy.

[@Scoaster86]

You're absolutely right, even though it would still be much cheaper, to just tape some magnets onto a regular guitar pick. But the effects he created in this video, are kinda sick tbh. It's like a very expressive version of a tremolo pedal. Might experiment a little bit with it in the future myself actually, it looks fun

[@TysonJensen]

Shows that their marketing department doesn't have actual musicians. Musicians spend plenty of money to get a new sound, and they WILL figure out and tell each other if something is a scam.

[@Nazuiko]

Im a non musician who thought the idea would help with the worry of tearing up fingers and just making playing it easier (I own an acoustic, but cant figure out how to play the damned thing), so the pitch (pun intended) suckered me into the idea but ... $40 for a pick is absurd. $40 for a magnet is absurd. However, if the idea is successful enough then other companies can join in on the concept and market competition/saturation drag it down to a more acceptable price tag eventually

[@qwertykeyboard5901]

​@@Scoaster86Yep, musicians are going to love this.

[@Yupppi]

This was a fun one. Also think about it: you're not gonna lose your picks anymore because you can just stick them to the guitar.

[@Fawstah]

before I watched the video, I thought that was the entire point haha

[@Chunibob]

Nah, I'm gonna lose that pick regardless.

[@NickRoman]

And that's why people jam it under the strings at the head, right?

[@JetBlackLi]

At 5:10 there's text that mentions putting magnets too close to the pickups can damage them! I don't know how strong of a magnet you'd need to do that, but I wouldn't risk it lol

[@mastod0n1]

Yeah picks are cheap. Pickups are not. I can buy about 300 picks for the price of one pickup for my bass guitar.

[@Nosgoroth]

"The physics is simple, the human relations are complicated" sounds like a CGP Grey line.

[@c.s.4273]

ChatGPT says the same...

[@micahphilson]

Sounds like any STEM person trying to relate to people!

[@davidkaiser7206]

I want it painted grey.

[@stilts121]

Yes, I know what you mean

[@jimbrookhyser]

I want a short KZbin explainer video about the human communication phenomenon.

[@davidg5506]

It's shiny. It's heavy. It's $50. Exactly what a non-musician would think is a perfect gift for the guitar player they know. I feel like there's an 86% chance I receive one of these before the year is over.

[@OhOkayThenLazySusan]

Lol 👍

[@unfa00]

Now I finally know who buys this stuff!

[@deleted-something]

Lol

[@Red_Star_robin]

@sabrinaaa22590could always drill a hole in it and make a key ring pick

[@Nazuiko]

Certified non-musician here. Aside from the exorbitant price, youre 100% correct. I would totally get this as a gift for a guitar playing friend/cousin/sibling xD

[@iout]

I'd argue that while it's not strictly a scam in that it does what it claims to, the advertising is still misleading in how it functions, which still makes it a scam. Like that Fushigi ball. It could technically do everything that was shown, but the advertising misled in how the trick was actually pulled off. It's just contact juggling.

[@mk_rexx]

There's also how the creators of the pick handle the criticism by trying to copystrike them so they really come off as scammy. They advertised it wrong, then responded even wronger.

[@Bootleg_Jones]

Yeah, even their demonstrations are unaltered footage of the pick being used in a way that works on a normal electric guitar, they still framed it in a very misleading way. MP's claim that they aren't actually a scam leans pretty heavily on legal semantics, and tbh I feel like he's either biased due to being sent the pick for free or he's trying to avoid a defamation lawsuit by framing his conclusion in a positive way.

[@Bootleg_Jones]

actually, it's unclear from his wording whether he was sent the pick by its creators or by a fan. If it was the former then he definitely needs to do a better job of making that clear, boyh for legal reasons as well as to make any potential bias clear to his viewers.

[@felixflatterer6646]

fushigi cures depression, magnet pic also. what are you talk about?

[@anuvette]

This is the scammiest scam if I've ever seen one

[@haqvor]

My first thought was that it becomes quite important to avoid hitting the strings when using this thin neodymium magnet as they are quite brittle and can easily break if mishandled. I think that just gluing a couple of magnets on a regular pick is a safer idea if you want this effect and want to avoid having a sharp piece of metal close to your fingers...

[@haqvor]

@@skyricq Absolutely, I would even go one step further. The harder and more aggressive you are the less control you have and sound quality will suffer. But given how brittle neodymium magnets are, it is really mostly the outer plating that holds them together, I would be very careful to stress them. If you use this "pick" as it seems to be intended, inducing a current by moving them in front of a pickup without touching anything, they will of course not break. Given how close you have to be for it to have an effect it seems very likely to hit something by accident and end up with something unsuspectingly sharp that is easy to cut yourself with. I think that this product is a rather uninteresting idea with poor execution, YMMV. If anyone like it and does something interesting with it, great, just be a bit careful and don't cut yourself.

