8-coil pickup done and tested

[Marko Ursin]

Just ouf of my garage, my first ever bass pickup.

I potted the coils this morning, soldered the thing together and put Alnico 5 magnet rods on to their places. I taped it to my bass on to Music Man pickup position and recorded some sound samples of it (straight to Boss MicroBR, no effects or tone shaping). Please excuse the poor playing as the setup was all but player friendly.
http://maihinnousu.net/s/7820
When I compared the sound to the EMG I have on the bass this one was way, way clearer sounding than EMG. I have to say that I'm more than satisfied how this pickup turned out. There is quite a lot of noise coming out too, but there was no shielding on the pickup or the wires.
Please comment the sound, how do you like it? I'm going to make Anderton Super tone control and use it as a tone control for this pickup.
Marko

[David Schwab]

Sounds great! You did a great job on the pickup.

That's a nice looking bass... what is it?

[belwar]

+1! Great job.

Can you take a picture of the underside of your pickup?

[Marko Ursin]

Thanks for your comments. The more I listen to the sound clip the more I like the clear and to my ears open sound of the pickup. Here's a pic of the underside. With four leads I can make parallel/series switch if I wish or then I just solder it to series.
The bass is a headless Moses graphite-necked made by me. I machined the tuner/bridge out of brass and blackened it. It has alder/ovanque body.
Marko

[David Schwab]

The original Bartolini Hi-A pickups had multiple coils. You do get a clearer tone that way.

You do nice work. You NEED to put your own pickup on that bass since you made most of it!

[Marko Ursin]

That's my plan after I get the MM covers. Then I'm planning to do a pair of these pickups for a Wal-inspired bass.
Marko

[Stealth]

Nice work, there, I'm really impressed by the tone, there's a great amount of sparkle there. Are the coil rows wired in series or parallel for this soundclip?

By the way, you wouldn't be MPU from Talkbass, would you?

[jetcode]

that is a clear and balanced sound with a nice mild sparkle across the spectrum ... nice work ... so when can we get them?

[Marko Ursin]

Nice work, there, I'm really impressed by the tone, there's a great amount of sparkle there. Are the coil rows wired in series or parallel for this soundclip?

By the way, you wouldn't be MPU from Talkbass, would you?

Hi,
thanks for the comments.
It's me, MPU from Talkbass. The rows are in series. At the moment I'm winding 16 more coils to make two of these pickups. The prototype goes to a friend who has helped me with the circuit board and machining of brass parts needed in various basses.
Marko

[Evilbiker]

Sounds really great and looks very good!

[Marko Ursin]

Another 8 coils wound and 8 more to go. About shielding; how should I shield this pickup to get rid of the noise? I guess humbucking removes part of it but not all. Copper foil inside the cover or in the cavity? Some sort of grounding beside the pickup ground?
About modifying these coils to blade style pickup; is it just as simple as putting a steel blade over the top of each rows of Alnico rods? How much would you expect change in sound?
Marko

[Dave Kerr]

For shielding, I've used fine brass mesh, found it at an art supply shop (Blick, maybe? I forget) and soldered it to the drain of the shielded wire I use for hookup.

[David Schwab]

For shielding, I've used fine brass mesh, found it at an art supply shop (Blick, maybe? I forget) and soldered it to the drain of the shielded wire I use for hookup.

I do the same thing. I got that idea from opening an EMG SA.

It's also a good idea to ground the magnets. You can do that with the copper foil tape Stew-Mac sells, which has conductive adhesive.

[Marko Ursin]

Thanks for the tips once again. How about the blades? Of course the best way to find out the differences in sound is to try the pickup with steel blades on top of the magnet rows. Anything special I should look for in the steel used on the blades?
Marko

[Dave Kerr]

I do the same thing.

Now that you mention it, it's very likely I cadged the idea from you