Iommi pickup specs?

[Anthony]

Hello.
I'm looking for specs on the original Toni Iommi pickups as wound by Jay Dee guitars. Wire gauge, materials anything.

Thanks,
Anthony

[Ruel]

I remember it being discussed quite extensively in one of the previous threads. If you have the time, you could look them up.

[EFK]

Weren't the originals P90 types w/ chrome covers? He switched to an SG during the recording of the first album but somewhere along the line went over to the custom made SGs with - I have read - all maple bodies. I have a lot of live recordings ca. 1970-74 and you can really hear him engaged in a massive struggle to control feedback all the time. About the time of the Sabbath bloody sabbath album the tone really changes - much thinner and harsher. The title song itself is a really thin and frankly unpleasant tone. I'm digressing. I think the gibson signature humbuckers involve a weird arrangement of multiple magnets and a lot of epoxy.

[Anthony]

Iommi pickup specs?

Hey all. I went and found the thread about the Iommi pickups. Some good fundamental info, however I find it interesting that no-one has a handle on exactly how they were made. I've read for a fact that they were single coils and made in England by Jay Dee guitars or whatever name they were going by at the time. I wish I could get more info....bobbin dimensions, wire gauge, magnets, etc.,

Keep your thinking caps on!!!

[NightWinder]

??

I'd probably seek out the John Burch design- The original. There is a great topic on it here

[ake]

Think it was John Birch http://www.johnbirchguitars.com/

[David Schwab]

The pickup that Gibson has sort of reproduced was based on the Jay Dee guitar.

http://www.jaydeeguitars.com/ti.php

They were indeed P-90 shaped, but were humbuckers.



John Diggins didn't remember how he made the pickups, so the guy at Gibson just tried out stuff until he got the same tone.

John Birch made the magnum pickups, and also made a guitar for Iommi, but those aren't the pickups that the Gibson signature pickups are based on.

The JayDee pickups look a lot like the Birch pickups. Diggins used to work for Birch.

[Ruel]

Sure is one mean looking axe!

[David Schwab]

Sure is one mean looking axe!

The story is that the paint wasn't dry when Iommi took it from Diggins!

So that's how it ended up. JayDee used to have the whole story on it, but they changed the web site.

[RedHouse]

Hold on, not so fast. That JD one was later, not the original SG.
(the original one didn't have those Cross fret markers)

Anybody remember Don Kirshner's Rock Concert? (ahhh, the highlite of my week when I was a teenager) this is Iommi's SG in 1975 and they look very P-90'ish to me:





(BTW; the song was Paranoid)

I got this on a bit-torrent a while ago.

[David Schwab]

Hold on, not so fast. That JD one was later, not the original SG.
(the original one didn't have those Cross fret markers)

Cool picture! That's the Birch guitar. If my memory serves me the story is that Iommi got so pissed at it he smashed it. Then Diggins made the new one. He had to have a custom guitar because he needed 24 frets because he turned low with very light strings because of his missing finger tips.

But the new Iommi pickups are based on the JayDee pickups. There was a thread about this here a while back. At that time I had dug up the story from Gibson on the pickups, as well as the patent on the new Iommi pickups. The patent number is 5792973.

Anybody remember Don Kirshner's Rock Concert? (ahhh, the highlite of my week when I was a teenager)

Oh yeah! And "In Concert", I think that was on ABC. In the opening crowd scene on In Concert when they announced the bands on that night's show, they would pan through the crowd... and there I was! It was filmed at a Grand Funk Railroad show at MSG! Freddie King was the opening act.

Here's pictures from the patent. It has a magnet on top of the bobbins (#26) and two more under them, on top of each other (22 & 24) ... Look Ma! No baseplate!

[RedHouse]

...Oh yeah! And "In Concert", I think that was on ABC...

And of course "Midnight Special" which wasn't as good as either of the aforementioned shows.

[David Schwab]

And of course "Midnight Special" which wasn't as good as either of the aforementioned shows.

I was going to mention that one, but yeah, it wasn't as good. It was mostly lip synched stuff after a while, and then nothing but music videos.

[Sweetfinger]

Cool picture! That's the Birch guitar.

Nah, The guitar in those pictures is his original Gibson SG which is likely the most influential single sg Gibson ever made. Guitar World magazine did a centerfold of it maybe ten years ago. It is in the Hard Rock now.

Here's the official description:
http://www.iommi.com/equipment/gibso...aka_monkey.htm

[David Schwab]

Nah, The guitar in those pictures is his original Gibson SG which is likely the most influential single sg Gibson ever made. Guitar World magazine did a centerfold of it maybe ten years ago. It is in the Hard Rock now.

Here's the official description:
http://www.iommi.com/equipment/gibso...aka_monkey.htm

OK.. but they are the Birch pickups. I didn't think it had 24 frets, but I didn't count! The pickups threw me.