[@forgettd]

I played my guitar with a steel pick for a while and didn't have any issues

[@jemmywuk]

@ForgettD the neodymium pick is brittle, not the strings

[@krzysztofwaleska]

They are coated with metal for a few reasons. One of them is that they contain very nasty heavy elements.

[@christhesnaildriver]

What I haven't seen anyone mention yet, is the possibility of altering the magnetic characteristics of the pickup itself, by waving a strong magnet in close proximity to the pole pieces. This may be a small risk, but I've heard a very experienced musician claim he'd experienced storing a guitar too close to speaker magnets in amp cabs had weakened his pickup magnets. Exposure to a strong magnetic field is essentially how the strength of custom pickup magnets are tuned during manufacture for different tone characteristics,

[@adriangas_]

I was looking through the comments to see if someone already mentioned it. You can definitely demagnetize (or magnetize) your pickup magnets by sticking a strong neodymium magnet to them.

[@DannyGraves1775]

There have been stories on Gearpage about this phenomenon. Sadly can't post any links, because KZbin always yeets my comments when I do 😭

[@CineSoar]

I was just going to say, I wouldn't bring this thing anywhere near any prized guitar that had 'great tone'. The potential to alter the magnetic properties of the poles, in unpredictable ways isn't worth the gimmickery.

[@samcecere9924]

there's a subtitle referencing this at 5:06

[@reck6328]

Absolutely it can cause issues, keep magnets away from your pickups. A magnet, especially stronger ones like neodymium, can easily destroy the magnetic field of a pickup. This can cause specific strings to be much quieter than others, or even cause the entire pickup to be extremely quiet and unbalanced. The pole pieces inside the pickup have a very weak magnetic field, so when a magnet gets close to them it will strip away the field or alter it. I've tried it myself on a pickup by putting a magnet very close to each pole piece and it completely ruined it lol. The volume was drastically different between each string and wasn't usable. It is possible to fix this, but quite annoying. You can do it yourself by getting two somewhat strong magnets, put them in a bench vise or something and have them with aligned fields facing each other, then take the pickup and closely pass it between them in a specific direction a few times. The direction you need to pass it through depends on which polarity the pickup has, typically the middle pickup has reversed polarity for hum cancelling. This will re-magnetize the pole pieces. However it won't sound the exact same. In the factory, they have specific values of magnetization they use for each pickup and they have a machine that accurately magnetizes it. Some pickup manufacturers will let you pay them to restore it for you though.

[@moonlitmurloc]

>walks into guitar store >shakes a powerful magnet near the guitar pickups >refuses to elaborate, leaves

[@MrSJPowell]

The lack of physics knowledge in the music community hurts me as an amateur scientist, who is a musician. For as well as we understand electromagnetic and audio effects, there's a lot of mysticism that gets added to the the discussion. "It's warm", "glassy", "overdriven", "mellow". As if those words mean anything. I've seen one Fourier transform of a guitar, and only one manufacturer provides accurate information on the pickups. All that to say, I would love a minutephysics deep dive into more electric guitar.

[@MotoHikes]

Undergrad scientist here (environmental science though, not physics), and also a lifelong musician (drums, guitar, bass and synth), and likewise would love a deep dive on the physics of electric guitars!

[@GamerSirus]

As a guitarist and major gear head. The guitar community is full of some of the most gullible, biased, anti-science people I've ever seen.

[@michi9955]

The CSGuitars is for you. Guitarist with an EE background making technically oriented guitar content.

[@charliecarrot]

Physics oriented content is great and much needed, but equations can't describe subjective experiences of sound. You can tell me the wavelength of red light, but it says nothing about the experience of being in a room painted red. We often use metaphors drawing from other sensory experiences to help describe how something sounds. See: bright, warm, etc. Well attested descriptors of sound going back hundreds of years in western musical traditions.

[@reaganharder1480]

The thing with the very non-scientific music/sound terms is that they are intended to describe an experience in a way that looking at a frequency response graph can not do for any but the most committed audio nerds. When it comes to buying hardware I do think manufacturers should provide meaningful numerical data for comparison, but when it comes to discussing music words like "glassy", "mellow" etc are probably more useful and functionally meaningful than a set of numbers.

[@tima6044]

You can hear the pick attack in the promotional videos. Someone probably recorded a guitar being played with a pick and mimicked the movements for the video. It wasn't just the left hand causing the strings to vibrate.

[@CamiloSinger]

As a guitar player myself, I'm glad to see stuff like this on a physics channel :) That being said, if you want to replicate the same sound without that pick, tremolo is what you're looking for. Of course that would require a pedal (be it standalone or a multi effects unit), or an amp with built in tremolo. Both of which are pricier than the pick.

[@ileutur6863]

Fair, but the advertised sound isn't just tremolo, there's also some harmonic feedback going on

[@CamiloSinger]

@@ileutur6863 true! But at least it's "most" of the sound the pick makes, that kind of stuttery, choppy sound.

