Pickup mounting holes - threads

[lowell]

What the typical Gibson humbucker threading for the mounting holes on the metal pickup wings? Also what is the screw size please?

[copperheadroads]

3-48 is the standard size mostly used

[Rick Turner]

Yes, and could they have possible found a weirder thread for that? Must have gotten one hell of a deal on a truck load of screws that day... 4-40 or 6-32 would have been much more reasonable.

OH, let's talk about the influence of the screws on the magnetic field...

[copperheadroads]

sorry Rick I'm not that Deep into pickup making yet to comment
on how the mounting screws affect the field but i will be listening
i know 3-48 x 1" or longer are pretty hard to find other than pickup vendors

[Rick Turner]

Yeah, well, you'll have to have some 1958 screws analyzed and get a nice custom crucible batch of metal made to duplicate them or you just won't get the sound.

Or is it bragging rights?

[LtKojak]

Yeah, well, you'll have to have some 1958 screws analyzed and get a nice custom crucible batch of metal made to duplicate them or you just won't get the sound.

Or is it bragging rights?

As I don't see any emoticons here, I'll assume you're not being sarcastic here.

Although mounting screws are contained in the magnetic circuit, being connected to the baseplate, I think they're too far from the moving strigs to have any audible influence.

OTOH, polepiece screws are a key factor in the final outcome. Metal alloy composition, distance from the strings, head shape and protruding lenght in the back are all things to consider. I personally cut'em flush with the baseplate. Before any corksniffer stuff, the reasons which I do it are the following:

1. Got this tip from an old Japanese luthier that used to work in the Top-Of-The-Line instruments made in the Terada factory in the early '80s.
2. I'm a bit OCD and I like my magnetic circuit be as close to the alleged perfect horshoe shape as possible.

There you have it. Shoot!

[Rick Turner]

Yeah, well, a lot of kids didn't see the sarcasm in "Spinal Tap" either, but it was there.

Look, I know full well that any change at all that you make in a pickup design changes "the sound", but I'm also reading a lot of overblown bullshit here on this forum. I'm reading stuff that would assess tone totally to pickups and ignore the most significant contributor to tone...the player's hands.

It's really plain to me that very few of you have spent much time in retail guitar repair. I was fortunate to be the head of the guitar repair department at Westwood Music in LA between 1989 and '91, I had the opportunity to be there in the back room and hear significant musicians play any guitars they picked up plugged into whatever amp was handy. I could easily tell within three notes whether Richard Thompson, Ry Cooder, David Lindley, Dean Parks, Jerry Donahue, or a number of other guitar players was "in the house" without seeing them, without knowing what guitar they'd just happened to pick up, without knowing what amp they'd plugged into. Their personalities came out of their fingers...not the pickup(s) in whatever fucking guitar it was that they happened to pick up. I could tell within three notes who was outside my door. And it wasn't a pickup maker...

There's too much ego in this pickup biz. We're NOT the center of tone.

Sorry, guys (and you pretty much all are males here). It's not about you. It's about the guitar players... All we can do is help.

[LtKojak]

I'm also reading a lot of overblown bullshit here on this forum.

You should go to the My Les Paul forum... you're in for a treat!

[Rick Turner]

I knew Les.

I don't need to go to a forum to get the bullshit!

[David Schwab]

I personally cut'em flush with the baseplate. Before any corksniffer stuff, the reasons which I do it are the following...

I do as well. If you take a reading of the strength of the magnetic field at the screw before and after you cut it, you will see it's weaker with the screw sticking out the back, which makes perfect sense. I think they sound better cut flush. Even Seth Lover didn't want the screws sticking out the back.

[David Schwab]

I'm reading stuff that would assess tone totally to pickups and ignore the most significant contributor to tone...the player's hands.

All you need to do is play with a few different musicians to see this is true. As you are learning to play, you find subtle things that get certain tones that you like. Might be the way you hold your pick, or where you pluck on the strings, etc. Even things with the fretting hand.

I get a kick out of hearing other musicians playing my personal instruments. They sound nothing like I do when I play them. I had one very good bass player I have had as a customer for almost 20 years. He has a nice Pedulla MVP with Barts, and I had a bass I built with my pickups. They sounded like night and day... my bass was louder and brighter. Then we swapped.. and he sounded almost exactly like he did on the Pedulla, and vice versa! There was a difference between the basses, but the big difference was the players. I still sounded like me playing his bass, and he got the deep mellow tone he gets from his bass on my bass. Part of it was I pluck the strings much harder and differently.

Same thing happens when I bring guitars to band rehearsals so I can hear some prototype pickups played by people other than me.

