Anybody see the new Stew Mac humbuckers?

[David Schwab]

Nice to have you drop in here Joe, welcome to the forum.

[Joe Naylor]

Thanks David!

[David King]

Joe,
Thanks for dropping by.
My question is whether there is a wider gap between the inside of the coil and blade than there is between the coil and poles? Do you think this airgap alters the tone in and of itself?

[Mike Sulzer]

The design works as described.

I think they are nice looking pickups and they look very well made! I like the attention to detail, such as getting the relative volumes of the D and G strings right. That one picture on the "More" page shows quite a bit about what you are doing,... the slug with a bit of a head to get the wider field close up without too much field strength, the spacer to get contact with the blade and keep it on the same center as the slugs. You have not shown how high up that spacer goes, a key element of the design, I would imagine, since it would affect the balance of the field strength between the slugs and blade.

The decrease of the level of string harmonics in a humbucker, largest on the low E string since the most number of harmonics fit into the bandwidth of the system, decreasing to a small effect on the high E, is a result of having the two sets of poles from the the two coils. It is kind of comb filter where you get a series of nulls where maybe two or three matter on the low E string, and the overall highs go down too from the pole diameter, at least a bit. Using narrow blades narrows the attenuated frequency range around the nulls. You cannot get rid of the effect completely this way, but you can affect it some. As you say, it is still a humbucker, but there are some more highs.

I think I hear things differently on the plain strings. I hear the G string as fat and the high E as thin with the B in between. (The wound strings versus the plain strings are just very different sounds to me with fat and thin insufficient to describe it.) So I would like to figure out how to make the high E fatter with respect to the G and B. I do not think you can make much difference with the poles on the high E, though.

[David King]

This photo answered my question. I like it.

[Joe Naylor]

Joe, Thanks for dropping by. My question is whether there is a wider gap between the inside of the coil and blade than there is between the coil and poles? Do you think this airgap alters the tone in and of itself?

Yes, there's a wider gap at the blade, as the shape of the coil is the same as a standard humbucker.

The air gap definitely has no negative effect in this design, the wound strings are very lively and punchy. Of course, everything has some effect, I'm just not exactly sure what the gap imparts tonally. I honestly wasn't focused on that aspect, because it presented no problem in play testing. I was also aware that Bill Lawrence already successfully used a similar configuration in the L500.

[Joe Naylor]

I think they are nice looking pickups and they look very well made! I like the attention to detail, such as getting the relative volumes of the D and G strings right. That one picture on the "More" page shows quite a bit about what you are doing,... the slug with a bit of a head to get the wider field close up without too much field strength, the spacer to get contact with the blade and keep it on the same center as the slugs. You have not shown how high up that spacer goes, a key element of the design, I would imagine, since it would affect the balance of the field strength between the slugs and blade.

The decrease of the level of string harmonics in a humbucker, largest on the low E string since the most number of harmonics fit into the bandwidth of the system, decreasing to a small effect on the high E, is a result of having the two sets of poles from the the two coils. It is kind of comb filter where you get a series of nulls where maybe two or three matter on the low E string, and the overall highs go down too from the pole diameter, at least a bit. Using narrow blades narrows the attenuated frequency range around the nulls. You cannot get rid of the effect completely this way, but you can affect it some. As you say, it is still a humbucker, but there are some more highs.

I think I hear things differently on the plain strings. I hear the G string as fat and the high E as thin with the B in between. (The wound strings versus the plain strings are just very different sounds to me with fat and thin insufficient to describe it.) So I would like to figure out how to make the high E fatter with respect to the G and B. I do not think you can make much difference with the poles on the high E, though.

Thanks Mike! Yes, the spacer keeps the blades centered, which allows me to use a standard size magnet. The spacer is only the same height as the magnet, it does not extend into the bobbin. The blade and bobbin are both well coupled to the magnet, making for an efficient magnetic structure, and in play tests I noticed approx. 10% more volume when compared to the same pickup with standard polepieces.

Interesting analysis. The interesting thing about the Railhammer is that the wound strings aren't really brighter sounding, there's plenty of bass, it's just very focused. The fundamental note is defined without a lot of 'hair' around it. This effect may be the "attenuated frequency range around the nulls" you speak of.

I've never attempted to fatten up the high E relative to the G and B. But I suspect you could make a difference with wider poles, or maybe different pole materials?... there's only one way to find out!

[LtKojak]

This photo answered my question. I like it. [ATTACH=CONFIG]20024[/ATTACH]

Neat and clever design, smart realisation of the bobbins, and the spacer idea is so disarmingly simple, yet so effective in the mechanic coupling.

I'm impressed! It's one of those things that makes you say "how didn't *I* think of this before?".

Kudos for bring it to the market. I hope it'll fare well. IME, guitarists are incredibly dismissive when something new just doesn't "look right".

[Stratz]

IME, guitarists are incredibly dismissive when something new just doesn't "look right".

Yup, guitarists are picky. Today vintage is all the rage but 30 years ago the Railhammer probably would have been the hot ticket no matter how they sounded.

[Joe Naylor]

I hope it'll fare well. IME, guitarists are incredibly dismissive when something new just doesn't "look right".

Yes, the guitar market is surprisingly traditional. But that's ok, I expected it, and I've been through it before. Fortunately, the pickup works well and does something unique that you can't find elsewhere. So the performance is there, it will just take some time for players to accept the appearance.

IME, players will often change their view on the aesthetic if they discover the performance to be desirable, or if players they respect are using the product, or even if they just see it enough times. Several products come to mind that were considered suspicious when they were first introduced, and eventually became accepted standards for segments of the market: Floyd Rose trems, EMG pickups, locking tuners, graphite nuts, tall jumbo frets... even the mighty Les Paul was discontinued once before becoming an icon, and when the Flying V and Explorer were first introduced, they couldn't give 'em away. Yeah, this is a tough industry! But man, is it fun.

[Mike Sulzer]

Yes, the guitar market is surprisingly traditional...

But humbuckers were not rejected, and they sound really different, especially in the #6 E and #5 A strings. You might argue that Gibson introduced a magic pickup with the PAF, but I doubt that. The playing at the time was not high gain, filling in the missing harmonics, and so you really can notice the difference in the bass strings compared to the most common types of single coils.

[Joe Naylor]

But humbuckers were not rejected, and they sound really different, especially in the #6 E and #5 A strings. You might argue that Gibson introduced a magic pickup with the PAF, but I doubt that.

True, but I was thinking more in terms of today's market.

I don't know if they were considered magic, but the PAF did have several big things going for it: no hum, a great jazz tone, and a new heavier tone that worked with the developing rock and heavy blues sound.