Playing with a mildly unusual 70s Jap HB that thinks it's a Wide Range.

[Plectrum]

There is the saying about trying to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse... I really doubt that you will be able to turn that pickup into something, er, memorable without replacing or rewiring the bobbins for starters as Terry suggested.

Go ahead and try moving the 3 screws to the upper bobbin- the lower bobbin will become an old school dummy coil to reduce hum.*** Depending on how it sounds you might want to add screws from the local hardware store to the lower bobbin.

Good luck!

Steve

*** For a "new school" dummy coil based on the Chiliachki patent you'd want to replace the wire in the lower bobbin with something like 32GA or 36GA magnet wire so it would read maybe 300 ohms. No need for a winder to do that- just wrap it by hand.

Before doing that you would want to see how the pickup sounds with just the upper bobbin connected because that is basically the sound that you would get with a new school dummy coil.

Great ideas.

Mmm. I did just wind an antenna coil with some 32, funnily enough. To 300Ω!
Not heard of the Chiiaki patent...

Much appreciated, Thanks!

[Plectrum]

My two cents...

What you have is essentially a pickup that, from the perspective of the plain vs the wound strings are single coils with a dummy coil for hum bucking, just as Steve said. Or more or less anyway. Example, the high e-string will be magnetised a little tiny bit over the coil without pole pieces, but compared with the coil with pole pieces it will contribute very little to the output of the pickup. However, once again just as Steve noted, that coil will eliminate the hum just like an ordinary hum bucker. So if you, as your original thought was, move the screws to one coil you will eventually end up with a low output single coil with a (IMHO) tone-sucking dummy coil, however a hum bucking setup. However the sound of the pickup itself will be more or less the same as there is still one single coil sensing the strings vibrations.

So back to what you don't like what you hear from this pickup. I highly doubt that it is the small displacement of the pole piece (no poles in the coil closest to the neck) that makes you dislike it. That smal difference in distance do have a effect on sound but it is truly minimal IMHO. What you hear and don't like is the crappy pickup itself: a very underwound SC-ish sound with the added effect of a dummy coil that (from my extremely small experience of dummy coils) will make the pickup sound even thinner.

As I see it you have a few options
- Your original idea of moving screws from one coil to the other
- You can ad additional pole pieces to the other coil(s)
- Rebuild the pickup entirely to something that is more "WRHB"-ish in construction
- Get a HB you like and live with the change in visual appearance
- probably something I have forgotten...

Moving the screws from one coil to the other will effectively give you the same sound as you have right now. Only change is the position of the pole piece and as mentioned earlier, IMHO, it will not change much at all. So I don't think that will do you no good. The job is however relative easy, just drill three holes in the base plate and you are done. I would sugest to fabricate three small metal disks and tape/glue them into the empty holes of the cover for looks. The tiny difference in distance from the covered vs the uncovered screws can be minimised into almost non-existing by lowering the exposed screws. Adding extra poles (going from 6 to 12 poles) to the existing pickup is almost as easy. Get six screws with the correct thread, drill six holes, screw the added screws down so that they fit under the cover. Done. Adjust the visible screws as described above and you will probably have a medium output, slightly muffled HB (due to the massive keeper bars loading the impedance) with a tiny bit of filtertron-ish twang. Rebuilding the pickup to a WRHB config means you need to source threaded magnets. Next you get rid of the keeper bars and the magnet. Add a center to the bobbins to give the magnets something to "bite" into. Several problems with that. Small quantities of threaded magnets are indeed available (check Sensmag in China, they used to have skinny threaded magnets that probably will fit into you bobbins) but the shipping cost will kill you projects budget (or so I believe...). There is considerable problems with adding a core to the existing coils and then drilling those core and threading them without damaging the coils/wire. Ditching the project all together is probably the easies way to go. Just get a HB you know you like and you're done.

Really great stuff!
Lots of things to consider there!

"I highly doubt that it is the small displacement of the pole piece (no poles in the coil closest to the neck) that makes you dislike it."

Yes, as I said, I tried to ignore it in case it was some bias-effect of knowing the polepiece config. I know bias actually changes what we hear and is the root of so many misunderstandings amongst people who aren't aware of the effects or think their skill can make them perception-error free.
I know I can be wrong in this...

But the wound strings sounded quite good...

I've also had a bit of a problem with the Jerry Donahue sig Tele and 24 fret guitars, even many SGs where an SC or 90 are an inch or more displaced. Though I do still use the sound with SGs.
I know Donahue moves it because there is a zero-node for the 5th harmonic under the sweetspot.
I seem to miss the "ooh" thing. (Please pardon my informal terminology, lol).

"Moving the screws from one coil to the other will effectively give you the same sound as you have right now. "
Perfect. Thanks so much.

[Plectrum]

I would experiment with it as is, you may also consider installing cut down alnico bar magnet inside the coils, this will definitely give a more single coil like tone and is easily done

experiment with different configurations, until you find a sound you like

Great.

If the mag is chop-able without destroying it (?), even fitting half the original next to the screw poles ( so you get ===OOO in each coil) could be interesting, except we still have the offset sensing thing happening.
Unfortunately, the mag is 1mm larger in length than the polepiece cavity in the bobbin. :-(

[Peter Naglitsch]

Really great stuff!
Lots of things to consider there!

