Anyone know about a tonally transparent cover

[madialex]

I need a good tele neck pickup cover that wont suck the life out of the pickup. I have been beating my brains out the last few days trying to figure out why my tele neck pickups have been total shit, well dont ask why I didnt do it before but I decided to remove a cover and try it and what do you know, the tone is there just covered up by the cover. They were supposed to be good cover but I got duped by bad advertising. Wont mention where they came from. "stewmac-allparts" Ahem did I say that

[David Schwab]

They were supposed to be good cover but I got duped by bad advertising. Wont mention where they came from. "stewmac-allparts" Ahem did I say that

Covers change the tone, period. How much they change the tone is another matter. The thinner the better. Personally I don't think material has as much effect as the thickness.

Here's something you might want to try... it wont look "vintage" correct, but if you have a cover you hate the tone of, try it out and see...

Make a slit in the cover from the top end all the way down to the open part. You can make it anywhere.. front, back, on a side. The idea is to prevent the cover from running all around the coil. This becomes a shorted loop and will mess the tone up.

Give it a try and see what you get.

Here's a quick illustration. The second picture is from a Rowe patent from 1968 illustrating the same thing.

[Zhangliqun]

The Guitar Jones Tele covers are very clear. I highly recommend them by far over any other covers I've tried.

But as Dave said, they still have SOME effect, and for that reason, the neck pu on my own Tele has no cover. For giggles and grins I even wrapped the coil in twine to match the bridge.

[madialex]

Covers change the tone, period. How much they change the tone is another matter. The thinner the better. Personally I don't think material has as much effect as the thickness.

Here's something you might want to try... it wont look "vintage" correct, but if you have a cover you hate the tone of, try it out and see...

Make a slit in the cover from the top end all the way down to the open part. You can make it anywhere.. front, back, on a side. The idea is to prevent the cover from running all around the coil. This becomes a shorted loop and will mess the tone up.

Give it a try and see what you get.

Here's a quick illustration. The second picture is from a Rowe patent from 1968 illustrating the same thing.

Thanks David, I have used other covers that I could work the wind around to sound good but these are very bad. I cut the output by almost half and made it total mush, with the cover off it is clear as a bell. I used to use GJ covers but he just got way out of my league with his minimum orders and I cant buy from him any longer due to the order size. I'll give it a try on the cutting a slit, maybe make it in the dead center towards the neck so it is not as noticeable and see what happens. Thanks again, you are the go to guy on the electrical stuff.

Hi Zhang, I may start doing them with just black cloth tape or string and only offer the cover with a note about the slit or I may be able to get some better covers. I am sort of in a re-tooling starting up thing and want to have all my shit together before selling anything on the open market. Unlike the past crap I have gone through.

[ken]

Be VERY careful if you use Tele rhythm pickups without covers...

Many years ago, I had a 1962? Tele rhythm pickup on my 1968 Tele. I read somwhere that if you took the metal cover off a humbucking pickup, the pickup got brighter. I didn't like the dark tone of my Tele, so I removed the cover from the pickup and reinstalled the pickup. The tone change was amazing! The pickup was much brighter, clearer and more powerful... until I was strummin' along one day, and I caught the high E string on the edge of the bobbin. I pulled the top flat almost completely off the pickup, all the way to the A string.

I don't know if wrapping string around the pickup will work or not, string and wax is much softer than a steel string. Maybe you could try a plastic cover?

ken

[OFM]

I don't know if wrapping string around the pickup will work or not, string and wax is much softer than a steel string. Maybe you could try a plastic cover?

ken

I agree... a plastic cover can look awful, but will do the job better than a metal cover...

Is there any posibility of making a plastic clone of a tele neck cover?

I wrapped off a tele neck pickup recently, and i'm thinking how can I use it again. Maybe I'll try David's idea of cutting a bit the metal cover.

Greetings,
Ben

[Zhangliqun]

Be VERY careful if you use Tele rhythm pickups without covers...