[@ileutur6863]

​@@ryryshredder148Tremolo on a guitar is actually named wrong. Tremolo is volume modulation. Vibrato is pitch modulation

[@CamiloSinger]

@@ryryshredder148 what the guitar has is actually a vibrato unit, which is usually incorrectly named tremolo. Its effect is also completely different to a tremolo. The vibrato gives you a wavy sound, while the tremolo makes the signal go on and off.

[@metalzonemt-2]

@@ryryshredder148 Tremolo pedal and tremolo bar are different things. Tremolo pedal makes the volume go quiet and loud, whereas tremolo bar makes the pitch go high and low.

[@tritoneking]

I’m a professional guitarist with 30+years experience, and have baccalauréat in physics and chemistry, fwiw. The X-pick is a scam for several different reasons: 1- they claim it works differently than what you are describing here. That’s misleading. They should know better. Therefore that is quite scammy in my book. 2- you claim that you can reproduce everything their promotional materials claim. But many, many people including myself, try as we might, following all the instructions to a T, cannot get even close to what they demonstrate on 90% of their techniques. The only technique that is unique to this pick and that we can master is the only one you play in this video. (I think they call it “hyper volume.”) 3- you are clearly playing their “hyper Wah” technique, but no one I know has been able to achieve it. If you are using an actual wah pedal, then you should disclose that. 4- calling their techniques “hyper delay” when there’s no real delay effect happening and it doesn’t sound like it, or “hyper reverse” when there’s no reverse effect happening and it doesn’t sound like it, or the EBow-like infinite sustain they demonstrate that is physically impossible, etc, etc, is the very definition of a scam, don’t you think? 5- when only one out of ten of their purported effects actually works and is unique to this pick, then it’s a scam. (Several of their effects are achievable with a regular pick, or better yet, with a metal one, so they’re not unique to the X-pick.) 6- look at all their promotional materials (using obvious overdubbing to pretend the effect can be achieved with their pick, long-winded poor attempts at humor, without much substance) and the way they handle criticism (fraudulently claiming copyright infringement, blocking, disparaging) and you can only come to one conclusion: it’s a scam.

[@ManhattanCamerata]

This 👆🏼 And since the video says that the magnetic pick can only affect the pickup and not the strings, then any effect that can only be done by affecting the string is impossible. Like infinite sustain. Literally impossible. And the magnets make it a really poor pick: they get stuck to strings and you can’t play properly, it makes everything sluggish or makes the magnet unexpectedly jump out of your hand and stick to the strings or pickups.

[@DannyGraves1775]

So the basic premise for these is that you're supposed to be hammering/pulling off (or perhaps even tapping) instead of playing the regular way and then use the magnetic pick to modulate... I think I'll stick to my pedalboard for modulation effects.

[@TomCantDance]

I do think that you're being a bit too charitable with the ad. What you tested was one sound shown in it and not the other techniques that the sellers say it can do. For that reason, it is a scam because they're not showing the post-processing or the limitations that you found. They are lying.

[@mirage809]

The idea here is really neat. It's mostly a gimmick, but put it in the right hands and somebody is gonna do something really mindblowing on it.

[@3nertia]

True of anything, given enough time ...

[@xRickAstleyx]

no they arent lol

[@Theonixco]

@@xRickAstleyx Buckethead has a whole sound around turning off and on a guitar really really quick. Gimmick or not, theres potential with it.

[@xRickAstleyx]

@@Theonixcoyes. and he uses a killswitch for that. go ahead and post a video of you using this thing to make cool music

[@Theonixco]

Yeah, that negativity is getting you no where, how bout a video with someone who had more talent in his pinky than you do as a whole? kzbin.info/www/bejne/h3eTgYyHba6CgpY @@xRickAstleyx

[@scaredyfish]

Neodymium magnets are quite brittle - they’re prone to breaking if they just snap together too quickly, so I’m kind of surprised that you can make a pick out of it. I presume it must have a sheath of steel to protect the magnet.

[@dr.kraemer]

there's not a process for covering rare earth magnets with steel. the metallic jacket on them is just nickel or zinc. the inside of the magnet has all the structural strength of cheese, so the coating provides some additional toughness rigidity, but it won't stand up to rough handling.

[@QuakeGamerROTMG]

@@dr.kraemer Well it's a good thing it isn't used on taught steel wires or anything

[@dr.kraemer]

the gimmick is that you 'strum' in the air.

[@Theonixco]

This is why I'd prefer a normal pick with a magnet inset of it, if I was going to use this as a trick.

[@ViviSectia]

@@dr.kraemer Zinc guitar picks already grind down quickly and leave my guitar covered in zinc dust. Magnet dust sounds like it would ruin a pickup if this managed to survive that long.

[@linkbond08]

Just get 2 magnets and stick them to each other sandwiching the flat sides of a pick. Add a little glue so the magnets don't shift around the pick and done a $6 magnetic pick. Also rare earth magnets often come in a 4pk, so you can make 2 picks for $6.

