Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Moritz Voegeli on April 9, 2017 at 8:17pm

Two comments: the magnetic field over a six pole pickup is somewhat more complex than just six separate fields overneath each pole, you can experiment where the hot spots are using a distance holder and a piece of a string as a dowsing rod:

I don't have a free six pole pickup, so the setting is just to give an idea, but pickups with rails can be an alternative to n-pole pickups, cbgitty sells a «Pawn Shop Monorail Single-Coil» with an open rail, mini humbuckers like his «Snake Oil Mini Humbucker» too have rails underneath the cover. On the photo a 10K «Power Rail» from GFS, my preferred humbucker in the below 40 bucks range.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 9, 2017 at 9:43pm

And you can always make a poor man's "rail" by placing a bit of flat bar steel across all the pole pieces...

But yeah, the mini-humbuckers are a good, relatively inexpensive choice. They dirty up nicely when cranked. Here's a vid of me playing a Swamp Witch fitted with one, cranked through a Crate V16 Palomino 15 watt tube amp:

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/video/oily-s-guitar-lounge-6-take-an-...

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Permalink Reply by Moritz Voegeli on April 9, 2017 at 9:34pm

P.S. In a post which is lost, I did a similar test with a four pole single coil pickup with a plastic cover, searching for the hot spots 5mm above the cover: hottest spot was between the mid poles, second the end poles. So be prepared for surprises...

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on April 10, 2017 at 8:38pm

Lipstick Tube pickups have a single bar magnet inside wrapped with wire that extends throughout the whole pickup tube. As long as the tube is under the strings, they will work fine.

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Permalink Reply by JL on April 12, 2017 at 3:04am

The thing to watch out for is having mis-matched spacing, where some stings are directly over a pole and some are between poles, you will get un-even output guaaaranteeed!.

either all strings over a pole, or all string between poles evenly, and it ought to be well inside the 'no rules' parameters LOL

on second thought, no rules, hmm...bass strings under a pole, treble strings off-spaced, might actually sound right good ... hmmm...

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Permalink Reply by Phil Gershwiin on April 12, 2017 at 5:12am

Thanks, that make a lot of sense.

So the Snake Oil Humbuker would eliminate the concern since it is a continuous bar.

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Permalink Reply by Moritz Voegeli on April 12, 2017 at 5:47am

Yes, the Snake Oil humbucker has two rails underneath the cover, I will post a photo in some hour.

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Permalink Reply by Moritz Voegeli on April 12, 2017 at 6:20am

Snake Oil humbucker top view:

Snake Oil humbucker bottom view

the cover is nonferrous

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on April 12, 2017 at 8:07pm

Moritz, I bought similar pickups from GFS That was supposed to be a Firebird type, but was more Mini-Humbucker like yours. They advertised that the cover was German Silver plated cover, but mine was just Chrome over Copper. Some pickup companies use Brass covers instead, but both of these type covers can have bad tone results because of their affects to the pickup's Eddy Currents.

The pickup I had wasn't bad, wasn't great. It definitely didn't have a Firebird tone. My plan is to buy a Firebird pickup kit from Stewmac and rebuild this pickup to be more like an original Firebird pickup. Will also get a cover that matches the original specs.

Anybody can take one of those pickups and change the magnet underneath to a better ceramic magnet, Alnico magnet or Neodymium magnet for better tone if they aren't satisfied with them. That also applies to the Strat or Tele type single coil pickups that are made in China that have a bar magnet across the bottom. The magnet change can make a big difference.

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Permalink Reply by Moritz Voegeli on April 13, 2017 at 5:31am

Paul, if I remove from a Snake Oil Humbucker the magnet underneath the pickup and replace the blades with Alnico magnets, do I get a Firebird type pickup? Sure, the result with 9.5K would be somewhat hotter as an original Firebird with about 7.0K. The blades measures are 2.10" x 0.55" x 0.12".

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on April 14, 2017 at 8:53pm

I think that the magnets in the Stewmac kit will fit, Got thesuggestion from someone on the TDPRI forum that has done this mod. Their are other pieces in the kit that aren't present in the mini-bucker pickup that I have and it doesn't appear to be in the Snake Oil pickup according to the pics you posted. Here is a link to the kit showing all the pieces.

http://www.stewmac.com/Pickups_and_Electronics/Pickup_Kits_and_Part...

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Permalink Reply by Moritz Voegeli on April 14, 2017 at 11:02pm

As the blades protrude from underneath the pickup for the thickness of the ceramic magnet which holds the bobbins together, I have to correct the measures for a replacement: 2.10" x 0.43" x 0.12".

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