Many years ago, I had a 1962? Tele rhythm pickup on my 1968 Tele. I read somwhere that if you took the metal cover off a humbucking pickup, the pickup got brighter. I didn't like the dark tone of my Tele, so I removed the cover from the pickup and reinstalled the pickup. The tone change was amazing! The pickup was much brighter, clearer and more powerful... until I was strummin' along one day, and I caught the high E string on the edge of the bobbin. I pulled the top flat almost completely off the pickup, all the way to the A string.

Not a problem for me -- don't like knocking the hell out of the strings because they tend to wobble out of tune and sound muddy when you do that. I get plenty of power with a more compact picking technique farther from the neck which means the strings don't travel far enough out to grab the top flat.

But I am not my customers so I do provide them with the GJ cover, which is still very clear. (And I agree that the Stewmac covers are tone-killers...)

[madialex]

Thank you DS!

Covers change the tone, period. How much they change the tone is another matter. The thinner the better. Personally I don't think material has as much effect as the thickness.

Here's something you might want to try... it wont look "vintage" correct, but if you have a cover you hate the tone of, try it out and see...

Make a slit in the cover from the top end all the way down to the open part. You can make it anywhere.. front, back, on a side. The idea is to prevent the cover from running all around the coil. This becomes a shorted loop and will mess the tone up.

Give it a try and see what you get.

Here's a quick illustration. The second picture is from a Rowe patent from 1968 illustrating the same thing.

I cut the cover as the picture shows and it was a 100% improvement over not cutting it. The tone came back about 95% the highs are a little softer than without the cover but output is the same and I can live with it, this is the stewmac cover BTW.

I took another of the stewmac covers and used my dremel and ground all the way through and the cover is solid brass with chrome plating. The allparts seems to be the chrome plating, then a layer of copper looking stuff then nickel silver? The all parts cover with the cut in it was tonally like not even having it on, no difference at all between no cover and with the cover so I guess allparts has my vote as to what I will be getting, and stewmac covers in an emergency. Thanks again DS!!

[Zhangliqun]

What did you use to cut it?

[madialex]

What did you use to cut it?

Hi I just used the thin cutting wheel on the dremel, works like a champ and no rough edges. Just measure and draw a line in the dead center. I cut mine to about 1/8 from the top. If my camera worked i'd show a picture.

[ken]

One problem...

If you sell your pickups with your covers cut like this, you may be in violation of Rowe's patent. You might want to check on the status of this before you sell.

Ken

[Dave Kerr]

Prefaced by stating I'm in no way a patent lawyer, but a patent issued in 1968 shouldn't be a concern, should it?

[Joe Gwinn]

Prefaced by stating I'm in no way a patent lawyer, but a patent issued in 1968 shouldn't be a concern, should it?

The maximum run of a patent these days is twenty years after the date of filing (not granting, which is a few years later).

It used to be 17 years from date of grant, but there was too much trouble with people gaming the system, by delaying the approval process by various strategms for ten or twenty years, while some industry grew, and then when the patent finally issued, going around ant threatening to shut whole industries down if the new patent owner were not paid off. In those days, it took something like 3 years to get a patent, so Congress changed the rule to 17+3= 20 years after filing.

[ken]

It's not the original patent I was on about, but the reissued patent.

AFAIK Fender now owns Rowe/DeArmond, so it can't hurt to do some research and check up on the patent's status. Only takes a few minutes and can save your neck.

Seriously,
Ken

[David Schwab]

I cut the cover as the picture shows and it was a 100% improvement over not cutting it. The tone came back about 95% the highs are a little softer than without the cover but output is the same and I can live with it, this is the stewmac cover BTW.

Hey, cool! I never tried it myself. This is also why the Filter'tron pickups have the fronts cut out... more eddy current stuff.

Thanks again DS!!

Glad it worked! I'm still not convinced the material it's made out of makes as much a difference as the thickness, but I haven't done any experiments.

This should work with humbucker covers as well.