91

The Pickup Place / Re: Mellowing out Air Norton neck in Charvel So-Cal?

« on: November 01, 2022, 05:14:47 AM »

The Air Norton is already very smooth in the neck. If it is not smooth enough, there are the following options:

- use a cap and resistor in series to simulate the non-existing tone pot. The downside is that this will affect the bridge pickup as well.
- put a 1 meg resistor from the switch terminal where the neck pickup is connected to ground. This will let the neck pickup and the both pickup selections "see" a 330k load but leave the bridge pickup at 500k.

Both easy to try and easy to reverse if you don't like it.

Good luck,
Stephan

92

The Pickup Place / Re: Wiring stacked hum as a single coil

« on: October 17, 2022, 03:51:53 AM »

This should be correct. If you reverse black and red, you change the polarity of the pickup which may be necessary if it is out of phase when used with another pickup.

Cheers Stephan

93

The Pickup Place / Re: Wiring schematics and stuff

« on: October 17, 2022, 03:49:02 AM »

That should be correct. If you only get a very weak signal, try green and white instead of red and black.

94

The Pickup Place / Re: The Tone Zone BEST height ? (For once and for all)

« on: October 05, 2022, 04:35:09 AM »

Raising the polepieces will give a softer rounder attack and a bit more airiness.

Yes, because you will more likely than not have to lower the pickup a bit so the string still clears the raised polepieces.

Lowering them will give a harder attack and more presence.

I agree because the entire pickup can be put closer to the strings.

I had a Tone Zone which I used in the bridge spot of three different guitars. The first one was a double cut junior type - there it was ok but rather bland. The second one was a gold top Les Paul - there it was outright buzzy and ugly. The third was my Brian Moore, which is light and very bright - there it sounded good. I did not make a lot of adjustments in any of the guitars but the ones I did did not make a day and night difference.

Cheers Stephan

95

The Pickup Place / Re: Tone Zone Air Norton combo

« on: September 29, 2022, 03:41:09 AM »

Many woods are marketed as "mahogany" but they are not the same species. You will find

- Swietennia macrophylla, which is equivalent to the original Honduras mahogany
- Khaya ivoriensis, which comes from Africa and looks similar to mahogany
- I think there is also an Asian variant but I forgot how it is called

Even among the same species the wood varies wildly. As a result, it is almost impossible to say "mahogany sounds like ...".

Cheers Stephan

96

The Pickup Place / Re: The Tone Zone BEST height ? (For once and for all)

« on: September 29, 2022, 03:35:15 AM »

There must be a perfect setting for this pickup, what is it?   
I've seen a lot of topics where guys say they found it, but they never give the values!

1) I am afraid there is no such thing as it is guitar and pick attack dependent and
2) I bet if those guys gave their values they would be all over the place.

So my answer is that you did not want to hear.

Cheers Stephan

97

The Pickup Place / Re: what do you think of this pickup config?

« on: September 16, 2022, 05:40:38 AM »

Of all the pickups you mentioned I have only used the Chopper, and only in the bridge position.

Since you already have the pickups at hand, why not try Evo bridge, FT2 middle and Chopper neck. If the FT2 is too dark and you like the Chopper in the neck, get another Chopper for the middle. If the Chopper is too dark in the neck but you like the FT2 in the middle, you could consider a Satch Track for the neck. If both are too dark, put the Chopper back in the middle and get a Satch Track for the neck.

Good luck,
Stephan

98

The Pickup Place / Re: New Tone Charts!?!

« on: September 08, 2022, 03:41:57 AM »

Wow - they did publish that back then? Unfortunately I started playing guitar only in 1979.

99

The Pickup Place / Re: Which Pickup Features Which Technique

« on: September 05, 2022, 05:10:35 AM »

Got you - and the ? is removed.

100

The Pickup Place / Re: Which Pickup Features Which Technique

« on: September 05, 2022, 05:07:37 AM »

Yes, in principle it could be removed but I think it is more convenient for anybody looking up a specific model. Thanks for the Super 3 info - I will update.

