Angled pickups - humbucker setup

[John_H]

Trying again.

[John_H]

These were my only experience building angled humbuckers. Coincidentally also 16*, but for a seven string. Double slug, using bobbins and magnets from Guitar Parts USA. I made the base plate from forbon with a brass strip attached for added coupling, and to mimic more typical humbucker construction. I wanted a low profile to avoid a deep neck rout. They sounded like I was hoping they would. Making custom covers and rings is always fun.

[kayakerca]

Well, here are those angled pickups in the guitar. Another beautiful guitar build by Mike Sankey here in Ottawa.




A little audio clip of the tone characteristics here. . .

[kayakerca]

Hi Jim,

could you have gone down the path of using Maple for the bobbin construction like these P90 kits

https://www.stewmac.com/kits-and-pro...er-bobbin.html

https://www.stewmac.com/articles-and...le-bobbin.html

Cheers
Steve

That is how I make my P90 bobbins on the laser cutter, with the maple 1/4" core piece. It works well for the P90 bobbins.

I was originally thinking about that setup for the 16° pickups, but opted not to for a number of reasons, the most important was that the luthier wanted a humbucker pickup that didn't sound like a traditional humbucker pickup. I also didn't want to do a screw side/slug side humbucker as I was concerned with the size I would have to make the slug side core to accommodate the larger slugs (relative to a P-90 screw core size). I was worried it might have to be thicker than would work nicely as there would be less surface wood on the core to make sure there was a significant amount of surface to glue to the top and bottom flatwork. The pole piece spacing is non standard because of the stretching out of the spacing required by having the pickup on an angle, so I would need to make custom keepers. It would also have required a one off drilled baseplate (which wouldn't be a huge deal) for the screw pole pieces. All that to say I went with a pair of rod magnet single coil design pickups put together as a humbucker.

[Lyrebird Steve]

Hi Jim,

could you have gone down the path of using Maple for the bobbin construction like these P90 kits

https://www.stewmac.com/kits-and-pro...er-bobbin.html

https://www.stewmac.com/articles-and...le-bobbin.html

Cheers
Steve

[kayakerca]

Wow, nice bench!

That bench shot is the luthier's shop. Mine looks more like a room full of pickup parts and a winder.

[StarryNight]

Wow, nice bench!

Well, the pickups are done and all packaged up for the customer.

It was an interesting project and if they produce a usable tone, I'll add them to the offering. Not sure how that is going to turn out at this point as they will definitely be on the very low output side of things. I wound the neck to 7.6kΩ and the bridge to 7.8kΩ. However, the inductance was a little lower than I would have preferred with 2.3H and 2.4H for the neck and bridge respectively. Mike S. was definitely right about the inductance levels inherent in this design.

The physical bobbin dimensioning to 16° for the fanned fret setup was pretty straight forward with the laser. Again, my only hope is that I end up with a usable tone.

Here is a look at the final product.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]58176[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]58177[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]58199[/ATTACH]

Thanks everyone for your input. It all helped.

Udpate. . . Also added a shot of the progress of the ultimate destination sent to me by the luthier.

[RedHouse]

[kayakerca]

So I have a little feedback on the pickup now. I asked the luthier to try the pickup in something before doing routing the guitar body for this one of a kind pickup (one of a kind by shape only). While the setup isn't the same as it would be in a shielded body, I take it as a win.

Here are the guitar builders initial thoughts on the tone. . .

"I am happy to report that the pickups are definitely usable. So far I've only tried the bridge pickup, coils in series, and of course it's probably sounding a bit different than ideal because of the way it's mounted (upside down, too far from the strings, completely unshielded). But my impression is that it has plenty of output. It seems to be pretty loud and quite bright, with a little bit of midrange "honk" that I quite enjoy. The noise level seems high, but that's probably because my impromptu rig has a lot of bare, unshielded wire hanging off it."

Again, I'm counting this as a success. I will hopefully get an audio clip from the finished guitar when it is ready that I can share them hear for anyone interested in the tone from that configuration of a pickup.

[kayakerca]

Well, the pickups are done and all packaged up for the customer.

It was an interesting project and if they produce a usable tone, I'll add them to the offering. Not sure how that is going to turn out at this point as they will definitely be on the very low output side of things. I wound the neck to 7.6kΩ and the bridge to 7.8kΩ. However, the inductance was a little lower than I would have preferred with 2.3H and 2.4H for the neck and bridge respectively. Mike S. was definitely right about the inductance levels inherent in this design.

The physical bobbin dimensioning to 16° for the fanned fret setup was pretty straight forward with the laser. Again, my only hope is that I end up with a usable tone.

Here is a look at the final product.



Thanks everyone for your input. It all helped.

Udpate. . . Also added a shot of the progress of the ultimate destination sent to me by the luthier.

[big_teee]

Yes, it has a metal baseplate.
I don't remember if I modded the baseplate, or used one for 53mm bobbins.
It has been a few years since I did it.
I sawed the bobbins in two, and glued the magnets in the two bobbin halves.
Not the ideal way to make one, but was a proto, and just wanted to see if I could make something I liked the sound of.
T

[kayakerca]

I have a humbucker (not angled) that I made in my personal lefty test strat HSS.
I took a couple 53 mm hum bobbins, modified them to take 187 rod mags.
Made the height spacing taller, and made it splittable.
It sounds like a good strat pickup split, and more like a hot JB when in HB mode.
I just made the one, and never got past the prototype version.
It sounded to good to take out, it is still in there.
T

Do you have a metal baseplate on the bottom T?

[big_teee]

I have a humbucker (not angled) that I made in my personal lefty test strat HSS.
I took a couple 53 mm hum bobbins, modified them to take 187 rod mags.
Made the height spacing taller, and made it splittable.
It sounds like a good strat pickup split, and more like a hot JB when in HB mode.
I just made the one, and never got past the prototype version.
It sounded to good to take out, it is still in there.
T

[kayakerca]

kyakerca, if your question is about the tonal difference I can say a bit, I been making them for some years now.
(humbuckers w/Alnico poles)

They are brighter and a bit more dynamic, they don't have the semi-compressed tone that a normal Humbucker has. If your customer is looking for normal Humbucker tone this topology might not be for them.

As for my own opinion, I was (at first) going to write-them-off as a worthy experiment but after playing them a while myself I noted they have their own merit and are actually quite useful to me. I have a set in one of my Strat's that has the HH layout, and my Uncle liked them so much, well, he now has a set in his HH strat too.

That is what I was looking to hear. Not a Strat and not a humbucker. The luthier wanted a usable tone that was neither of those conventional tones necessarily. His electric guitar builds are extremely unique and he wanted unique tone in the pickups to go along with that (as well as some noise cancellation).

Did you use metal baseplates? I have with these, at least this iteration of them. I reshaped a P90 baseplate to match the 16° the luthier requested for this fanned fret guitar build.

Here is where I am at in the wind components to this point. I just laid the second bobbin set on its side to show the pole pieces out the bottom like a Tele neck pickup.



I really appreciate your comments on the tonal characteristics Brad.

[RedHouse]

kyakerca, if your question is about the tonal difference I can say a bit, I been making them for some years now.
(humbuckers w/Alnico poles)

They are brighter and a bit more dynamic, they don't have the semi-compressed tone that a normal Humbucker has. If your customer is looking for normal Humbucker tone this topology might not be for them.

As for my own opinion, I was (at first) going to write-them-off as a worthy experiment but after playing them a while myself I noted they have their own merit and are actually quite useful to me. I have a set in one of my Strat's that has the HH layout, and my Uncle liked them so much, well, he now has a set in his HH strat too.