[@Yupppi]

The only concern I have about this idea is that it's gonna be the shittiest pick I've ever used to actually hold in hand and play. We don't go through a box of picks to find the one that is nice in hand and to play to then put two clumps on it.

[@rolen47]

Skip the pick, glue the magnets to your fingers.

[@marcn6]

​@@rolen47 😂 or you could wear a glove with magnets stuck on it. You could stick magnets on all five fingers without even having to hold anything

[@christopherdeangelis6383]

Wow, I can't believe I learned more about this product from a physics channel than any of the guitar channels.

[@BrimmyFrags]

Very fitting time to watch this as I’m picking up guitar and finishing up basic magnetic flux physics

[@richardmetzler7909]

It would make more sense to not combine the magnet into the pick. I would try mounting the magnet onto a ring, or a thimble you can stick on the tip of your ring finger. That way, you can use any pick you want, not worry about losing or breaking it, not worry about the magnetic interactions between pick and playing, and have some independence between the picking motion and the magnetic modulation.

[@wherebandshaman]

Or to just use a small magnet embedded in the finger grip

[@MarkToast99]

I have been deeply invested in this controversy and I never expected it to make its way to such a big channel. Thanks so much for this video!

[@FollowTheLion01]

Henry: you should try a guitar with a Sustainiac driver. That would make a neat physics video. Strings not only act like a metal diaphragm in a mic but also like a speaker/actuator/motor, through a driver circuit that actually causes the strings to vibrate sympathetically, giving you endless sustain.

[@asailijhijr]

Has anyone ever combined the effects of a theremin and an electric guitar?

[@_BangDroid_]

I've seen guitar pedals used with Theremin

[@tubesvor]

That is kind of what an Ebow is.

[@mnemosynevermont5524]

My first thought.

[@GamerSirus]

That doesn't even make sense.

[@mk_rexx]

There was a dubstep cover band that utilizes some thermin-like controls to control effects (such as wah). One of which is commercially sold as "Hothand"

[@pinkowls2546]

Here's a fun thing you can try: You see the two screws beside your bridge pickup? If you turn those, you can move the pickup upwards closer to the strings. If the pickup is close enough to the strings, it will create a vibrato-effect when playing which is stronger depending on the selected pickup. Another interesting tidbit: David Gilmour allegedly used a strong magnet (a "cow magnet") on "Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii" to create the violin like sounds, not a slide. I will try it myself with a magnet (yes I'm aware of the danger to the pickup magnets!), since I get "friction noise" when trying a normal slide. And using an ebow on the high e-string is quite tricky.

[@danielmcelroy4505]

This is really nuanced in terms of a product review and I really respect that

[@intrinsical]

"The Physics is simple, the human relationships are complicated." - Understatement of the century.

[@jnbfrancisco]

When I was about 13 years old, around 1964 I was curious about magnets. For some crazy reason I placed a magnet near our color TV screen. It was a fascinating image distortion. I was appalled when the distortion didn't go away completely when I removed the magnet. I was able to clear it up by using my tape head demagnetizer. I did learn several years later why that occured.

[@doomsdayrabbit4398]

Back in the time where you'd be in serious trouble with your parents for your experiments... now, good luck even doing any experiments.

[@unfa00]

I think that if you'd low pass the signal coming from the guitar at - say - 10 Hz, you could pretty much isolate how close the magnet pick is to the guitar pickups, and use that to control some more complex effects. Maybe they do that already, it'd make a lot of sense.

[@MichaelWinter-ss6lx]

Low pass at 10 Hz? What do you do with the fretboard then? That starts at 82 Hz. Low pass at 160 Hz would roll off the harmonics, making it easier to play into a synthesizer, but for anything else that sounds dull.

[@doim1676]

Oh damn, i actually thought of the magnetic pick as a scam up until now. You did a way better job at explaining what it is and how to use it, than the inventors xD Now i just think it's a bit pricey, but would understand it if they shipped it with instructions about the playing techniques they invented

[@frosthammer917]

The instructions seems to all be on KZbin. So you know free to access already.

[@TheLickerman]

​@@frosthammer917 Unfortunately, the presence of the "instructions" seems to be devoid of anything close to explaining or "instructing" anything related to their use. If this video can explain ALL the things that the pick is supposed to be doing within a few seconds, it's more than fair to point this out. I wholeheartedly agree with the original commentor as I also thought that this was a complete scam with NO original thought and insight at all up until I watched an extremely simple demonstration like this video. The XPick team seems to be doing a good job at monitoring the response they get from the media and I hope that you can relegate this as a constructive feedback: emphasize more on the technical side on promotions, don't overplay capabilities to get a false impression (or at least clarify the conditions exhaustively in such cases) and definitely don't rely on people to figure the significance of your slight innovation. Also be mindful of the impact your technology might have in regards to valuation; even if you had a significantly better product with an advanced technology, most guitarists can't/won't comprehend it. It is YOUR job to convince us to give your fancy magnetic picks a try. In its current state; the XPick products seem like a waste of every manufacturing and usage state with an exorbitant price tag for an effect that is in the same order of magnitude and controllability as me farting directly on the strings. However, there is a plethora of creativity in applications even with the most constrained usage.

