Opinions on HIGH OHMAGE, UFO's and conspiracies.....

[Possum]

Well just high ohm pickups, screw the rest of it you already got a thread running for that :-)

I'm going to venture into the shocking world of multi-poundage, high voltage, dangerously threatening, high output pickups. And I'm a blues guy.

So what are the most famous best sounding meat pounders in history? Super Distortions etc.? I got a pair of original Dirty Fingers pickups from the 80s and back engineering them, they actually sound kinda good which surprises me. OK, let the thread begin......

[David Schwab]

Dave, we never got into UFO's in that thread! (yet)

I had a set of Dirty Fingers too (with the covers... thank you), and they were great sounding pickups. I actually should have kept them but they were a bit noisy. I got spoiled using some old EMG's in my recording guitar at the time...

Did you un-encapsulate them? Judging from other Stich designs, I bet he's using really thin wire and big ass ceramic magnets!

The old SDHB aren't bad sounding pickups, even if they are a bit dated.

I think you will come up with a great sounding high output pickup...

[soundmasterg]

Seymour Duncan Full Shred and JB come to mind. I have one of each for the bridge position, and a Full Shred neck pickup if you want to see Dave. JB is around 16k and Full Shred bridge is around 14.5k, and Full Shred neck is around 8k I think. Rickenbacker's humbuckers using the samarium cobalt magnets are another good choice as they're quite high gain. I have two of those you can look at if you need to see them again. The Duncan line has a bunch of other high gain offerings, as does the Dimarzio line. I've never used a Dimarzio pickup though so can't help you there. You should go for something different anyway. Make a really hot DeArmond Dynasonic or something.....call it the Flaming Sonic Assault pickup. When you hear it, flames shoot out of your ears!

Greg

[R Walker]

High Output pickups rawk!! I dunno know about winding UFO's. Would be worth a shot though. Better get a patent on it before Dimarzio does. I can just see it now UFO special "relective" bobbins. No really they aren't mirrored or chrome, they are special "relective" bobbins.


sorry...im really bored....

[Possum]

Stich????

What does Stich have to do with Dirty Fingers? These are Gibson pickups, they're not encapsulated, I don't think they ever had covers, not sure will have to look for solder marks. They have 3 ceramic magnets and no keepers and each coil has copper foil around them.....

[Possum]

no covers....

These never had covers, open double black, though I've seen double whites on Ebay.....

Full Shred pickups sound like Greg Simon, be warned...

[Possum]

no Stich....

Go to Ebay and search item #120114294078 you can see the 3 magnets, it has the specs from Gibson and these are rare double whites....

[Sweetfinger]

Can o' worms....

well....what KIND of high gain are we talkin'-
there's old school beef: Duncan JB, DM Super Distortion

There's real head clobbering brutes with no subtlety: Duncan Distortion, Duncan Invader, DM X2N

There's way overwound smoothness, like a Carvin M22SD, Lawrence 500

There's more modern designs that try to keep big lows and big highs plus big output like DiMarzio Steve's Special, Bartolinis.

There's mid boosted designs like the DiMarzio FRED, EMG 81, or the Grand poobah of the big pig pokers- the Seymour Duncan 18 volt Live Wire Heavy Metal Humbucker, which can be simulated by taking any of the OTHER pickups mentioned, running them through a light compressor with a large gain boost, and running THAT signal through a parametric EQ set for a huge boost in the low mids.

Basically, knowing your customer will tell you what flavor of high gain you'll be shooting for. Do they dig Black Sabbath, or Ratt, or Steve Vai, or Joe Satriani, or Zakk Wylde? Are they planning on assaulting an old plexi, BF Fender, Rivera, Krank, Bogner, or boutique master vol. amp?

