Forums

Pickups-Cheap? or Junk?

Posted by pi_r_squared on August 5, 2010 at 9:52am in Building Secrets, Tips, Advice, Discussion
The last thing I want to do is take anything away from the folks on here who sell quality pickups.  But I stumbled across some of this stuff on ebay and wondered if anyone has ever tried it.  Is it Cheap? Junk? or both?


6 string pickup pre-wired with volume and tone controls.  "Noiseless" uh huh.....lmao.....sorry, just thinking, does that mean "silent".  But for $7.50 including shipping, I can't buy the pots and caps at Rad Shack for that.



And the next contestant, for $2.75 including shipping from hong kong:



I have to ask, when $20 can get a hand full of pickups to play with, are they worth messing around with? or complete junk?  I mean, for the price, you could "let the blue smoke out" and not care.

Which brings up another point, I understand all electronics need blue smoke inside of them in order to work.  Some time back, I let the blue smoke out of a pre-amp that I wired wrong and now it doesn't work.  Can you buy after market blue smoke? and if so, how do you get it "back in"??? :P

You need to be a member of Cigar Box Nation to add comments!

Join Cigar Box Nation

Email me when people reply –
Follow

Replies

  • Josh Gayou (SmokehouseGuitars) August 11, 2010 at 3:34pm
    All depends on the CBG you're making. Sometimes a cheap pickup is exactly what's called for because you're going for grit rather than studio time :)

    Tim Fleischer said:
    The bottom line in my opinion is you get what you pay for. I personally don't want to spend $75 - $100 for a pickup for a CBG. I've used the ebay $7.99 assemblies and for the most part they sound pretty good. I've had to make adjustments on a couple (solder fixes, new 1/4" jacks, etc) but they are quiet and they have a good sound...I'm sure not as good as a seymore duncan or some others. And they usually take about 2 weeks for U.S. delivery. You've got to keep in mind...it's $7.99.
  • Tim Fleischer August 11, 2010 at 3:26pm
    The bottom line in my opinion is you get what you pay for. I personally don't want to spend $75 - $100 for a pickup for a CBG. I've used the ebay $7.99 assemblies and for the most part they sound pretty good. I've had to make adjustments on a couple (solder fixes, new 1/4" jacks, etc) but they are quiet and they have a good sound...I'm sure not as good as a seymore duncan or some others. And they usually take about 2 weeks for U.S. delivery. You've got to keep in mind...it's $7.99.
  • LittleBigOne August 11, 2010 at 12:57pm
    ...just a word to say these eBay stores are even blocked from accessing from my country because
    of not reliable stores ; So now, you know :-)

    Josh Gayou (SmokehouseGuitars) said:

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

    Josh
  • Josh Gayou (SmokehouseGuitars) August 11, 2010 at 11:09am
    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.
  • YeahDoIt August 11, 2010 at 8:24am
    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.
  • Josh Gayou (SmokehouseGuitars) August 10, 2010 at 5:41pm
    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
  • Bluesheart August 9, 2010 at 11:15am
    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
  • John Drake August 6, 2010 at 8:06pm
    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
  • John Drake August 6, 2010 at 8:01pm
    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.
  • John Drake August 6, 2010 at 7:57pm
    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?
This reply was deleted.