[@hosem88]

You should be able to use the pick with the guitar even when there are no strings on it. With a lot of effect pedals you might get some interesting ambient sounds out of it...

[@Celastrous]

You'd basically just be feeding the low frequency pulse out of the guitar into your post processing. Maybe with a ton of effects it could be cool, but that's also true with just about any sound tbh

[@CadenUnnasch]

adding "metal machine music" to the wikipedia list for multiple discoveries

[@xpick]

I mean ... besides saying it's an honor to have such a detailed explanation from you, Dr. Reich, the coolest thing, are all the spontaneous smiles you give when using it! (7:53) It's like a movie with a happy ending! Your work remains unsurpassed, whatever theme you tackle! Thanks for everything! 😀 The XPick Staff

[@olegshevchenko5869]

1:04 this gave me a heart attack. I thought some had burglared into my appartement

[@tyrport]

Good to see you back. Would love to see more content.

[@guitarfreakizoid]

KZbin: You've been watching guitar videos, here's some more. KZbin: You've been watching science videos, here's some more Channel I've been subscribed to for a decade and seen every single one of his videos: Posts a video about the science of guitars KZbin: You don't need to see this

[@billmint8122]

3:51 for those of you that came for the actual video title.

[@bentfishbowl3945]

Nice lesson in experimental design, in the end. One minor critique is that by summing the "normal pick" signal and the "magnetic" noise you're implying linearity, which isn't the case: i.e. the pickup can't pick up a string while it's being interfered with, at least not in the same way. The video goes into this a bit near the end, but it's the pickup itself that isn't linear too.

[@danielflintknapping]

I have been playing guitar for 20 years but it isn't until now I have started swapping out component parts and soldering etc. It's so fun 😁

[@MichaelWinter-ss6lx]

Hi, get yourself some solid literature. Try to really understand what your changing or repairing. Thats where the real fun starts;)

[@bassmano6377]

@@MichaelWinter-ss6lx Any tips on where to begin? (No sarcasm!)

[@winstonsmith8240]

I can imagine someone like Buckethead having fun with it, but for me it just looks like a ridiculously expensive plectrum. (There's something about the pick making contact with the strings which is where a lot of the fun lies).

[@dehypnotizerz]

I'd be afraid to use such a powerful magnet next to a very sensitive pickups. Not only are you risking burning the coils down, but also generate voltage spikes that potentially could destroy transistors of the first stage of an amplifier. Really risky.

[@nwimpney]

You're not going to burn the coils, but you might get some very large spikes if the magnet slams onto the pole pieces. Whether that's a danger or not depends on the input stage of the amplifier. What I would be more worried about is demagnetizing alnico magnets. Ceramic magnets aren't likely to be damaged, but alnico definitely could.

[@dehypnotizerz]

@@nwimpney True, alnico magnets can be easily demagnetized. Overall, it's quite risky to experiment with neodymium magnets. People don't realize how powerful the magnetic field they have, and how big currents they're able to induce, destroying sensitive electronics, not to even mention their ability to magnetize some steel alloys that are slightly ferromagnetic, or demagnetize weak magnets like alnico. Funny to play with, but really dangerous.

[@thomasdemharter2153]

I just realized what a perfect tool an electric guitar can be for physics teachers for combining several parts of the curriculum. You can learn something about electric circuits, electro magnets, sound waves and harmonics all while butchering the first chords of Smoke On The Water :)

[@JLujan4492]

Yeah dude. I've played the guitar for nearly twenty years, and I've taught for about 10. I always incorporate my guitar in my physics classes. Plus I get to show off a bit.

[@TDG361]

Great video! Thanks. 7:20 would actually be great for a signals and systems course, as a way to demonstrate the linearity of signals😮

[@Celastrous]

Yeah, to the extent that the physical system behaves linearly well enough. Important to note is that he combined them before distortion, and not after. Distortion is by definition a nonlinear effect

[@Pjx1989]

I’m early days of electric guitars, basically all effects pedal, if not electric guitars themselves, where realised by people saying “hey look, if we mess around with the electronics/signal/recorder/whatever like this, we get an interesting sound” Basically this is how alt rock was born and we all know that Beatles, Led Zeppelin and many others all did the most weird things. So why messing around with the pickups should not be allowed if it produces an interesting sound?

[@-tera-3345]

The origin of music effects can be pretty fascinating. Like, the distortion sound in rock originally came from broken speakers, and people were like "hey that sounds neat" and purposely cutting holes in their speakers to replicate it.

