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Post by vonFrenchie on Jun 1, 2006 19:51:44 GMT -5
I recently stumbled across a website ( www.diyhappy.com/how-to-make-a-guitarbass-pickup) that shows how to build your own pickups. Has anyone tried this or knows someone who has? I only want to know because my friend is buying an old guitar and wants to put inexpensive parts in it and we were planning on using a few homemade pickups in it.
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Post by ChrisK on Jun 1, 2006 20:20:34 GMT -5
Well, by the time that you buy the magnets (small neodymium ones are about $0.50 to $1.50 each) and a spool of fine gauge wire (RadioShack ain't gonna have it), you could by some "inexpensive" pickups as used gear in a music store.
Proper pickup winding is an art and a science, and not just a bunch of wire 'n Popsicle sticks. There are reasons why folks buy the expensive pickups, you often get what you pay for.
While this might indeed realize an interesting science project, the odds are against significant results first pass.
Also, neodymium magnets are too strong for guitars. They've been used with success in bass pickups, but the mass of bass strings far outweighs those of regular guitars. Excessively strong magnets will disturb the oscillation of the strings and cause non-harmonic tone interactions (called "Strat'itis" when one adjusts the pickups too close to the strings).
However, good luck, and see below.....
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Post by UnklMickey on Jun 1, 2006 20:36:09 GMT -5
Vonfrenchie, first, i've never wound a pickup, but... i had a look at that site. OMG, that guy must be nuts, and i don't mean that in a good way. for a strat sized single-coil, you need about EIGHT THOUSAND turns! (about one mile of wire) and he does it by hand, with the bobbin stuck to his refrigerator door? man, i'd be in the fridge grabbin' a beer at least a half dozen times during the process from the tedium alone. if you were inclined to do something like that, and didn't want to invest in an electric winder, i'd suggest building a manual jig, with a hand crank. one hand turns the crank, the other guides the wire. and a counter attached to keep track of the number of turns wouldn't be a bad idea either. good luck, unk EDIT:i think Chris is right about the money thing. it will probably cost about $5 for the wire for one strat coil. for $16, you can get a set of 3 store.guitarfetish.com/vistsewhwobl.htmlor for $ 30, you can get a pair of HBs store.guitarfetish.com/chpafhumapab.html
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Post by vonFrenchie on Jun 1, 2006 21:35:19 GMT -5
Well.... due to the fact that I pefer soldering and now winding I am not (in the near future or EVER for that matter) going to wind a mile of wire around 2 3/4" by 3/4" box. That officially put a stop to my curiosity.
PS. I personally have Jackson and Ibanez pickups (Jackson guitars Ibanez basses). My friend has Ibanez basses aswell. We both love their tone and I am in no rush (I am actaully heading away) to build my own pickup. Though it would be cool to say you built every component of a guitar... it would take alot of work. Its like owning a lion, its only cool for a little while... then it just sucks.
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Post by UnklMickey on Jun 1, 2006 21:42:34 GMT -5
well, i guess in the case of Roy Horn (Siegfried and Roy),
after a while it just...................bites.
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Post by CheshireCat on Jun 1, 2006 23:07:42 GMT -5
well, i guess in the case of Roy Horn (Siegfried and Roy), after a while it just...................bites. Jason Lollar put out a book on how to make a pickup winder, and StewMac shows how you can jig up a powerdrill to do the winding with a very simple wooden jig anyone here can make. I'd never dream of doing my own pickups for basica six string guitars, unless of course I was going to get serious about it. However, I have a 9-String in the works, and making my own pickups might just be what the doctor ordered. That said, I put together my own pickup for my Utah, using parts from a defunct Duncan Lil'59. It's definitely a worthwhile experiement. Also, anyone here actually listen to the sound sample? Sounds like not a bad pickup. I was impressed. Chesh
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Post by RandomHero on Jun 2, 2006 7:10:56 GMT -5
Chesh, a 9-string!?!
...more strings... more MUSIC!
Tell me more, you beautiful, insane man!
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Post by simes on Jun 2, 2006 9:12:46 GMT -5
Sorry to hijack the thread, but ... Wow. Has anybody tried any of the pickups from these people? I don't just mean the special offers. How about the hardware and other stuff? It all seems very cheap.
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Post by wolf on Jun 2, 2006 10:02:07 GMT -5
I have tried pickups from GuitarFetish (Alnico P-90's to be precise). They have a nice clarity to them and GuitarFetish might have the best pickups around for those prices. One small problem was that I ordered a bridge and a neck P-90 from them specifically because I wanted 1 of those to be Reverse Wound Reverse Polarity. Well I noticed after I installed them that I was not getting hum cancelling because they sent me 2 bridge pickups. I looked carefully at the pickups before installation and the boxes definitely said "neck" and "bridge". Being a GuitarNut, I proceeded to flip the magnets on the neck pickup and everything became hum-cancelling. I did E-Mail GuitarFetish and they said they would easily have exchanged the "neck" pickup for a real neck pickup but heck, where's the fun in that? My own guess is that the pickups are probably churned out (in China I believe), very rapidly and perhaps quality control might not be of the highest caliber. (The pickups are made well but putting them in the correct boxes might not be a high priority).
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Post by UnklMickey on Jun 2, 2006 11:03:16 GMT -5
Wolf,
i think that's a fairly accurate assessment of GFS in general.
not superior quality, but good, standard quality merchandise, made off-shore. no pretty jewel boxes or other wastes of money. utilitarian packaging, and an occasional goof. to their credit, GFS is very customer oriented in their return policy.
bottom line: standard quality merchandise at a great price point = value.
soon they will add a few pieces of premium quality merchandise in their line-up. (oops, i've said too much.)
unk
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Post by vonFrenchie on Jun 2, 2006 15:52:20 GMT -5
Mighty Mite makes $25 pickups. I've heard good stuff about them.
Also... Chesh go for a ten string. You can buy 9 string pickups anyway.
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Post by CheshireCat on Jun 2, 2006 19:21:20 GMT -5
Also... Chesh go for a ten string. You can buy 9 string pickups anyway. Well, the tuning would be AEAEADGBE, and I'm not sure how much lower I can go than a Low Contrabass A on a stringed instrument. (That's a whole step lower than a Low B on a five or six string bass.) F# is the lowest that I've ever seen, and that was on a 36" scalelength, which I won't have. As for 9 string pickups, I haven't seen any yet, but if so I don't know if they'd be the extrawide kind. Chesh
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Post by vonFrenchie on Jun 2, 2006 19:44:52 GMT -5
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