Cheers Stephan

101

The Pickup Place / Re: Chopper T in tele bridge - 250k or 500k tone pot ?

« on: August 25, 2022, 04:56:38 AM »

I use(d) 500k volume pot with the Chopper but I would first try it with the pots you have - if you like it you're done. If not, you can still swap.

Cheers, Stephan

102

The Pickup Place / Re: DiMarzio EBMM Music Man Axis Bridge Humbucker

« on: August 12, 2022, 04:07:05 AM »

Hi,

No, it is not too technical.

It seems that your measurements of the screw coil are in line with Darth's but the slug coil and the combined inductance seem to be lower in your pickup. And yes, assuming the coils are wound with the same wire gauge, the inductance should be higher on the screw coil. I agree that the quantity of difference rules manufacturer tolerances out. A possible explanation that comes to my mind is that the slug coil had a defect and was unwound to the point where the defect was, and then the connecting wire was attached to that point so that the coil works again, albeit on a lower turn count and thus lower DC resistance. Another potential explanation is that somebody created a hybrid, using a slug coil from another pickup. As regards a sound difference: normally, offset coils cancel fewer frequencies so the resulting sound should be a bit brighter than without the offset but it is almost impossible to quantify the effect (apart from comparing them in the same guitar and same position but the results would then only be accurate for that particular guitar).

The bottom line is always: does the pickup give me the sound I want? If yes, the "how" is less relevant. If no, then the question is "what do I want the pickup to have more of / less of?" and that is where the "how" comes into the picture as this may help you to pick a pickup based on specs.


Hope that helps,
Stephan 

103

The Pickup Place / Re: Which Pickup Features Which Technique

« on: August 10, 2022, 10:20:39 AM »

Quote from a forum member on the mylespaul forum on the Al di Meola set:

Al DiMeola Neck (DP201): output=230mV, treble=6, mids=4, bass=6, DC=10.87K.
Al DiMeola Bridge (DP202): output=275, treble=5, mids=8, bass=8, DC=10.84.

The magnets are AL5, they are not airbuckers, and the neck pickup has dual-resonance coils.

From these specs it looks like the neck pickup is wound with a wire thinner than 42 AWG - otherwise the rated outputs do not make sense given both models use the same magnet.

104

The Pickup Place / Re: Info about PRS SE 85/15s pickups

« on: August 01, 2022, 03:43:23 AM »

58/15 = 85/15 with a cover iirc.

That is what I understood as well.

105

The Pickup Place / Re: Info about PRS SE 85/15s pickups

« on: July 25, 2022, 11:11:54 AM »

The neck pickup is dark and probably gets replaced with a Duncan Full Shred neck.

It did get replaced and for me it is a definite improvement - it is brighter but not only that, it is much more "present" or clear.

I also replaced the bridge pickup with a Duncan 59/custom hybrid that I made myself from a 59 and a Custom. The reason for the change was primarily cosmetic because I wanted both pickups to have open black coils and I don't like the looks of one pickup covered and one uncovered much. The improvement in tone is minor to my ears.

I also replaced the original pickguard so that I could leave that basically untouched and got a new one. I used a multipole 5 way switch instead of the original 3 way and wired it up like this:

#1 bridge coils in series
#2 bridge and neck outer coils in parallel (tele-like tone)
#3 bridge and neck in parallel
#4 bridge and neck inner coils in parallel (strat-like tone)
#5 neck coils in series

Volume is a 500k pot (actually measuring 480k). Tone is a 500k push/pull pot with which I can put both pickups in single coil mode. As a result, I have retained the individual humbuckers split as in the stock set up.

Inner/outer coils on  24 fret guitars is useful to me. On a 22 fret guitar, they do not sound much different to my ears so with those I would go for a different set up.

If I install a push-pull for the volume pickup to be able to split the pickups separately, I could also get the bridge HB + neck SC and bridge SC + neck HB that are found on newer PRS guitars but I am not sure how useful these are.

Cheers Stephan