[@TekCroach]

Actually the sound production in an electric guitar is a little bit subtler. The tiny magnets along with the huge coil forms a stable magnetic circuit. The metal strings just idling above the pickup don’t cause disturbances in the circuit. When you vibrate the string it creates tiny electromagnetic force (emf) and thus vary the static magnetic field accordingly. These variations are amplified. Nice demo❤❤❤❤

[@SMJSmoK]

Fun thing connected with this: I play guitar and I live next to a tram (electric light rail - common in Europe) track. Every time a tram goes by, I can very audibly hear it through my amp. My guess is that the tram's electric motors create an electromagnetic field strong enough (it needs to move several tons of steel, so I assume it has to be pretty strong) that it interacts with the pickups on my guitar, sort of like in the video. I can clearly hear when the driver steps on the "gas" hits the breaks etc. You can probably imagine that with some distortion on, this sound can get quite "epic".

[@DLDepoy]

Hey man, really appreciate you taking a look at this and diving into what these picks really do. As a tool this seems like a fun way to introduce some manual modulation into my playing, which I prefer most of the time. Like tap tempo on delays or the treadle of a wah I really prefer having a physical interface for dialing in effects. I think I'll buy some magnets of different types/strengths and see what I can come up with. Great video overall

[@satanbane]

Thought experiment. Stick a few paper clips to a magnet, so they make a tower or chain. Now wave another magnet near the end of the chain. The paper clips move in response. Therefore, the strings move due to the motion of the magnetic pick. Maybe not a lot, but some. Compare the amplitude of blowing upon the strings, also a quiet effect which needs gain to sound properly -- but it works and the strings definitely move.

[@FrazerKirkman]

So different to your usual style. I think it's the first time I've seen you, and not only your cartoons. Thanks for the variety. That was great.

[@zoeyjune2193]

Doesnt it have more to do with the strings disrupting the magnetic field of the pickup versus the pickup magnetising the string?

[@cptkirkpyro5656]

Just use a magnetic ring with a normal pick like the rest of us. make fist and curl your wrist to make WHA-WHA or just use the normal pick in you fingers to play.

[@BioshadowX]

The arguement and pick seems like the definition of "right answer, wrong reason"

[@headspacetheace]

so cool that you made a video on this I absolutely love learning about physics relating to music

[@zmix]

You can get a similar effect by just moving the low E string rapidly towards and away from the pickup's pole piece. Warning: There is a possibility that a magnetic guitar pick could affect the magnets in the pickup, if it's strong enough you could even discharge the magnetization (or could be used to reverse the polarity in a hurry)

[@oiartsun]

This seems like an appropriate place to ask this question: Why does a hollow body electric guitar sound different to a solid body electric guitar through an amp, given that the pickups are just sensitive to the movement of the strings?

[@dsvechnikov]

Pickups are indeed only sensitive to strings movement, but strings movement can be affected by guitar construction

[@WalkingTrashcan]

Thanks for clearing the confusion up for a product I had no idea even existed 15mins ago.

[@LifeEnemy]

I'm glad you played a bit at the end! I'd really like to see a bit more though, if combining picking and "magnet-picking" can create any interesting effects. I can see some potential in having it right there when needed!

[@anthonygillette]

8:21 yes but the actual guitar sounds he’s making require a string to have an attack. It requires the string to be plucked to make that exact sound. They did lie and recorded a separate track to make the sound they showed in the video.

[@rossgalloway3005]

Some of our guitarists pickups pick up our hearing aid loop which is always an entertaining thing to have to remember

[@MichaelWinter-ss6lx]

Either microfonic pickups or bad cable. Pickups can be 'repaired', cables can be exchanged.

[@SNSPmedia]

Really glad you defended that with facts!

[@Green0Photon]

This makes me want to go back to trying to learn the guitar like I did in High School, very briefly

[@TimmyJoePCTech]

It's awesome that you deep dived this! A comment from Sammy G would be deserved :P

[@jasonbeebe2128]

If the effect is that the volume modulates, then couldn't the magnet be pulling or pushing the strings closer to or further from the pickup? This would be "moving the strings." It's not plucking them, but could still be moving them. The magnet could also be inducing a current in the pickup coil if it's causing a changing field within the coil as it passes. But I don't see how this would cause volume modulation. It would be more like a low frequency bump. If you can vibrate your hand at audible frequencies (20 to 20,000 times a second... good luck) you might get ebow like sounds.

[@Pjx1989]

It could be interesting to place it on the ring or little finger to move them independently (ish) from the pick. With a bit of exercise you could do some weird things

[@PeterKaitlyn]

What amazes me is that someone went to all the trouble to market and distribute something so half arsed...

[@jackjac]

This video was somehow in a bit more vloggy style, which made it more personal and felt low budget but at the same time I really liked that experimental approach. Thanks for the video :D

[@aronhidman1]

The "little circles" you talk about are not magnets. They are the pole pieces; just metal screws basically, that function as inductors. The magnet is inside the pickup.

