Here they are

[David Schwab]

Doesn't surprise me; I think we hear the Big Picture of this pickup thing in similar ways. Transferring those basic voices that you have going on that axe to the sidewinder format will very likely make you very happy.

I've been making some neodymium sidewinders in humbucker cases for Les Paul basses. I stuck one of the neck pickups over my guitar strings and thought it sounded pretty good. I'm way too busy at the moment to make myself a set to try in my guitar, but I'll get to it soon. I also have some EMG style strat covers that I'm building sidewinders in.

In an odd circular kind of irony, I got a job in where I'm rebuilding a guy's Gibson SG bass neck pickup. If you haven't seen one of these, they look like an EB-0 mudbucker, but on the inside are two mini humbucker coils with ceramic magnets, and in the middle is this aluminum thing that holds fake pole screws. Between the big chunk of aluminum, and the fact that they appear to have the blades in upside-down in the mini bobbins, which places them 1/8" away from the cover, it's a lame sounding pickup. So I rebuilt it as a sidewinder, complete with adjustable poles, and neo magnets. So now it's a mini version of a mudbucker.

[fieldwrangler]

I've been making some neodymium sidewinders in humbucker cases for Les Paul basses. I stuck one of the neck pickups over my guitar strings and thought it sounded pretty good. I'm way too busy at the moment to make myself a set to try in my guitar, but I'll get to it soon. I also have some EMG style strat covers that I'm building sidewinders in.

In an odd circular kind of irony, I got a job in where I'm rebuilding a guy's Gibson SG bass neck pickup. If you haven't seen one of these, they look like an EB-0 mudbucker, but on the inside are two mini humbucker coils with ceramic magnets, and in the middle is this aluminum thing that holds fake pole screws. Between the big chunk of aluminum, and the fact that they appear to have the blades in upside-down in the mini bobbins, which places them 1/8" away from the cover, it's a lame sounding pickup. So I rebuilt it as a sidewinder, complete with adjustable poles, and neo magnets. So now it's a mini version of a mudbucker.

Haven't seen the pickups themselves but did have some moments of astonishment & disbelief when I saw some pictures of the insides of them things posted here.
Seriously, if there was a way to license your version to Gibson it would really be for the Common Good.

Bob Palmieri

[StarryNight]

I'm inspired by the tone and the playing. Really nice! There seems to be a bright-mid thing happening like a P90 but without the boomyness. Can I ask what amp was used for the recordings?

[fieldwrangler]

I'm inspired by the tone and the playing. Really nice! There seems to be a bright-mid thing happening like a P90 but without the boomyness. Can I ask what amp was used for the recordings?

P-90's were the closest thing in terms of a stock pickup to something that "felt' right to me in terms of this response business.

I used 3 amps. The "crunchy" one is a Mk I Boogie (sort of an over-built blackface Bassman with the channels in series, although I was only using 1 of the preamp channels) with a Boogie V-Twin pedal (basically a high-voltage 4-stage tube preamp in an external box) with a bit of delay through a Carvin 2-12 cabinet.

"Cleanish" was my main amp (a 50 watt tube amp with 2-El-34's and some cute voicing options in a lightweight toaster-size enclosure that I built 20 years ago) through the Carvin cab.

"Schmutzified" is a Yamaha multi-effects unit, ironically played through my '59 Tweed Deluxe w/Celestion Blue speaker (which rarely has anything between the guitar & the input jack.)

Bob Palmieri

[David Schwab]

Haven't seen the pickups themselves but did have some moments of astonishment & disbelief when I saw some pictures of the insides of them things posted here.
Seriously, if there was a way to license your version to Gibson it would really be for the Common Good.

I think the question why they would make such a thing. I mean I basically made an updated version of the original mudbucker, just with smaller bobbins and not wound the same. Another weird one is the Epi EB-0, which has the mudbucker wound with like 36 AWG wire. It actually sounds kind of cool, but some people want the original tone.

I doubt Gibson would license anything from anyone. They seem to have their own crazy ideas about guitars.

[Steve Conner]

Well, those clips sound pretty good!

