Pickup Set

[JD01]

Mutt,

I had a brainwave the other day (actually I was watching a YouTube video where someone did this).
Basically, at the back of my mind I've had this idea of getting a baritone, tuned to B standard or drop A. But its not something I'm really into, I probably write about 1 metal song a year! So I was never going to have spare money to actually buy a Baritone.

Anyway, watching this video of someone else doing this it occurred to me: I actually have a really good MIJ Ibanez RG from the 90s in the attic that I've not played in years. I'm going to block off the Floyd, string it with 13s (or thicker) and tune it to B standard... but it'll need a pickup set.

Its a HSH setup with Ibanez V8 and V7 Humbuckers and an Ibanez S1 single coil.
specs here:
https://ibanez.fandom.com/wiki/Vintage_ ... mbucker.29
You'll see that all of them, even the single coil, are super hot.
Its got a 5 way blade switch where positions 2 and 4 split the humbuckers.

I'd want to use my current bridge humbucker as a starting point, but I'm assuming you'd want to make it a bit different in a downtuned guitar for metal? Hotter? And then work out what the single coil and neck pickups should be from there.

What you think? Fancy doing it? Ever made metal pickups for a downtuned guitar before?

EDIT: Just re-read this - when I say "My current bridge humbucker" I mean the one you made for my Crimson, not the ones that's currently in my Ibanez!

[muttley]

A lot of what you want to do can be achieved with the right strings and amp settings. Typically pickups popular for metal are super hot not because they sound better but because they drive the amp harder. The downside is that for normal use they get pretty mushy for anything else. The humbucker you have in the Crimson is probably about as hot as you would want to go and keep it fairly versatile.

Having said that, if you just want to use that guitar for specifically low drop or altered tunings then I could wind up whatever you want within reason. If I were you I would start with whichever pickup would be your main go to position (probably the bridge as you say) and design that to provide your benchmark tone. The middle and neck design would then feed into that depending on how you may want to colour that tone. I notice from those specs on the V7 that is has a ceramic magnet which would give it quite a raw and uncomplicated punch. The V8 has an A5 which again would focus the punch rather than the mellow but clean it up a lot.

What I would suggest a start point would be to wind similar to your existing bridge bucker and stick a ceramic in there and see how you like it. Swapping out the magnet is easy if it doesn't work out. You can then try A5 or even an A8. Alnico 8 are not used a lot but fall between Ceramic and Alnico 5, they are tighter than A5 but not as brash as ceramic. I would also wind with awg 44 rather than awg 43 or awg 42 which would give the thing a little more clarity with the bonus that we could wind a little hotter.

My gut feeling is that what you need for this would be a combination of pickups, the right strings and amp settings. My suggestion would be wind up the bridge pickup and experiment with that a little and then discuss the other pickups once you have nailed down the main tone. Who knows it may work with what you have.

So. A bucker based on the output of your Crimson with a ceramic magnet wound with awg 44 maybe 5-10% hotter. We would need to pot this thing as well because those lower frequencies really shake the body about. We can try it unpotted first. There is no reason why we can't ship it back and forth a few times for tweaking.

Let me know.

[muttley]

Can you link me to that video that sparked your interest so I can get a feel for what he has done?

[JD01]

Can you link me to that video that sparked your interest so I can get a feel for what he has done?

This video

[JD01]

My amp will go really heavy, no problem at all there.

I like the sound of starting with my current Crimson bridge pickup but with an A8 or Ceramic. So, a ceramic would brighter/tighter and less likely to get mushy with a lot of gain at a low tuning?

While I liked the Ibanez V8 pickup when I was 18, I recorded it a few years ago and found it really scratchy and nasal sounding. Basically, a couple of years ago, once I'd started to record decent tones, I wanted fancied just sticking it in a mix with my Crimson just to flesh things out a bit. But I just thought it sounded awful.

Naturally, I won't be fucking up any of the pickup installation on this guitar, myself so I'll be taking it to the guy that I go to... that being the case I'd rather have all of the pickups at once so that I just have to take it to him once.

Cheers,

[muttley]

OK we are talking tone here so it's subjective but as a rule of thumb ceramic will be more brittle and push the highs to the front An A8 will do the same compared to an A5 but not quite as brash. The reason they could work here is that they would help refocus the high end of what will essentially be quite a heavy low frequency range of the drop tuning.

The scratchy nasal thing is just that... the magnet focusing the high end at the expense of the mids and lows.

[JD01]

OK we are talking tone here so it's subjective but as a rule of thumb ceramic will be more brittle and push the highs to the front An A8 will do the same compared to an A5 but not quite as brash. The reason they could work here is that they would help refocus the high end of what will essentially be quite a heavy low frequency range of the drop tuning.

The scratchy nasal thing is just that... the magnet focusing the high end at the expense of the mids and lows.

So, how about a similar one to the last one:
Bridge 10.5k A8 nickel base.
Neck 8.5k A5 nickel base
Single coil... no idea.

Or do you think slightly hotter?

[muttley]

OK we are talking tone here so it's subjective but as a rule of thumb ceramic will be more brittle and push the highs to the front An A8 will do the same compared to an A5 but not quite as brash. The reason they could work here is that they would help refocus the high end of what will essentially be quite a heavy low frequency range of the drop tuning.

The scratchy nasal thing is just that... the magnet focusing the high end at the expense of the mids and lows.

So, how about a similar one to the last one:
Bridge 10.5k A8 nickel base.
Neck 8.5k A5 nickel base
Single coil... no idea.

Or do you think slightly hotter?

I don't think you need to go hotter as you have loads of headroom on your amp. I may wind the neck a little hotter than 8.5k.

