Tabletop Humbucker
What is it?
The Tabletop Humbucker is a guitar pickup mounted in a solid block of walnut — but it isn’t for guitars.
It borrows the simple magic of an electric guitar pickup and places it on your desk, where springs, motors, screws, chains, tools, and other objects can reveal their sonic secrets.
Start with an object. End up somewhere else.
A vibrating spring can become bass.
A spinning motor can become a drone.
A ruler, a screw, or a piece of metal can turn into alien textures.
The Tabletop Humbucker is made for hands-on exploration — for sound designers, musicians, Foley artists, synth people, pedal people, and anyone who likes finding strange sounds in ordinary things.
How does it work?
At its core is a humbucking guitar pickup housed in a solid walnut enclosure. The pickup is suspended in silicone to reduce unwanted handling noise and vibrations, while keeping the instrument physical and responsive.
Metal objects can be played directly over the pickup. Materials like wood, paper, plastic, and ceramics can also be captured using the included soundboard and magnetic activator.
Plug it in
The Tabletop Humbucker is completely passive. No batteries, no menus, no software.
An included ground wire can help tame unwanted hum and noise — simply hold it in your hand while playing.
Just plug it into your audio interface, amp, mixer, or recording equipment and start exploring. It loves pedals and effects — distort it, delay it, loop it, or slice it up in your DAW.
See it in action
Watch the Tabletop Humbucker transform everyday objects into sounds.
In the wild
RedMeansRecording took the Happy Dinosaur Tabletop Humbucker to extraordinary creative heights in this video.
In the wild
BoBeats featured the Happy Dinosaur Tabletop Humbucker in his latest Synth Gift Ideas video.
Meet the maker
Hi! I’m Tobias Karlsson, the creator of Happy Dinosaur.
I was one of those kids who couldn’t resist disassembling things just to see how they worked.
The Tabletop Humbucker was born out of a wish to return to a more physical way of exploring sound and music.
As humans, we see and touch, feel and react — but a computer mouse or touch screen robs us of those primal sensations.
With the Tabletop Humbucker, I hope to help others rediscover the child-like joy of manipulating sound with their own hands.