Ovation Breadwinner electronics "upgrade"

[glebert]

I have a 70's Ovation Breadwinner that has low impedance pickups (~3k IIRC) and a FET preamp circuit. The FET preamp isn't working. No one seems to rave about the sounds from these guitars. I was planning on just replacing the pickups with something else (which requires a custom pickguard since the original pickups are monstrous). Now I'm thinking about trying the original pickups with some sort of off the shelf preamp. Anyone have experience doing this? Don't know if it is worth the effort if the pickups are "meh" anyway.

If I do replace the pickups I was planning on putting in a single Seymour Duncan Phat Cat (because I have one lying around). I would have to route the body to mount it in the sweet spot, so would probably put it in bridge position, but am open to other opinions as well.

edit: all of the video demos I find are for Breadwinners with mini-humbuckers, not the low impedance (torroidal?) pickups.

[Helmholtz]

About "toroidal" PUs (the design looks very primitive and inefficient): https://music-electronics-forum.com/...ars#post9691

This might give some modding idea: https://reverb.com/de/item/41687833-ovation-breadwinner

But what about repairing the Fet preamp?
Or replace PUs with nice PAF style humbuckers?

[glebert]

About "toroidal" PUs (the design looks very primitive and inefficient): https://music-electronics-forum.com/...ars#post9691

This might give some modding idea: https://reverb.com/de/item/41687833-ovation-breadwinner

But what about repairing the Fet preamp?
Or replace PUs with nice PAF style humbuckers?

Repairing the FET preamp is probably possible, and I will likely do it at some point anyway just so I could "put it back to stock" if I wanted, but as you observed, it is primitive and inefficient and seemed to not impress anyone. I guess keeping the stock pickups, preamp, and pickguard all as one "set" makes sense and then doing an alternative "set" of whatever I want. I have a couple of pickguard blanks cut out, so I can try a few things for pickup options. I probably wouldn't do PAF just because it seems like a unique guitar should have unique electronics.

edit: Dang it, now I'm thinking about a Rick-O-Sound approach with humbucker in bridge and Phat Cat P90 in neck. I have been really liking a Sano accordion amp for guitar lately and it has a "stereo" input that I've never been able to really utilize for anything. I need to make myself just jump in and do something and stop thinking about it.

[glebert]

I had forgotten about this video, which I think started me down the "change the electronics" route in the first place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw6FpK2qvyo

[Mick Bailey]

I wonder what the guitar originally sounded like when new? Presumably the Ovation engineers were happy with the design at the time, and had player-tested the guitar. I'd want to get all the electronics working and ensure any electrolytics hadn't dried out. Evaluating an active guitar 50 years on and expecting everything to sound as it did may give misleading results.

Despite the out of phase pickups, this can be a useful sound depending on the guitar and degree of phase cancellation.

This reminds me of a 70s Yamaha guitar I had that came with the original pickups and electronics in a bag. The owner said the sound was crap and had replaced the pickups in the 80s. This was also the theme of some of the online comments I read. After decided to reinstate it as per original spec and do a refret, a customer called in to drop off some repair work and asked to have a go through my '61 Ampeg Reverberocket. I was astonished at the sound and dearly wish I'd recorded that 5 minutes. I've rarely heard a guitar/amp combo sound so good. I think with any guitar, however 'bad' sounding, there's a place for it.

[Chuck H]

Indeed! It's a popular MO with guys that collect guitars and amps to pair them up. ie: "This guitar goes with that amp and this guitar goes with that other amp." etc. I've never had enough of either at any time to play this game but it seems fun and makes perfect sense. Just like finding the right speaker for any amp can take three swaps.