Pickup-making newbie, need help !

[Jonas]

Hello,

A couple of months ago I got the crazy idea of making my own bass pickups, so started looking around on the internet about how I could possibly do this..
After visiting some sites, looking at some (simple) tutorials, I concluded it wasn't gonna be all that hard.. Then I fount this forum and realized I know crap about how to make pickups

What I want to do is build some jazz bass alike pickups to put in my Ibanez GSR 180, and have a couple of questions I hope you guys can help me with a litle bit...

First thing I needed to do, was to go look for materials. So I as I've found out I need enamelled copper wire and magnets.
I've tried everything but really can't find any vendor who sells small amounts of enamelled copper wire in Belgium, so I found this website from the UK who sells copper wire size AWG 42.
But they sell:
- Standard enamelled
- Solderable enamelled copper wire
- Polyesther enamelled copper wire
Any thoughts on which of these is best to use?
The standard is the cheapest, but if the others give a better result...

My search for magnets went a litle bit easier. In reading some things here and there on the web, I found out Alnico 5 magnets would be the best for what I am trying to do.
Now I am not sure in what size they are best, I can only get them in 2 formats:
- 8mm x 25mm
- 6mm x 20mm
So I thought I could build two types of pickups. I made a litle drawing so I don't have to try and explain it in English
http://josdevos.gethost.be/pickup1_2.jpg
http://josdevos.gethost.be/pickup2.jpg

As last question: is there anything that can replace the vulanized fibre for making the bobbins?


So that's it, hope you guys can help...
Thanks alot and sorry for my English.

Jonas

[Dave Kerr]

To your last question - some guys use hardwood for the flatwork, though it's prone to warping, while others use circuit board blanks or perfboard. I'd advise using a jig of some sort for drilling your holes, the slightest misalignment will be noticeable.

[David King]

Just line the magnets up with the strings at the pickup locations. Don't count on standard Fender magnet spacings to be correct, Fender didn't seem to care and it probably wasn't important to them but I think it makes a difference.

Wire insulation is personal preference. I like the solder-able insulation but you still have to sand most of it off to get a good joint. Enamel is probably fine too.

A lot is going to depend on what you are trying to achieve. If you want more lows or brightness or midrange you will want to consider all of the choices you make to point in the same direction.

I'm using countertop laminate (formica) for some pickups right now as it's very stiff and thin and comes in all kinds of pretty colors for free from an installer. It doesn't seem to dull carbide as quickly as the glass reinforced materials.

[David Schwab]

Just line the magnets up with the strings at the pickup locations. Don't count on standard Fender magnet spacings to be correct, Fender didn't seem to care and it probably wasn't important to them but I think it makes a difference.

I agree this is the way to go, but if you are going to use covers, you either need closed covers, or you need to match the hole spacing on the cover.

[Jonas]

Just line the magnets up with the strings at the pickup locations. Don't count on standard Fender magnet spacings to be correct, Fender didn't seem to care and it probably wasn't important to them but I think it makes a difference.

I'd like to make a jazz bass-alike pickup, it doesn't have to be that close tho..
I've read some more here and there and concluded I'm just gonna try something out and I'll see what I end up with.

Just one more question: if I go for the 6mm diameter Alnico 5 magnets, I will use 8 of them for one pickup. Looking at some specs of jazz basses I found out that a lot of them have 4,9mm diameter Alnico 5.
Will this 1mm difference give me a big output difference ?

Thanks for the reactions so far !

[David King]

Duncan quarter pounders I think use 6.3 mm A5 rods,
You'll get a few % increase in output but moving the pickups back from the strings by a mm or two will easily accommodate any differences in string pull.

[David Schwab]

I just want to say that Jazz basses are really overrated and I'm sick of looking at the stupid things! No one has any originality anymore.

OK I feel better now.

[mkat]

Well David, your basses ARE original. There are some great basses by custom builders out there as you know, much better design than the jbass. So far, I definitely prefer the feel of my two basses (5 and 6) to a jbass and they have wider string spacing and a more comfortable and longer neck too. I haven't made the pickups for the 6 yet, but the humbuckers for the 5 sound better with more options and no preamp.

[Jonas]

Hehe, I just went for the j-bass cause it fit's my bass' body, if I want to line up the pickups like on a p-bass, I'd have to start messing with teh woodwork, which I'm not gonna do

One last question before I can start: will 50g of copper wire do the trick for 2 pickups?

[David King]

50 g is only two ounces which isn't very much but it might just barely do it if you don't mess up. I'd think 250 g would be a safer bet. My dual coil 4 string bass pickups weigh in at 100g each and most of that is copper.

[GlennW]

I just want to say that Jazz basses are really overrated and I'm sick of looking at the stupid things! No one has any originality anymore.

OK I feel better now.

Within the last week I've gotten over the JB bridge pickup sound. I'd never played a JB hardly at all in the past, but lean toward single coils so I put one together.

[David Schwab]

Within the last week I've gotten over the JB bridge pickup sound. I'd never played a JB hardly at all in the past, but lean toward single coils so I put one together.

It's a cool sound, if you can get past all the Jaco sound-a-likes. I think generally the Jazz bridge pickup can be on the thin side though.

I get a very similar tone from my humbuckers, just a bit thicker I think. I see no benefit from single coils on bass.

Neo Bridge Pickup

My main objection to Jazz Basses is that people think it's the only bass made.

[GlennW]

That's a good sounding pickup; nice tone and clear, but not in a hi-fi kind of way...it has character.

What turned me off to HB's (very limited experience) was the big Gibson pickup and the bunch of P-Bass pickups I tired. However I have found a split P I like, the SD SPB-1. I'd tried the SPB-2 and 3, a Muy Graine, and a bunch that came on import basses, but none of them did it for me. I guess I've made the erroneous generalization that HB's tend to be undefined, but there are exceptions.

[David Schwab]

Thanks. That's wound with 43. I did another with 42 which is rounder for the neck position. I'm still experimenting with the bridge pickup.

The Gibson mudbucker was intended to sound like pipe organ pedals! So they heaped on a sh!tload of wire on that sucker. They do have a certain quality I like in the right bass... the EB-2 I used to have was not one of those! But I'm a Jack Bruce fan from way back, so I like what he did with the EB-3.

So I stuck one at the neck position of my '73 Ric and it was pretty cool. I did unwind it to about 12K and added two extra magnets, which opened up the top a bit. I liked the tone on XTC's Black Sea, which was an Epiphone Newport.

Another muddy humbucker was the old Guild bass pickups... but I remember I liked those at the time. That was before I started using round wounds.

The thing with P bass pickups is the shape of the coil... it's like a Jazzmaster vs. a Strat. I like P basses though. They get a cool hollow tone.