User Group Pickup Specs Poll #4

[dr.barlo]

I voted for `blue rare`... And am destined to lose!

B

[dr.barlo]

Is this gonna be a neck bucker?

B

[dvadneau]

I am going to STRONGLY echo the sentiments in this post as well as what Mr 9Finger has been saying in a few of his: we now have a direction where we are heading with this pickup, so lets let MJ do her thing. As someone who has ordered numerous custom shop pickups I can tell you we are in the best of hands. When I order a pickup from her now I just say what guitar it is going into and what I want it to do. She does her thing and the pickup always sounds amazing! With that said, big thank you to Pinto for getting this going and being so patient as well as Mr9Fingers for actually contacting her and all the extra help! I am pretty excited to see this bad boy come to fruition!

+1

So, what is the next step? Is there anything more we need/should be doing/specifying? Or do we hand this over to MJ?

Do we have a good enough description to pass along?

Is coil tapping going to be part of the request?


Big thanks again to pinto79 and Mr 9finger.

[Mr 9finger]

I didn't ask about the coil tapping, but they are the custom shop and all things considered with this pickup, I don't think tapping a coil or both, is probably the least hardest thing to do here lol!

I was thinking a poll on coil tap(s) and blade type. Run them both concurrent. Then we'd have a few days to mull things over and touch on anything we might have missed. Hand if off to MJ when she gets back in the shop and let her run with it.

[KeeperOS]

I will defer to people more experienced than I but TBH, I don't see the point to a coil tapping in a humbucker pickup, coil splitting or parallel wiring should be more than enough to give us a wide variety of sounds from a single pickup.

I DO find that some pickups are better suited to splitting than others, my all-time-favorite in this regard being the neck Suhr Dough Aldrich.

The sound when split to its' outer coil is phenomenal, very airy and open.

[Mr 9finger]

I will defer to people more experienced than I but TBH, I don't see the point to a coil tapping in a humbucker pickup, coil splitting or parallel wiring should be more than enough to give us a wide variety of sounds from a single pickup.

I DO find that some pickups are better suited to splitting than others, my all-time-favorite in this regard being the neck Suhr Dough Aldrich.

The sound when split to its' outer coil is phenomenal, very airy and open.

I can see the POTENTIAL in tapping the coils. I emphasize potential because I've never had a bucker with tapped coils. It works really well in every single I've had, so I could see it being useful for a humbucker if you've got the room in your control cavity work with it. Unless you're working with a Strat or similar with a pickguard, you're potentially looking at drilling holes for a switch in your guitar. Pick guards are replaceable, but you can't put wood back once it's drilled. So yeah, it's borderline, but I don't see any reason to not include as a potential option.

For people that like to split a neck bucker, I really think using the diablo coil towards the neck is probably the more ideal way to go. Simply because the blade is the magnet for that coil, lending more to single coil pickup style of build. Especially if the coils are mismatched. In theory, you could wind the diablo style bobbin exactly like a single coil pickup. If I'm not mistaken, that is how the Nokie Edwards pickups are built.

With such an oddball design, there's more unknown than known. Just have to take it and run with it. I'm partial to the Diablo style blade over the dimebucker, but either or has potential. Either way, I'm in for at least one.

[ItsaBass]

Like I posted above, this is basically a modified Nokie Edwards blade/Strat model. Instead of the Strat pickup, it'll be a PA single coil. The question is, is the PA going to be the existing stack or a custom made non stack version? If it's a stack, all they have to do is assemble the pickup out of pre-existing parts...and they are probably already tapped. Makes it easy peasy for MJ to just throw a Nokie Edwards/Diablo coil and a PA stack onto a baseplate, install a shim under the shortest one, and call it a day. Cool pickup for us, less work for the CS, and probably a lower price.

[misterwhizzy]

Do we have a real tonal description yet? We've got medium output and PA/blade hybrid wound for the neck. But is this supposed to be scooped, mid-oriented, or what? I like the idea of a slightly hotter 59 that holds together a lot better but maintains its dynamics. I also think it's important to wind each coil hot enough that it can stand on its own as a single-coil.

