Testing pickups for a custom guitar - but will this work?

[David King]

Nick,
Yes minibucker's steel just bends the field 90º to make it vertical. Not sure what a taller bar would accomplish for you because the return path for the field is still the outer edge of the magnet if I'm not mistaken.
It's really hard to see where those field lines are going without modeling it.

[nicholaspaul]

Modelling? You can model a pickup? How is that done?

[nicholaspaul]

...and speaking of guitars with different types of pickups, there is always this. Anyone know what kind of pots they use?

[jonson]

Not sure where you got the bit about The fender marauder using neo magnets Nicholas but that was in 62 and neos not around till 82. The origional marauder patent shows 16 alnico mags per single coil pickup to get the power they required with I assume 44 or 43 guage wire.

[SpareRibs]

Thanks for explaining Spare. Will these issues be more prevalent with volume or tone pots? Is it viable to have two volumes, one for each type?
And what of guitars with split humbuckers?
When we're talking about 'problems' what exactly are we talking about?
Ah yes, I've seen Guitarelectronics. Great site. Buying a circuit might be my best bet really.

Hello,
If you go to a website called (Squier Talk), you could probably get a lot of your questions answered about mixing pickups,tone pots,and caps. A lot of Squiers have a HSS or HH setups as well as coil splits. The people there have probably done some or all of the things you are asking about.

[nicholaspaul]

Not sure where you got the bit about The fender marauder using neo magnets Nicholas but that was in 62 and neos not around till 82. The origional marauder patent shows 16 alnico mags per single coil pickup to get the power they required with I assume 44 or 43 guage wire.

There was a thread on Offset Guitars that featured neodymiums. My mistake.

Hello,
If you go to a website called (Squier Talk), you could probably get a lot of your questions answered about mixing pickups,tone pots,and caps. A lot of Squiers have a HSS or HH setups as well as coil splits. The people there have probably done some or all of the things you are asking about.

Thanks for the tip. From what I've found, the parallel cap sounds like a winning idea that might induce some experimenting. This chap is using 220k caps to turn his volume into a 150k which he likes the sound off, which is really the be all and end all. If it sounds right, it is right!

[Mike Sulzer]

This chap is using 220k caps to turn his volume into a 150k which he likes the sound off, which is really the be all and end all. If it sounds right, it is right!

Resistor not capacitor. He is decreasing the total resistance across one pickup by placing an additional resistor in parallel with the pickup so that the total resistance across the pickup is the parallel combination of it and the pot. Reducing the resistance lowers the Q of the resonance. You could get almost the same effect by turning down the tone control when switched to that pickup since over most of its range, the tone control just acts like a variable resistor across the pickup.

In other respects, this is not like using a lower value volume control. An actual lower value pot would result in less change in tone over its range.

[nicholaspaul]

Oh yes, Resistor not capacitor. Sorry about that. So it does sound like the 'issues' or 'problems' are really just tonal differences between the pickups. Any other differences I should be aware of?

I just finished winding a neodynamic single coil with 8000 winds of 43AWG, measuring 7.05 k. I put it in the neck of my tele-thing and found it to be, well, different. It is a little louder, and will produce enough signal at about 12mm below the strings to match a slightly overwound bridge single coil that is about 5mm from the strings. The sound has more mids, fewer sparkly highs and a tad more bass. It sounds like a neck single coil, but somewhat compressed in comparison. It's different, that's for sure. At this point, I'm not sure that stealth pickups are the way to go, but I'll make some more neo's in other configurations to see how they compare.

[David Schwab]

Is it reasonable to expect a really hot pickup further from the strings to sound as good as a weaker pickup close up, if the the volume output is the same? Are there other factors at play other than volume when moving a pickup closer or further from the strings?

No, they will not sound the same. What is "as good"? A hot pickup will have less high end and more low end and mids. A "weaker" pickup will be brighter and more open sounding.

[nicholaspaul]

Thanks David. I realise that good is subjective, but I was thinking of the EQ of the pickup, really. The trade off doesn't appear to work. I've overwound one AlNiCo pickup and a neodymium and found them to be lacking highs and openness so going for that extra volume isn't going to work. As I suspected, and others have said going for a pickup that has more power just to have it sit lower under the strings doesn't seem like a sound (!) proposition, so I'll be going for standard types of mounting after all. I like the sound (so far) of the pickups I've made with neodymiums so I'll try out some more with different numbers of windings, tensions, wire gauges and TPI and see what I come up with.

[Mike Sulzer]

At this point, I'm not sure that stealth pickups are the way to go, ...

They are not, as the following thought experiment illustrates.

Make a pickup coil, perhaps with steel cores, but no permanent magnet. Place it under the strings at the usual distance. Put a magnet above the strings of such a strength so that the field at the strings is normal. Check the signal strength output of the pickup by playing.

Now move the coil down away from the strings ; the signal strength drops; so use a stronger magnet in order to restore the signal strength. Move it away some more, etc. You do not have to go very far before the field strength that you must provide is strong enough to cause serious string pull, and this is not acceptable.