Absinthe and Toasters

[salvarsan]

Ted Breaux is a New Orleans food scientist who reverse-engineered the recipe for absinthe liqueur in the late 90's, disproved the myth of absinthe toxicity a few years later, and went on to craft a couple of award-winning liqueurs with Combier and Pernod&Fils.

He also wrote a short monograph on Rickenbacker toaster pickups.

A true renaissance man, i tellya.

-drh

[Alberto]

Very nice article!

[überfuzz]

I haven't read the article, but I got a bottle of Absinthe as b-gift. I think I'll start out by examine the bottle of Absinthe, thoroughly.

[Jason Rodgers]

I don't know Absinthe or Ricks, but I wonder how many folks around here will be getting repair business from players who buggered up their pickups trying to follow these instructions.

[salvarsan]

I wonder how many folks around here will be getting repair business from players who buggered up their pickups trying to follow these instructions.

The Toaster article is from 1998 so I'm thinking the number is small.

Toaster disassembly is simple, especially compared to PAFs.
The only thing special about them is the stamped steel cover and trademark holder John Hall's overly litigious nature.

[soundmasterg]

That article is pretty outdated now as since the late 90's/early 2000's Rickenbacker has made the scatterwound toasters which are about the same as the mid 60's ones, being around 7.5k. The article also isn't quite correct in that John Hall has stated that 44 gauge wire has been used for most Ric pickups as long as he has been involved with the company, which goes back to the early 60's, but he has stated that he doesn't know if that holds true for the 50's model pickups, and many winders here have noted differences over the years with some Ric pickups such as the 50's ones using 43 and 42 gauge wire. 4.5k with 44 gauge makes for a VERY thin sounding pickup, as Ric and their customers found out about when Ric reissued their 325 1958 version guitar with those pickups on it.

Greg

[salvarsan]

That article is pretty outdated now

Picky, picky, picky. It's only 17 years old.

... John Hall has stated . . .

Yeah, whatever. He's a CEO, not an authoritative source.
Probably doesn't like absinthe, either.

More seriously, John Hall was once emphatic about Toasters always being wound at 5000T/44awg when there's plenty of evidence documenting the variations.

Like PAFs, some are more interesting sounding than others. Unlike PAFs, it's a simple design and not subject to the usual variations. Windings and wire gauge are the most tweakable bits.

[soundmasterg]

Picky, picky, picky. It's only 17 years old.Yeah, whatever.

Its cool haha.

He's a CEO, not an authoritative source.
Probably doesn't like absinthe, either.

More seriously, John Hall was once emphatic about Toasters always being wound at 5000T/44awg when there's plenty of evidence documenting the variations.

Like PAFs, some are more interesting sounding than others. Unlike PAFs, it's a simple design and not subject to the usual variations. Windings and wire gauge are the most tweakable bits.

I agree with you....there is lots of room for improvement, and they are certainly easier to make than PAF's. The new pickups are molded vs separate bobbin pieces like some of the older ones, and this moves the wire out a little on the molded ones, but aside from that they are all very similar. The dumbest thing about the newer ones is that they are using stainless steel as the inner piece to solder the wire to at the start of the coil. That doesn't work all that well compared to the brass on the older ones. The 50's Capri guitars seem to sound a bit different than the later ones but maybe that is the rareness more than the pickup differences....who knows. I've never played one of the old Capris or seen them except in videos but I've heard their pickups used different wire gauge.

Greg