[KeeperOS]

Let me clarify for those who do not know the difference, (Mr 9finger it is clear that you do).
TAPPING the coils actually means splicing the wire at some point during the winding in order to only keep a part of the coil in the circuit.

You connect the beginning and the full end of the coil, you have the most winds and the hotter coil, you connect the beginning and the spliced wire as the end of the coil, you get only some of the winds and a less hot coil.

That is the only way to get a single coil to sound clearer, which is where it's used.
That's also how the StraBro90 was made, and one of the many reasons why it was so difficult to make.

In a humbucker however that is 4-conductive (both beginnings and ends of both coils are exposed and not pre-wired together) you could simply SPLIT the coils, only leaving one or the other in the circuit, thus effectively having two or even three (if you also count parallel wiring) additional sounds from one pickup.

Also tapping one or two coils is a lot of extra work that I am uncertain would have much merit, or making THAT much of a difference to splitting or wiring in parallel...

More work for MJ, more time to get our pickups and probably a higher cost to produce them.

[KeeperOS]

Do we have a real tonal description yet? We've got medium output and PA/blade hybrid wound for the neck. But is this supposed to be scooped, mid-oriented, or what? I like the idea of a slightly hotter 59 that holds together a lot better but maintains its dynamics. I also think it's important to wind each coil hot enough that it can stand on its own as a single-coil.

There've been several descriptions actually and they all boil down to the same thing.
NOT a 59 but a clear, articulate pickup that is airy when clean but maintains definition under gain. Not exactly mid-scooped per se but the two ends would probably be more pronounced (again, without being totally certain).

Some have also clarified that is should not be boomy (no teeth-gritting highs either though) but with enough lows/mid-lows to compensate for the position in a 24-fretted guitar.
Personally I'm all for that last part as most of my HH guitars are 24-fretted...

[Mr 9finger]

Jolly, I might be wrong here because these polls are a bit hard to follow BUT.....

I think the goal here is for a super articulate neck pickup that is smooth, defined, and open. No extra low end found in your usual PAF style pickups to reduce the mud. I'm getting the vibe that one of the major goals here is a neck pickup that has a quicker response for fast playing, and if the coil tap thing is added, the ability to back the power off and get back some of that vintage vibe.

I think another goal is to make it hot enough to work well in the bridge position when paired with something like a Seth, 59, A2P, or Jazz in the neck spot. Mainly so everybody can benefit that didn't necessarily want strictly a neck pickup.

Take that with a grain of salt though. My adjectives have a tendency to miss the mark a bit.

There've been several descriptions actually and they all boil down to the same thing.
NOT a 59 but a clear, articulate pickup that is airy when clean but maintains definition under gain. Not exactly mid-scooped per se but the two ends would probably be more pronounced (again, without being totally certain).

Some have also clarified that is should not be boomy (no teeth-gritting highs either though) but with enough lows/mid-lows to compensate for the position in a 24-fretted guitar.
Personally I'm all for that last part as most of my HH guitars are 24-fretted...

Yup, I think we have a tonal description covered.

[SrDeMaFp]

...but a clear, articulate pickup that is airy when clean but maintains definition under gain.

Some have also clarified that is should not be boomy (no teeth-gritting highs either though) but with enough lows/mid-lows to compensate for the position in a 24-fretted guitar.

That's the ticket!

I'm liking that there actually seems to be more discussion going on now rather than fighting and bull****. I'd love just a humbucker that can achieve what I quoted nicely, but the blade/PA coils look cool as **** and would be an awesome look and really set it apart! I'm just hoping that the construction turns out to be for the positive, tone-wise.

[King IzzO)))]

Yep, I like where this is going, no care about taps, though.

[Mr 9finger]

Yep, I like where this is going, no care about taps, though.

Me either. That's just more wires I have to figure out where to hide them. I don't think I've wired a humbucker to split in at least 5 years or more.

[pinto79]

Watch for the next poll guys!