I don't think the single coil will be much of an issue fitting in with those which ever way we go. Maybe a strat wound with Tele specs would fit nicely as that would round off some of the edge of a normal tele pickup. The only other option would be to go for a blade and really get heavy.

[JD01]

So, how about a similar one to the last one:
Bridge 10.5k A8 nickel base.
Neck 8.5k A5 nickel base
Single coil... no idea.

Or do you think slightly hotter?

I don't think you need to go hotter as you have loads of headroom on your amp. I may wind the neck a little hotter than 8.5k.

I don't think the single coil will be much of an issue fitting in with those which ever way we go. Maybe a strat wound with Tele specs would fit nicely as that would round off some of the edge of a normal tele pickup. The only other option would be to go for a blade and really get heavy.

Ok, don't mind slightly hotter. I don't tend to strum away on clean chords on a neck humbucker, just picked clean lines on single note lead melodies with gain. I'd only strum chords on it split.

Thats why I said A5 on the neck humbucker to make it a little warmer (like my current neck humbucker).

I really have no idea about the middle pickup... I probably only used it on the Ibanez out of curiosity occasionally, I know I never used it in any songs.

[muttley]

OK, thats the buckers sorted. If you can send me the pole spacings I will get on it. What bobbin colours?

I don't know what to suggest for the single coil unless you want me to make up a blade pickup to fit? A standard strat pickup is pretty much what you have. Have a think and let me know.

[JD01]

OK, thats the buckers sorted. If you can send me the pole spacings I will get on it. What bobbin colours?

I don't know what to suggest for the single coil unless you want me to make up a blade pickup to fit? A standard strat pickup is pretty much what you have. Have a think and let me know.

Oh, I'm not sure about the spacings - I'd have assumed they were "standard". Aside from getting a ruler out, how would I find this out - based of the dimensions of the neck?

The middle pickup - whatever you think would work really.

Black bobbins, unless you can get random colours like bronze or a really dark grey.
Send me the costs/times and I'll sort the cash out. I'll also speak to the tech I like about sorting this for me.

[muttley]

Pickup pole spacing vary from maker to maker and model to model. Typically humbuckers are either 48mm, 50mm or 52mm. It is largely cosmetic in that I think it is nice to get the poles somewhere close to the string spacing but tonally it is not critical. I can google up Ibanez pickup specs but they vary as well so I thought it best to get you to measure it if you have a chance. My guess would be 50mm neck 52mm bridge but both could be 50mm. Just measure the distance from the centre of the two widest poles. The two E's.

As far as bobbin colour, black would be closest, other colours I can get would all be fairly primary. Lets go with black.

[Greg_L]

Aside from getting a ruler out, how would I find this out - based of the dimensions of the neck?

You measure it from center of outer pole to pole.

Most humbuckers fall into one of two measurements - 50mm or 52mm.
50mm being typical "Gibson" size.
52mm being F-spaced, or Trembucker, or whatever name people use for the wider vibrato size humbucker.

There are others, but most fall into those categories.

You'll often find a 50mm HB in a neck position and a 52mm HB in the bridge on Super Strat type guitars.

Edit - What mutt just said. ^^^^

[muttley]

I just came across this that you might find interesting. I'm not sure I agree with all of the conclusions he makes but it's note worthy.

Judging from the image it looks like the stock buckers on that one are both 50mm but we may as well get it looking right while we are at it.

http://www.lonephantom.com/2011/09/poli ... 8-pickups/

[muttley]

Aside from getting a ruler out, how would I find this out - based of the dimensions of the neck?

You measure it from center of outer pole to pole.

Most humbuckers fall into one of two measurements - 50mm or 52mm.
50mm being typical "Gibson" size.
52mm being F-spaced, or Trembucker, or whatever name people use for the wider vibrato size humbucker.

There are others, but most fall into those categories.

You'll often find a 50mm HB in a neck position and a 52mm HB in the bridge on Super Strat type guitars.

Edit - What mutt just said. ^^^^

True F spacing is 53mm as the F stands for Fender. Most Gibson pickups were 49.2mm then they shifted to 50mm when much of the tooling was outsourced. The 52mm is a relatively new thing but accommodates the bridge position nicely as you say, both on Gibson and Super strat etc. They offer a good all round compromise. Both are common now and I prefer to do 50mm and 52mm for cosmetic reasons. F spaced buckers were introduced at 53mm to accommodate fender style setups. The bobbins are quite hard to get in small numbers and I kept meaning to get a bulk order up from China.... Then Covid hit.

The whole pole spacing thing is a PITA really as it means I have to hold three times as many bobbins for buckers than I would like to and then try to find out what people want. I have supplied without asking before and had people moan even though they match what they had. They didn't really look much until they dropped the new pups in. Go figure.

[Greg_L]

None of it really even matters. It's all dumb. 50mm or 52mm won't make a sliver of difference. The only time it matters is when you're putting covers on pickups.

[muttley]

None of it really even matters. It's all dumb. 50mm or 52mm won't make a sliver of difference. The only time it matters is when you're putting covers on pickups.

Pretty much true but I have to be armed with the right stuff as some people wont hear otherwise as you know. Putting a cover on a bucker makes way more difference on tone than a mm here or there on pole spacing. For JD I think it worth making it look right.

[JD01]

I suppose I'd better get it down out of the attic and get measuring.

[JD01]

Just spent ages digging around up the attic for it... its not there.
Then I remembered I leant it to my niece cos she left her acoustic at he aunties! She's had it for 2 years! Haha.

[muttley]

Just spent ages digging around up the attic for it... its not there.
Then I remembered I leant it to my niece cos she left her acoustic at he aunties! She's had it for 2 years! Haha.

Well get her to measure it.