However... you can be your own gauge on the sound of pickups. Since you will always sound the same, you can evaluate the difference between pickups.

So pickups and guitar play part, and the players do the rest. The instrument is the colors on the palette and the player paints the picture. With the same colors you can have very different paintings.

The way I got into this was as a player. I wasn't happy with the basses I had, and had other ideas. So I made my own basses. Then after using EMGs for 10 years I decided I was missing certain things that I knew the bass was doing acoustically ... I wanted more lows from the bridge pickup, and a rounder tone from the neck. So using my own bass and my own playing, I designed new pickups to make the bass sound like the bass, and not the pickups.

I've made some very ugly sounding pickups along the way! So a bad pickup can ruin a good instrument.

[JGundry]

Yeah, well, a lot of kids didn't see the sarcasm in "Spinal Tap" either, but it was there.

Look, I know full well that any change at all that you make in a pickup design changes "the sound", but I'm also reading a lot of overblown bullshit here on this forum. I'm reading stuff that would assess tone totally to pickups and ignore the most significant contributor to tone...the player's hands.

It's really plain to me that very few of you have spent much time in retail guitar repair. I was fortunate to be the head of the guitar repair department at Westwood Music in LA between 1989 and '91, I had the opportunity to be there in the back room and hear significant musicians play any guitars they picked up plugged into whatever amp was handy. I could easily tell within three notes whether Richard Thompson, Ry Cooder, David Lindley, Dean Parks, Jerry Donahue, or a number of other guitar players was "in the house" without seeing them, without knowing what guitar they'd just happened to pick up, without knowing what amp they'd plugged into. Their personalities came out of their fingers...not the pickup(s) in whatever fucking guitar it was that they happened to pick up. I could tell within three notes who was outside my door. And it wasn't a pickup maker...

There's too much ego in this pickup biz. We're NOT the center of tone.

Sorry, guys (and you pretty much all are males here). It's not about you. It's about the guitar players... All we can do is help.

Rick I hate to say this because I think it will look like I'm itching for a fight with you but that is not the case.

The gear, pickups, guitar can make a huge difference with the tone of an individual guitar player and Lindsey Buckingham is a pretty good example. I don't think I'm the only one that hears a major difference in the tone between the Les Paul Custom and your model one guitar. Personally I long for the singing leads he got from the Les Paul Custom. The Model one may be what he likes now but to my ears the bite is gone and the tone sounds rubbery and lacking in the rock and roll edge that made his Les Paul tone so cool. Clearly Buckingham has the chops but the current gear does not deliver what I used to like about his tone. Clearly he is getting what he wants which is what matters to him. But tonally the difference seems a huge contrast between the two. Just an FYI I have played your Model One and actually really like if for the kind of tone it can deliver.

I love the fact that people want to come up with new designs to get the tone they want. Personally I love to recreate a classic design to the best of my ability. In the case of a PAF it may mean getting pole screws made of a specific alloy. It might seem like a silly venture but tonally it has a real impact so it is well worth the effort IMO.

[Rick Turner]

Can you point me directly to the LB "Les Paul" sound you like?

I can tell you that if it's his work on Rumours that you are talking about, that might not be the guitar you think it was!

Much of the lead work on that album was on a Strat with a Stratoblaster cranked up to 12 dB of boost into a HiWatt amp. Well, three HiWatt amps because he blew one up every night.

[copperheadroads]

Yes, and could they have possible found a weirder thread for that? Must have gotten one hell of a deal on a truck load of screws that day... 4-40 or 6-32 would have been much more reasonable.

OH, let's talk about the influence of the screws on the magnetic field...

the reason i did not comment on screws affecting the magnetic field was , i thought we were talking about humbucker height screws not pole screws thats what this thread was started about, but that is a great topic
i have only tested screws that i can buy from in the US mojo,stewmac,jones,allparts,mf,addiction fx ,....... so if any of the tru PAF winders JGundry,Possum,Spence (i apologize if i excluded anybody ) ....... WANT TO SEND ME A SET OF SCREWS THAT THEY USE IN THERE PAF i would certainly pay them for there troubles

[JGundry]

Can you point me directly to the LB "Les Paul" sound you like?

I can tell you that if it's his work on Rumours that you are talking about, that might not be the guitar you think it was!

Much of the lead work on that album was on a Strat with a Stratoblaster cranked up to 12 dB of boost into a HiWatt amp. Well, three HiWatt amps because he blew one up every night.

I'm sure you have the credits when it comes to knowing the details of recordings etc.. But these two clips which both appear to be live recordings show the tonal difference that I was talking about.