[@jamescarrico1233]

I like how you make it look like you can’t really play the guitar until after the “credits” you clearly can

[@sanches2]

I bet their sales went up after the video :) there's no bad advertisement:)

[@mrbrown6421]

In the 1970s, I extracted a little speaker from my 7 transistor radio, and would swing it by the strings of my cheap electric guitar. We had 3 AM radio stations, and the car commercials always made the guitar sound like a 12 year old Jimmy Hendrix. My Dad hated it, so I knew it was a success. -- 9.6.2023 -- North Central Florida

[@qwertykeyboard5901]

Magnets also effect the ferromagnetic cores in inductors, saturating them somewhat. It's how I overclocked a VTECH Talking Whiz Kid Plus. I stuck a magnet on the oscillator coil in a specific place.

[@hjonkhjonkamgoose]

that explorer you played in the beginning was dope. I love those guitars

[@KRAZEEIZATION]

Sometimes I play my guitars unplugged just to hear the unamplified characteristics. They all sound slightly different believe it or not even if it’s a few Telecasters.

[@dmsanct]

so basically its just a magnet and the pick shape is completely pointless since you dont use it to pluck the strings

[@2000jpangburn]

Wouldn’t the magnetic pick be potentially damaging to your pickups?

[@Hoodiebud]

1:26 never going back again

[@rchlclr]

I dunno if I'd call it a scam, but it doesn't seem like a great use of money either. You can get a very similar effect just by turning the volume control on the guitar up and down really fast.

[@CarsInDimension]

Thank you for the correct explanation of how an electric guitar works. Most of the explanations you see, that say the string disturbs the magnetic field around the coils, are wrong. The magnets magnetize the string, which becomes, as you point out, a magnet moving past a coil, a classic generator.

[@flamencoprof]

04:19 The key (no pun intended) is that it all has to do with RATE OF CHANGE, i.e. movement of the string (or this pick) back and forth. That if a magnet is moved near a wire the field's changing strength causes induces a current in the wire, but that is NOT how a guitar pickup works. It is the inverse corollary that if a wire is moved near a magnet a current is induced in the wire. That current in the MOVING wire (string) produces a changing magnetic field that changes the pickup's magnetic field, which induces a changing current in the pickup's coil. The permanent magnetism is ALWAYS in the pickup. The strings are NOT magnets. A pick stretches the string by friction before releasing it to produce a very rapid relaxation which "bounces" further into tension due to the natural elasticity of the string, Then it "bounces" back to relaxation and overshoots into tension, repeatedly. This is called vibration. Any sufficiently strong magnet can also change the pickup's field, but the rate of change is limited to hand speed, which is ten to a thousand times slower than audio vibrations. Thus this device can only do so much. It is more like a "hand pedal" than a pick. (Hides behind Science pulpit and sneaks off to enjoy music.)

[@sauce_aux]

Really good to have that disclaimer about ruining your pickups with the magnet - I was waiting lol great explanation and tech breakdown

[@bennyl9228]

Finally, a new video. The previous one was 5 months ago.

[@yahboicoltonvlogs6280]

I got a simply guitar ad before this started

[@ElGrooveEstaEnElFlan]

All i'm thinking is, you could strum the strings and then use the magnet as an effect. I really liked some of the sounds you could achieve. Though maybe the pick would get stuck to the strings? I dunno, it looks funny and it can sound interesting i'm gonna have to try it xD. Great video man thanks a lot!

[@666pinkster]

It really comes down to the proximity of the pic to the pickup to create the magnetic fields of excite the string

[@nicehatnietzsche5797]

8:25 "a confusing situation" The most charitable reading of any situation in the history of mankind

[@icedragon769]

The little metal doohickeys that stick out of the pickup aren't actually magnets, even though they're called "pole pieces". Pickups have only one bar magnet that runs along their length. The pole pieces are just chunks of ferromagnetic material that help to shape and conduct the flux, similar to the core of a transformer. They make the induction more efficient by channeling the field to the right location, but they don't create the field and aren't strictly part of the circuit.

[@neosrinath]

Thank you for the unboxing video!

[@amv240]

Bro suddenly turned into an amateur Buckethead.

[@ElmoRitter]

I like how he calls them maygnets

[@cedarbobedar7223]

solid video - I love deep dives into little rabbit holes like that

[@Bradrackas]

So does the pick damage the magnets in the pickups over time? If so, major reason to avoid it!

[@DeusExMathias]

I get it now. The guitarist in the demo was using what's called "hammer on" technique to create the initial tone. This is when you "hammer" or quickly tap and hold your finger at the fret rather than strum or pick with your picking/strumming hand.

