Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Skeesix on August 6, 2010 at 7:26am

Wow, that's quite microphonic. That means they're very loosely wound to get that to happen.

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Permalink Reply by pi_r_squared on August 6, 2010 at 7:28am

so maybe potting them wouldn't be a terrible idea?

Skeesix said:

Wow, that's quite microphonic. That means they're very loosely wound to get that to happen.

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Permalink Reply by Tom Lanford on August 6, 2010 at 8:00am

I've used several of these on my builds. They sound great to me. Sort of "gritty" sounding. Similar in sound to the old Kay/Harmony/Silvertone single coils to me. I usually order several at a time to make it worth the wait. Shipping is on a SLOW boat from China (as the saying goes). Way cheaper than buying a piezo and pots and sounds about 100 times better.

The only problems I've had is getting two volume knobs instead of a volume & tone. Not a problem since I often make my own knobs. Also, once or twice I've had the pup "rings" cracked on arrival. Again I've made my own when needed.

A couple of other issues would be that the wiring is fairly small and fragile. One of the reasons I like these (other than the obvious low cost) is that I'm lousy at soldering and these are pre-wired. But, the wire and solder joints are small and WILL come apart if handled roughly. IE - numerous dry fits and such. I now use one that did come apart for all of my "fitting" when it comes to modifying the box and such. Then, when I'm finally ready, I pull out a brand new one a slap it in there.

Buy one, you will not be disappointed. If you are, I'll buy it from you.

Just my $.02

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Permalink Reply by Tim Fleischer on August 6, 2010 at 8:40am

I've used the hong kong p/u pots and jack combo ($7.99) on three different builds and I think they sound pretty good. One of them however had the pos and neg wires backwards on the jack and it kind of drove me nuts until I figued out what was going on. I thought I had a big grounding problem (which I did) that I couldn't seem to track down. Once I switched them around it sounded fine. I've got a video of that one out there using one of the p/u combos if you want to hear it. keep in mind though that it's on a 3 string where the poles don't line up perfectly with the strings and the p/u is mounted very close to the neck. in my opinion if it sounds good with those considerations it will sound good on about anything.

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Permalink Reply by John Drake on August 6, 2010 at 12:52pm

The volume and tone pots on the 4 string were part of the prewired Ebay cheapie. Don't know what they were. John D

LittleBigOne said:

Hi John, what kind of pot do you use for tone and volume ? how much K ? your builds look great, thanks for sharing the idea of the steel bar, I will try to find what is working best but I'm not sure I can find steel bars so easily :-S

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Permalink Reply by John Drake on August 6, 2010 at 12:57pm

It may not. You have to something with a height to span between the top of the pickup (under the box top) and then reach up to the strings, which could be quite high if you are setting up for slide. It must be steel and sit directly on top of the pickup. John D


Bluesheart said:

Yes John , thanks for sharing that. Having the pu under the top is perfect it seems, sure keeps the top looking clean and more "authentic" somehow. I'm tempted now to try that with a cut nail as the bar. That should work too you think?

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Permalink Reply by John Drake on August 6, 2010 at 1:01pm

Ferrules to the string holes in the tail are rivets. Those around the holes in the box top are tent grommets. Try for them at a tent maker or sale maker. You can usually get various sizes ( I like the 1" or 25mm ones) and come in chrome, stainless steel (more expensive), brass and a gunmetal finish (as on my 4 string). I've also seen them on Ebay. John D

pi_r_squared said:

John, I guess I could just message you about this, but other people might wonder, unless I'm the only one who does't know.

What are the ferrules? trim rings? you use around the holes?

Seems they have to be some common Home depot, or Napa Auto parts Item, but I can't picture what it is.

Sorry, this is a little bit off topic here.

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Permalink Reply by John Drake on August 6, 2010 at 1:06pm

Regarding the steel bars. Just look for a zinc coated bracket in your hardware store which is about 50 mm x 50mm by about 40 mm wide and about 3 mm thick and then cut pieces off it using a cutoff disk in an angle grinder (or a hacksaw). You would probably find a bar which did the job. Don't use aluminium - its not magnetic! John D

LittleBigOne said:

Hi John, what kind of pot do you use for tone and volume ? how much K ? your builds look great, thanks for sharing the idea of the steel bar, I will try to find what is working best but I'm not sure I can find steel bars so easily :-S

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Permalink Reply by Bluesheart on August 9, 2010 at 4:15am

Ah, good point about it having to be close to the strings. Thanks for the additional tips.

John Drake said:

Regarding the steel bars. Just look for a zinc coated bracket in your hardware store which is about 50 mm x 50mm by about 40 mm wide and about 3 mm thick and then cut pieces off it using a cutoff disk in an angle grinder (or a hacksaw). You would probably find a bar which did the job. Don't use aluminium - its not magnetic! John D

LittleBigOne said:

Hi John, what kind of pot do you use for tone and volume ? how much K ? your builds look great, thanks for sharing the idea of the steel bar, I will try to find what is working best but I'm not sure I can find steel bars so easily :-S

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Permalink Reply by Josh Gayou (SmokehouseGuitars) on August 10, 2010 at 10:41am

When it comes to tone, you get what you pay for, but don't go crazy. For me personally, Dimarzios and Seymour Duncans are a bunch of over priced hooey. For a good quality, mass produced pup I would expect to pay between $35 to $65 or so. The only time I've ever paid more was when I had the bobbins hand made out of custom wood laminates. If the price is going into the hundreds the pup better damn well be scatter-wound by hand.

I once bought a prewired harness before (I think it was from Artec) before I'd learned how to solder my own electronics. It was a piece of trash. It hadn't been properly grounded or anything and had all sorts of noise issues. I'm looking at the first post's picture that you provided above. It's not a very good quality picture but the pots don't appear to be grounded properly here either.

For the second pickup, I wouldn't recommend buying that unless you wanted to learn a valuable lesson about life in general :)

Just take my word for it. Learn how to wire up your own rig. It's very easy to master with just a little practice and your ability to experiment with different sounds, tones, and configurations will be multiplied 100 fold.

Josh

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Permalink Reply by YeahDoIt on August 11, 2010 at 1:24am

A pickup is a magnet with a coil of wire wrapped around it; not a difficult or expensive thing to make. Wire costs money so cheaper pickups may have shorter wire. Shorter wire = weaker signal, longer wire = stronger signal. Cheap magnets might be weak magnets, weak magnets = weaker signal. If wire or magnets move then the pickup might act as a microphone "microphonic". Dipping coils in molten wax reduces microphonic behavior, but it adds to the cost. Shielding costs money but reduces noise.

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Permalink Reply by Josh Gayou (SmokehouseGuitars) on August 11, 2010 at 4:09am

As with all things: quality, precision, and reliability breed difficulty and expense. It's true that any average Joe can wrap some wire around a magnet and get some sound with it but the ability to produce a large lot of pups (into the 100's or 1,000's) that all perform comparably with a low failure rate represents an investment of time, money, materials, and engineering on the part of the manufacturer. This is really where your money is going when you buy higher end pickups.

YeahDoIt said:

A pickup is a magnet with a coil of wire wrapped around it; not a difficult or expensive thing to make. Wire costs money so cheaper pickups may have shorter wire. Shorter wire = weaker signal, longer wire = stronger signal. Cheap magnets might be weak magnets, weak magnets = weaker signal. If wire or magnets move then the pickup might act as a microphone "microphonic". Dipping coils in molten wax reduces microphonic behavior, but it adds to the cost. Shielding costs money but reduces noise.

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