Strat pickup design I'd never seen before

[Euthymia]

Hi, I'm a longtime participant in other areas at this forum, and I've recently gotten into assembling parts guitars.

To learn more about guitar construction, I've been buying inexpensive Strats and copies thereof, taking them apart, modding them, reassembling, etc.

I'd not been a Strat player before getting into this construction/rescue Strat hobby a year or so ago.

One of the things I like about these cheapocasters is that they use a bar magnet and polepiece configuration, which seems to greatly reduce the dreaded string pull, or "stratitis."

The Cort/Mighty-Mite types as used on MIM Strats and some Affinities have two bar magnets, with the polepieces between them.

Most of the other cheapo pickups I encounter (Squier SE100) have a single bar magnet, with the polepieces' bottom ends touching the magnet.

So far, the best sounding ceramic Strat pickups I've encountered were the ones that came on a couple of Johnson Strat copies, the older ones with the plain arrow headstock (like a Costco "Starcaster").

When I first saw them, I did not have high hopes for them, as the plastic bobbins were really flimsy, and one of them was even dead when I got the guitar. But just to try them, I reinstalled them in the axe when I assembled it, and was blown away by how great they sound. Round, like a George Harrison "brrong" tone.

I took the dead one apart, and it looks like no other ceramic bar Strat pickup I'd seen.

As these photos show, the polepieces are shorter than I usually see, and the bar magnet actually sits inside the winding.

Here's the bottom with the cover removed:



Here's the top with one of the polepieces removed, and you can see that the polepiece is shorter than on the usual ceramic bar pickup:



Here's a side shot:



I'm posting here because I thought you folks might find this interesting.

I don't know much about pickup theory, but someone I was telling about it said that getting the magnet closer to the strings would surely have some effect, and having it inside the winding probably would, too.

The DC on them is pretty standard, in the neighborhood of 7.5K.

Anyone seen a cheapocaster pickup like this before? I'd love to buy a pile of them.

[David King]

How's the output compared to similar MIM pickups with the dual ceramic bars?

[Euthymia]

How's the output compared to similar MIM pickups with the dual ceramic bars?

Subjectively, I put some MIM pickups in the middle and neck positions, with one of these at the bridge, and they seemed comparable as far as output (given their positions). About what I would expect given the windings/DC. These might sound a little louder, but maybe that's because of the fuller tonal quality.

Oh, and something I didn't explicitly mention (it's obvious from the photos) is that the magnet is considerably smaller than the usual single bar across the bottom.

I guess what sets these apart from what I usually see is: smaller magnet, shorter polepieces (hence magnet closer to strings), and magnet embedded within winding.

[Stan H]

Less material, less cost I'd say.

[Euthymia]

Less material, less cost I'd say.

Funny how often that translates into something that sounds good, too.

[David King]

But that bobbin must have cost a bundle to set up for.

[spud1950]

Do these pickups have a metal baseplate with a hole in it that the lead wires comes out of? If so, they are out of a 60s -70s Japanese made Strat clone.A lot of different companies used them.

[Euthymia]

Do these pickups have a metal baseplate with a hole in it that the lead wires comes out of? If so, they are out of a 60s -70s Japanese made Strat clone.A lot of different companies used them.

Yes! They did have such a metal plate. I wound up modding the pickups by cutting the ends of the plate with the screw threads in them off and hot gluing them back on so that the mounting screws would still have something to grab.

The pickups were way, way microphonic, even after I wax dipped them (canning wax with 10% beeswax). I theorized that the metal plate was vibrating and inducing a voltage of its own.

Sure enough, removing most of the plate removed the howling.

I had these Johnsons pegged for no earlier than late '80's. Maybe they were using up some old pickups, or they were still in production, or maybe the guitars are earlier than I thought.

[spud1950]

I guess it's possible they were still being used in the 80s.The ones I've seen for sale on eBay stated that they were out of either 60s or 70s guitars.

[Sweetfinger]

Johnson didn't show up until the late 90's. They've used at least four different styles of single coil over the years, either from different factories, or new tooling. When you're going to be making over 100,000 pickups, the cost of tooling in China is probably not a big deal. I posted a similar thread on cheep-o pickups a while back. basically, if you know the sound you're looking for, and know what materials you have to work with(in this case, cheap), you can design a pretty good sounding pickup. Some times a metal baseplate has been used, but often not.

[JasonG]

I have one of those I got from a newer rouge lap steel. They are good but flimsy. I was going to try to modify some normal single bobbins to accept some smaller neo bar magnets. It seems like a better arrangement than gluing a magnet to the bottom of a pickup.

[madialex]

Looks like the pickups that came in the epiphone strat copy type guitar. I have seen a few in pawn shops, or at least I guess thats what they were unless someone put the Epi neck on some strat style guitar. I have had a few of those pickups