The general populace seemingly can't get enough of the EMG 81. It might be a useful exercise to try and duplicate some of the frequency response of that pickup in a passive design with...um..tone. ahem. Then again, maybe THAT'S the secret! In the Duncan line, it would probably be useful to deconstruct a JB, a Distortion, and a Custom. In the DiMarzio line it would be of use to deconstruct a Super Distortion and compare it to a Steve's Special and a FRED. The latter two are covered by patent # 4.501.185, so you don't step on any toes. If you can get your hands on a Birch or maybe easier- the Gibbo Tony Iommi model, they would also be enlightening...if you can crack 'em open without a plasma blaster.

[Joe Gwinn]

In the DiMarzio line it would be of use to deconstruct a Super Distortion and compare it to a Steve's Special and a FRED. The latter two are covered by patent # 4.501.185, so you don't step on any toes.

That patent expired in 2003, so anyone can use whatever is in that patent.

[Arthur B.]

I have a soft spot for the Invader. It's sort of like Hooters; delightfully tacky yet unrefined, and always manages to leave me with a smile.

[David Schwab]

What does Stich have to do with Dirty Fingers? These are Gibson pickups, they're not encapsulated, I don't think they ever had covers, not sure will have to look for solder marks. They have 3 ceramic magnets and no keepers and each coil has copper foil around them.....

Stich designed the original DirtyFingers and SuperHumbuckers. The SH's were designed for the L-6S for Santana. He designed a lot of pickups for Gibson, and his name is on the patents.

The original DirtyFingers had covers and were encapsulated. The difference between the DF and SH's were the SH's didn't have adjustable poles, and the DF's are wound hotter. I'm sure there's other differences also. The DF's had an extra conductor for coil splitting. The set I had was from a 1984 Gibson ES-347, which was one of the guitars offered with them as standard.

Then they made them without covers, and of course the reissues don't have covers.

Here's the set I had, and the model guitar they came out of. These read 16K, so that establishes them as Dirty Fingers.

[David Schwab]

The general populace seemingly can't get enough of the EMG 81. It might be a useful exercise to try and duplicate some of the frequency response of that pickup in a passive design with...um..tone. ahem. Then again, maybe THAT'S the secret!

They are pretty good sounding pickups actually. And the 58, which they only make on custom order now.

They really are just passive over wound humbuckers with a preamp to goose the top end a bit. Very compressed sounding too, which makes some people think they can play smoother!

[soundmasterg]

Possum's got a long history with EMG so I bet he already knows to run away from them! Of course if thats the sound your customers want then I guess you need to join the crowd and make something like that.

I like Duncan's JB, and the Full Shred is pretty cool too. They both use A5 magnets and just a hot wind, but I've never had them apart so I don't know what they did inside. Full Shred is what Heart used supposedly.

[David Schwab]

Possum's got a long history with EMG so I bet he already knows to run away from them! Of course if thats the sound your customers want then I guess you need to join the crowd and make something like that.

Oh I run away from them too! But I used an awful lot of them over the years. I never thought much of them until I worked at American Showster. The EMG's were a big part of the sound of the Chevy guitars.

Now I think they are very contrived sounding.

I like Duncan pickups a lot. I've never heard one I didn't like. Possum's got some great sounding pickups too (judging from the sound clips). I'd actually buy some, and that's saying a lot.

[Sweetfinger]

The original DirtyFingers had covers and were encapsulated.

The DF's had an extra conductor for coil splitting.

Here's the set I had, and the model guitar they came out of. These read 16K, so that establishes them as Dirty Fingers.

No, no, and no. Dave and I went around and around on this a while back on another thread. While Dave's pickups ARE essentially a Dirty Fingers encapsulated under a cover, Gibson had another name for them which escapes me at the moment- I remember recently reading an article recently where the name was mentioned, but I think the particular brain cell remembering that fact might have been culled from the herd last weekend Anyhoo....every shred of credible evidence I have ever seen(which includes examining a lot of original Gibson guitars and pickups from that time period), backs my assertion that the original DF pickups were T-Tops WITHOUT covers and most did not have coil taps. FWIW, a great many models of gibson electrics in the late 70's were spec'd with "Super Humbucking" pickups with adjustable poles:

http://www.vintageguitars.org.uk/gib78p8.php