"I highly doubt that it is the small displacement of the pole piece (no poles in the coil closest to the neck) that makes you dislike it."

Yes, as I said, I tried to ignore it in case it was some bias-effect of knowing the polepiece config. I know bias actually changes what we hear and is the root of so many misunderstandings amongst people who aren't aware of the effects or think their skill can make them perception-error free.
I know I can be wrong in this...

But the wound strings sounded quite good...

The wound strings are a different beast from the plain strings so that can be the cause of the difference with the (assumed) relative low output of this pickup instead of the actual change of magnetic pole position. As it is easy to test (three holes to drill) why not try it. Personally (as stated before) I'm sceptical to the whole "place the pickup under the right node of the string" as you move the node as soon as you fret the string. However "whatever floats your boat"... If you test, please let us know what you think of the mod.

EDIT: Oh, forgot, you can buy brand new pickups like this from GFS, they truly sound like crap, but it is cheaper/faster for me to buy those and just use the part for the HB-sized WRHBs I build as covers with offset holes are pretty expensive.

[Plectrum]

The wound strings are a different beast from the plain strings so that can be the cause of the difference with the (assumed) relative low output of this pickup instead of the actual change of magnetic pole position. As it is easy to test (three holes to drill) why not try it. Personally (as stated before) I'm sceptical to the whole "place the pickup under the right node of the string" as you move the node as soon as you fret the string. However "whatever floats your boat"... If you test, please let us know what you think of the mod.

EDIT: Oh, forgot, you can buy brand new pickups like this from GFS, they truly sound like crap, but it is cheaper/faster for me to buy those and just use the part for the HB-sized WRHBs I build as covers with offset holes are pretty expensive.

"place the pickup under the right node of the string" as you move the node as soon as you fret the string.

Right, Donahue does it because he uses harmonics on open strings a lot in his technique (often with behind-nut bending) - and I agree nodes themselves are not a "sound" reason to move a unit otherwise... It is something else I considered.
The fact remains that we can discern roughly where pickups are when we hear playing up the neck, though... I think we'd all agree - You can tell a strat N, M or B selection a mile off. With the neck unit, the position getting relatively closer to the center of the fretted strings as you move up the neck, the sustain-character overall becomes more flutey by degrees... and i think the ear is probably sensitive enough to it when over a certain (positional) threshold. Question is where lieth the threshold?
I've actually never played one, but I have read that lefty strung strats sound different to rightys at the bridge too.

There is def some play in it, as the 90 in a goldtop is physically wider than a strat unit so i think it's pole are relatively (Scale forgiving) a little closer to the bridge? - but something like the Gilmour "Shine on" tone is "oohy" as heck.

As I test I could jury-rig the unit without the cover to save drilling... have to break out the bluetak perhaps. Can't do it at the moment, though.

[mr fab]

Great.

If the mag is chop-able without destroying it (?), even fitting half the original next to the screw poles ( so you get ===OOO in each coil) could be interesting, except we still have the offset sensing thing happening.
Unfortunately, the mag is 1mm larger in length than the polepiece cavity in the bobbin. :-(

you can score the magnet with a fine angle grinder wheel and then carefully snap if off. furthermore, you could buy a few mags to cut down on ebay and maybe some extra screws whilst you are at it
I recall Gibson made a special pickup for the Victory guitars whereby one coil in the humbucker has a magnet inside so that when split, it sounded closer to a fender single coil. you could easily do the same with this pickup. I have never heard one, but I would say that they probably sounded pretty good

another option would be inserting slugs from a fender style pickup, possibly in a 3+3 config to fill the empty holes.....it would be a cool experiment to try

[David Schwab]

Jaysus.
See what you made me do!
I bust a hookup wire!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]35833[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]35834[/ATTACH]

There's an A5 mag under the unit for reference...

That's a Maxon pickup. Some of those are very sought ofter.

You can thread some screws in the other holes and leave them under the cover. That should balance out the tone.

[Plectrum]

That's a Maxon pickup. Some of those are very sought ofter.

You can thread some screws in the other holes and leave them under the cover. That should balance out the tone.

Hah. There's a twist.
As I implied - the unit does IMHO have something, the wound strings are tight and punchy but with just a hint of something unusual which is why I wanted to futz around.

I'll have to find and cut some screws to size, as there are no corresponding relief holes in the baseplate.
That'll leave it as faithful to original as possible and revertible. When I get around to it and the guitar is ready, I'll report back.
Thanks a lot everyone! Great, open-minded food for thought!
You rock.

[kmensik]

I get what you are after, I'm with you. Put some slugs or bolts in. Do not drill through the baseplate nor the cover. Try also filling the void core halves with transformer laminations instead of the bolts. Try different mass of steel in the core, like two thin laminations near the wires with a spacer between them vs. full core.

[Plectrum]

I get what you are after, I'm with you. Put some slugs or bolts in. Do not drill through the baseplate nor the cover. Try also filling the void core halves with transformer laminations instead of the bolts. Try different mass of steel in the core, like two thin laminations near the wires with a spacer between them vs. full core.

Yeah, also - I actually just dug out some ancient high hat fillister screws... They will be first try...
Nice ideas!

[RedHouse]

That's a Maxon pickup.....

Most definitely, I've seen plenty of those over the years.