There were a lot of other nice tonal choices made in terms of amps and effects, and playing style, so I'm not sure how much credit to give to the pickups. But I do like the jazzy, P90 type of sound more than, say, an overwound humbucker.

My all time favourite guitar tone is Wes Montgomery's, but I think that has more to do with him using his thumb instead of a pick, than whether he had P90s or humbuckers. What kind of pick did you use, Bob?

[Mike Sulzer]

Well done Bob. You have made pickups that keep all the significant sound of the strings without getting too thin sounding; pickups that give you an immediate feedback for your playing in a natural environment but also with a sound the audience can relate too. (I am basing these comments on the cleanish recording which reveals their sound best for me.)

Where did you pickup that sound engineer troll guy? Does somebody actually employ him?

... some sound clips from the new pickups:

Bob P Pickups Cleanish II by Bob Palmieri on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

Bob P PIckups Crunchy II by Bob Palmieri on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

Bob P Pickups Schmutzified by Bob Palmieri on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

I could apologize for any number of things regarding these samples, but fundamentally this represents what I've finally settled on as the best electric guitar pickups I've ever played, for me.

Bob Palmieri

[fieldwrangler]

You have made pickups that keep all the significant sound of the strings without getting too thin sounding; pickups that give you an immediate feedback for your playing in a natural environment but also with a sound the audience can relate to.

I can't tell you how gratifying it is that you can hear that aspect; it was another balancing act that guided a lot of decisions. A related metaphor for me was the idea of the "point" & the "pad" of the note (ok... I realize that a less flakey way to designate these things would be "attack" & "sustain" but for some reason I was thinking in these other terms.) I wanted the "point" to meld into the "pad" in a graceful way, which is another thing that The Usual Suspects in the pickup world didn't quite do for me.

Where did you pickup that sound engineer troll guy? Does somebody actually employ him?

Actually I'll admit that he's one of my favorite engineers, who's up for a Grammy for a really difficult recording he did this year at the old Capitol Records studio; live recording of full orchestra with rhythm section & the singer all in the same room.

However, this does point to an issue that I've run across in various contexts in which there are people who want you to provide a Part that they can readily fit in with other Parts (arrangers also have this orientation.) My aim was to do what I could to reflect the experience of plugging the guitar into an amp and just playing, and (what I consider to be) a bit of the room is part of the experience.

Bob Palmieri

[fieldwrangler]

My all time favourite guitar tone is Wes Montgomery's, but I think that has more to do with him using his thumb instead of a pick, than whether he had P90s or humbuckers. What kind of pick did you use, Bob?

In fact Wes' thing really point up how bright a "warm" sound can be. If you see pictures of him you realize that in addition to the fleshy material that contacts the string he really seems to influence the initial string deflection in the "towards & away" plane.

Actually this business of the Peskey Plectrum's influence on sound is one of those things that really holds my attention at times. Tomorrow night I'm playing a live gig in Northwest Indiana where I'm planning on using heavy flatwound strings on one of my Melody Makers (a '62) and The Thumb may well be deployed for some of it (it's a warm-o Modern Brazilian kindof thing.)

'Course, last night I played a loud live gig in Chicago (at the Park West) in which I just couldn't imagine being able to find a way to thumb anything if you paid me.

Bob Palmieri

[David Schwab]

Actually this business of the Peskey Plectrum's influence on sound is one of those things that really holds my attention at times.

That's really true. I try all kinds of picks because of the tone, as well as the feel. I mostly use a pick when playing guitar, but now I do 50/50 when playing bass. I used to exclusively use a pick on bass, being from the prog rock school of playing (as well as Sir Paul), but got really sensitive about the tone I was getting, so I switched to my fingers back in the late 80s at the same time I got a 5 string.

Reminds me when Monk Montgomery had to stop playing bass with his thumb. He had to start using a pick, and didn't like the tone, so he had rubber coated picks made for him. He called them the bionic thumb!

Now I mostly use the purple Tortex picks. I like they way they sound also. Not too clicky. I also have some old Carol Kaye picks that I find myself using with guitar lately. I used to use them for bass when I first started playing, and then she sent me a bunch about 15 years ago.