[@yessir6427]

yes

[@zombieregime]

Its more the magnetic fields of the pickup, as 'focused' by the pegs or studs in the top of the pickup (some of which are adjustable to fine tune individual string clarity and strength in the signal), and how it 'flows', for lack of a better term, around the metal string. As the string vibrates the magnetic field is also vibrated, like if you had an elastic band/bungie cord running through a jello mold, if you pluck the string the jello would also wiggle (the dynamic coupling coefficients are WAY off in that analogy, but basically that is whats happening). From there, moving magnetic field, copper coil, current representation of that moving field, tone and volume bleed offs, cable, pre-amp effects, preamp, post-preamp effects, amp, speaker, room, Wonderwall. This pick is effecting the magnetic field density and deadening how it couples to the string, thus what it transmits to the coil, which is also affected by the strong moving magnetic field of the pick (its an incredibly dynamic system of effects at play). In the bungie cord jello analogy, while the jello is wibbling, use another jello to gently clamp around the mold between the jello bungie interface and the table to deaden some of the transmitted energy.....uh, to the table, i guess..... Its sort of like that. Not really, but if it helps.... Sure. On top of inducing a low frequency current in the coil as it moves over them which could wash out the string signal (thus the coupled audio sounding similar, overlaying the LF wave on the guitar audio), it would also have an effect on the magnetic field densities therefore effecting how the pickup coil 'heard' the strings vibration in the pickups magnets field. They would still move around the string, but under the pick they would be denser and possibly in odd directions to normal. Also, my guy....FIX THE DAMN GROUND LOOP HUM!!!!! THATS WHAT HUMBUCKERS HELP!!! ITS IN THE NAME!!! Though, in fairness, I use a basic ADC over USB, and in certain configurations, using pedals that pull power from a wall wart plugged into 3 layers of strips* induces a gnarly hum especially if im not touching the strings**. But as long as I keep the guitar feeds away from running along mains cables its usually okay. But yeah, that hum means there is a grounding imbalance issue... *To anyone about to try and lecture the electronics guy on the dangers of cascading power extenders.....prove your material sciences, electricity, and physics knowledge, and that you're not just mindlessly parroting some facebook repost crap, then we can talk. Which we wont, because youll realize, what I have going on is well within the realm of safety. Also, shame on you for assuming my ignorance and need to be educated for my own good in order to stroke your ego for your benefit of feeling important, which is exactly what you did, its offensive, and boarder line bullying. Every time you see a trigger word its not an invitation to recite warnings meant to avoid extreme cases of DIY electrical distribution. Stop it. Get some help. **Ill bet none of you safety weenies knew you could get zapped by just touching the strings did you? No you didnt. So dont lecture people on things youre not knowledgeable in. Its not polite. If you cant figure out how to politely inquire in an indirect way about a thing, thats a you problem bruh, and not them needing a lecture problem. K? K.😁

[@mjeffn2]

1) How to fix your Marshall JCM800 stack for $50 so you can play it in your apartment. 2) Turn the JCM800 up to 11 and use the magnetic pick to modulate feedback, but not while in your apartment.

[@TheOtherSteel]

This is one of the longest minutephysics videos. The channel may need to be renamed minutesphysics. Yes, that is me attempting humor. No actual suggestion to change the channel name is being made. I would be happy to see more videos, though. This is one of my favorite channels. The combination of simple animated sketches, physics, and humor made this channel great.

[@MixMeMcGee]

Thanks for adding the audio detail caption at the bottom! :) I thought that’s what you meant/what I was seeing but it’s not know know for sure! :)

[@Aeon135]

I picked up on that others might not: the magnetic pick, even used how its shown, seems to require your amp to be at extreme volumes.

[@CeterisMakesMusic]

gimmicky but i kinda want one now. if youve still got the pick you may want to try to see what it does with a guitar that has active pickups (they take a battery and have a preamp built into the guitar and use less coil), and also how it effects piezo electric pickups if at all. edit: at $40+ ill just stick to adding some neodymium magnets to a regular pick with some tape. thanks for the video and new technique to add to my arsenal

[@correcthorsebatterystaple4831]

if you hang a neodymium magnet on a string and twist it up like a rubber band plane, you can produce a tone through the pickup by letting the magnet spin out

[@Bleepbleepblorbus]

(Unrelated) Idk know if you will see this but hypothetically if we had a device that can alter stuff like the amount of force, energy, weight, heat, ect there's a lot of "what if's" Like if we took a mass of any gas and made it's air resistance infinite, would objects stay of top of the gas as if it were solid? What id we gave a liquid infinite surface tension, would the liquid climb walls and stick to things or would the liquid spread until in turns into a gas? Or how about negative infinity? If we gave an object negative infinity heat would it just be absolute zero or would the object have a similar effect to a cold sun and suck heat in but infinitely? What would be the properties of a fluid with infinite viscosity, would it act like a solid or do something else?

[@rif6876]

I always thought the guitar passed an electric current through the vibrating wires to create a magnetic field that the pickup responded to. thanks for the clarification!

[@ASFalcon13]

I guess my question is...why on earth would I want to pick without touching the strings in the first place? Picking the string directly lets me choose exactly which string I want to sound, as opposed to flailing about in empty space and hoping I'm sounding the string I want.