Anyone Doing pickups for Baritone Guitars?

[TammCustomPickups]

Hi all,

I have a client that has a Baritone (PRS SE) and the the stock pickups, one are very cheap, and two they breakup so fast he cant stand it.
I personally have been only making Guitar pickups and have not been messing around with bass or baritone stuff.
The Baritone is routed for two humbuckers. I am looking for any advice on this from someone that has made them. Or a site with some data on these.

Thanks

-Bob

[jonson]

Prs stock pickups very cheap sounds about right. I've had a pile of Fender V1 baritone basses in my life and they were fitted with what is generally known as the Jaguar pickups. They worked in the bass V1 but never really that good in the Jag. Always fancied making a 6 pole mudbucker and shoving that in but never got round to it so maybe one day. Never used mine as baritones just fitted full bass strings and suffered the over the top action. Oversize buckers should do the job well but for interest try the Bass 1V forum and the Offset guitar forum.

[potatofarmer]

In my (admittedly limited) experience playing in baritone tuning, brighter pickups work better in baritone guitars. I mean, if you get lots of fundamental at that low B, you're stomping all over the bassist's range (assuming your customer plays with a bassist) and feeding the amp way more bass than it needs.

I have a pair of Bill Lawrence Wilde L200's in a B-tuned tele clone, and a pair of Seymour Duncan SJM-1's in a B-tuned jazzmaster clone. Admittedly neither are (traditional) humbuckers, but both work great.

I guess I'd approach it more from a setup / amp setting perspective - lower the bass side of the pickup, turn bass down on the amp. In B standard tuning, the only real difference is that one low B string; the other five strings are gauges/tunings you'd find on 99% of six-string electrics. I think a lot of players assume 'baritone' means you need to accentuate the bass to get that sound, but IMO you're hearing the different chord voicings, different string gauges, possibly different scale length and so on... the tastiness is all in the overtones.

I've, uh, never heard a pickup 'break up' though. I have heard amps and pedals sound terrible when fed too much bass, which is, of course, more of a problem with baritones or 'extended range' guitars.

[rjb]

I've, uh, never heard a pickup 'break up' though. I have heard amps and pedals sound terrible when fed too much bass, which is, of course, more of a problem with baritones or 'extended range' guitars.

Here's a suggestion. Try installing a capacitor in series with the pickup (or between the tone and volume controls) to roll off some bass.
Try maybe about 4.7nF (.0047uF); lower values roll off more bass, higher values roll off less bass.

[David Schwab]

PRS winds all their pickups very hot,thats why they are breaking up the amp. Pickups don't beak up. it could also be that the amp can't handle the lower frequencies. What kind of amp is it, and how many watts?

Baritone pickup are just guitar pickups. You don't want to make them like bass pickups. You just need lower wind pickups.

[ReWind]

I like to wind pickups for baritone or otherwise lower than normal range guitars with A3 necks, if not both pickups, and bright and dynamic coils with thick wire and low turn counts. Plenty of moving mass there to make the electrons flow. Headroom and definition are what I'm looking for in lower voicings.

[TammCustomPickups]

Thanks all for the info. And i guess to clarify when i say break up too fast. was really a term to say its driving the front end of the amp too fast because the pickup was too hot. The amp he uses is a Mesa MarkV.
David, Thanks for the info. Just wanted to find which direction to go and that is wind a lower output set of Humbuckers and I will be on the right track other than some tweeking for the tone that he wants but i can manage that.

Thanks again guys,

-Bob

[rjb]

...it could also be that the amp can't handle the lower frequencies.

This is just a hunch, but I do suggest trying the series capacitor trick before going through the trouble of building new pickups.

I recently outfitted an old floating DeArmond pickup to an archtop guitar, and was disappointed to find it not only wanted to feedback regardless of direction and proximity, but made the amp sound like it had a torn speaker cone. An in-line capacitor was all it took to clean up both problems.

You might have a similar problem- the PU is pumping out low (maybe even sub-sonic) frequencies that the amp can't handle. The capacitor rolls off those low frequencies.

Then again, as others have noted, the pickups are probably wound too damn hot. Would it be possible to peel some windings?