Need a recipe for this project

[Jim Shine]

I have an old Pedulla Orsini guitar I have been working on a long time. I want to make a set of humbuckers for it. It is mostly maple, so it has a somewhat bright, but full natural tone. I would like to play up on the phase switching. I would also like to keep it from being too bright. How should I approach this? I am a rewinder and do not generally scratch build. I would like to make an exception at least for this one.

What I am working with



What they typically look like with their Dimarzios

[copperheadroads]

Nice project
Depending on what kind of music you play ? ,but a hotter vintage style pickup might be just what your looking for
8.5k to 9k bridge A2 magnets
7.6 to 7.8k neck A2 magnets
& 250 k pots

[Jim Shine]

I play all sorts, but I tend to stick to PAF spec pickups. I know some pickups I have had in the past have done the out of phase thing better than others. I really want to focus on making that part of the set really stand out. Should I intentionally mismatch the coils to help induce this?

[LtKojak]

Jim, that's a 24-fretter. Is it a 25,5" or a 24,75" scale?

If I was you (if it was possible without damaging the truss bar, mind you), I'd fill the cavities and cut out the 23rd and 24th fret, so it becomes a 22-fretter, allowing you to place the neck p'up where God intended to. And no, I'm NOT out of my mind!

BTW, those cavities look HUGE... are you SURE a normal p'up ring will fit? The picture you provide show unusually large p'up rings for no reason... am I right?

Anyway, taking the infamous 5,000 turns of #42 AWG PE wire per bobbin as a start point, I'd underwind the neck p'up by 5-6% and overwind the bridge p'up by 10%, using 60-90TPL in the neck and 90-110 TPL in the bridge. Do not mismatch the coils, use a switch to invert the polarity of one p'up for the "out of phase" thing... which I particulary don't care for at all.

I'd use full-charged AlNiCo 2 for both p'ups or UnOriented A5 if the A2 it's not bright enough. CTS 500K Audio pots, .022 PIO caps, push-back braided wire to make the harness. You can get everything you need from Mojotone.com

HTH,

[Jim Shine]

I am with you 100% in the neck pickup placement! The neck pickup sounds with the adjustable poles under the harmonic node. I already had the board off this (the rod was broken). There is no chance of moving the pickup without weakening the neck joint.

I have the original, large wood rings (like you see in the picture). It was Pedulla's earliest days, they were still learning...lol.

So, the A2 magnet is pretty much all I need to tone down the brightness of the typical A5 PAF?

[fieldwrangler]

Jim, that's a 24-fretter. Is it a 25,5" or a 24,75" scale?

If I was you (if it was possible without damaging the truss bar, mind you), I'd fill the cavities and cut out the 23rd and 24th fret, so it becomes a 22-fretter, allowing you to place the neck p'up where God intended to. And no, I'm NOT out of my mind!

This is another one of those things I agree with wholeheartedly for my own guitars.

However, I've come to realize that for certain kinds of neck pickup distortion the farther-downscale placement works for some players.

Bob Palmieri

[imaradiostar]

-pretty much any early Tim Mahoney 311 neck-pickup solo demands a 24 fret instrument- there's something about that sound that really works.

Of course on a strat or most other instruments God intended the pickup to be at 24 and that's where it should stay!

I once had a chance to buy an off-brand copy guitar very similar to the one pictured and I'm mad that I didn't. It was a really solid instrument with an interesting tone. Oh well. Looking forward to hearing how this one sounds.

jamie

[David Schwab]

Works for Tony Iommi too. He pioneered 24 frets on all his custom guitars because he tunes lower.

Your early Sabbath days were a challenge when finding the right gear for you. You faced some obstacles trying to get a 24-fret guitar designed…

"That's right. Everybody said, 'You can't do 24 frets'. I approached a couple of the big companies but they didn't want to know, so that's why I got involved with [British luthier] John Birch in the early days. I put money into his company so that we could build the 24 fret guitars. John was a bit of a mad professor, but we did it.

"I wasn't bothered about patenting the guitar or anything because I just wanted it for me. As long as it worked for me, that was it, and if anybody else wanted to have one that was fine, too. Also, investing in the guitar company enabled me to try out new ideas. Like, 'let's make some new pickups, rewire this or that'. I could experiment. They'd wind me a pickup, I'd go and try it at a gig, then bring it back the next day and say, 'No, it was crap'. They'd wind another one and I'd try it at the next gig. It was a bit dodgy because I only had one guitar, but that's what we did back then."

I prefer the neck pickup where the 24th fret would be, but moving it up a little doesn't kill the tone.

[LtKojak]

I already had the board off this (the rod was broken). There is no chance of moving the pickup without weakening the neck joint.

Well, that's a shame. I thought it was a neck-through?

Ok, good luck with bringing Lazarus back to life!

[LtKojak]

I prefer the neck pickup where the 24th fret would be, but moving it up a little doesn't kill the tone.

It certainly does it for me... specially in a 25,5" scaled two-HBs when using both p'ups... it just doesn't sound the way it should for me.



This the one I've been trying to get it to sound right for a couple of years now to no avail. Next week I'm taking it to a local luthier to see if it'll be possible to move back the neck p'up without damaging the instrument. Stay tuned!

[Jim Shine]

It is neck through. However the body was designed for 24 frets. The treble side cutaway peaks at the 24th fret. The bass side comes close. Shifting the pickup route up would partially go through at the very least the treble side cutaway. Pedulla sculpted the heel and cutaways, so there isn't a lot of wood in back. You would be removing much of the wood in that area.

Speaking of pioneers. This guitar was made in 1975. There were not many options for 24 frets in those days. David Gilmour had that weird Lewis guitar with 24 frets in 1970. I wonder who the first company was to mass produce them?

[fieldwrangler]

This business of potentially optimizing for the out-of-phase sound is something I never really considered. It's such an idiosyncratic thing that one never really knows 'till one hears the result through various kind of clean & crunchy follow-up rigs.

However, I would think that having the two pickups imbalanced (either intrinsically or optionally) might be something to check out. And, since you don't seem to mind some loss of high end, maybe a pan pot would be a cool thing...

Bob Palmieri

[Jim Shine]

Those are my thoughts as well. That sound is not something I typically use. This guitar has a personal story going way back and I have plenty of the standard fare. I figured if I could make it do some things my other guitars don't do, it will have its own purpose as well as be a memento of the past.

Losing some high end would be okay for sure. Maybe the term I should use is I am looking to get a fatter standard tone with optimal out of phase options.

Some of the best out of phase sounds i have found came from mixed pickup configurations. Either a single coil and a humbucker, or two different humbuckers (brand and or/model). That is what was making me think about making them imbalanced. What if I went a step further and made them different polarities?

[David Schwab]

It was Pedulla's earliest days, they were still learning...lol.

This is only the second Pedulla guitar I have seen. The other was a Tele, which was the very first Pedulla I ever saw, even before the basses.

[Jim Shine]

I have seen maybe 6 over the years. But that was also up in the Northeast where the bulk of these were sold. 16 or so years ago I had a guy come into a store I worked at in Maine. His family owned the building Pedulla rented at some point down in Massachusetts. One day he brought in a guitar carcass that was left behind when they moved. It was the "Buzz Bass" shape. It was almost complete. The rounded edge and transitions on the back of the neck to body and headstock were incomplete. I completed that and it was a great guitar.

These ones with the ivoroid plaque with "scrimshaw" logo were really early and they did basses too. They were sold through EU Wurlitzer. I have been told most were sold to Berkley students.