Question about Geddy pickups

[paparoof]

Do ALL Geddy Lee Jazz pickups have cloth wire and beveled pole pieces?

[darius8]

I don't why Geddy Lee pickup poles would be beveled in the first place considering GL plays with high actions. If the GL sig. basses are suppose to be a copy of GL's bass then...huh?

[SGD Lutherie]

Originally Posted by darius8

I don't why Geddy Lee pickup poles would be beveled in the first place considering GL plays with high actions. If the GL sig. basses are suppose to be a copy of GL's bass then...huh?

Believed poles has nothing to do with the action or how you play. They bevel the poles to make it easier to press them into the flatwork. There was a certain period of time when Fender beveled the poles on all their pickups.

Also, just because Geddy might, or might not set up his bass a certain way doesn't men that you are supposed to set up YOUR bass like his. They don't set them up like his either.

Also, Geddy does not use high action. He uses very low action. His bass tech said:

I get the action as low as possible. I set it up with a bit of string growl but not so low as to start creating to much string buzz and most important, dead notes!
This is for his main bass and any others that are tuned normally. His red jazz is tuned a whole tone down with the same gauge of strings, I keep the action a bit higher because the strings are "flopping" around more than normal. If I set the action on the red jazz the same as his main one, way too much string buzz.
Ged never asks me about this. He just lets me set it up to were I think it works best and he goes with that.

Geddy's bass tone

[darius8]

Originally Posted by SGD Lutherie

Believed poles has nothing to do with the action or how you play. They bevel the poles to make it easier to press them into the flatwork. There was a certain period of time when Fender beveled the poles on all their pickups.

Also, just because Geddy might, or might not set up his bass a certain way doesn't men that you are supposed to set up YOUR bass like his. They don't set them up like his either.

Also, Geddy does not use high action. He uses very low action. His bass tech said:



Geddy's bass tone

So your saying Fender Geddy Lee Sig. basses aren't copies of Geddy's actual bass? I always thought they were.

[paparoof]

Ahem.

Originally Posted by paparoof

Do ALL Geddy Lee Jazz pickups have cloth wire and beveled pole pieces?

So I guess the answer is "we don't know"?

[darius8]

I wonder why a Fender rep don't chime in TB to strengthen public relations.

[SGD Lutherie]

Originally Posted by darius8

So your saying Fender Geddy Lee Sig. basses aren't copies of Geddy's actual bass? I always thought they were.

I'm saying that even if they are copies, which they are, that doesn't mean they are set up like his. When you by a new bass from the store, it needs to be setup.

He actually uses a neck from the Sig bass on his real bass.

The point was about the comment that Geddy used high action and therefore wouldn't need beveled poles. Of course he doesn't use high action, and the beveled poles has nothing to do with that anyway.

'71 pickups did not have beveled magnets and cloth wire. So they are not copies of the real pickups.

[darius8]

OK, my error, I associated "beveled poles" with "action" height.

[SGD Lutherie]

Originally Posted by darius8

OK, my error, I associated "beveled poles" with "action" height.

The believed poles are easier on the fingers when they are protruding above the cover. When Fender switched to the flat top magnets in the 70s they had the poles flush with the top of the pickup.

Some people seem to think the beveled magnets sound different, but I've never noticed that.

[miles'tone]

They use the Fender Original jazz pickups in the Geddy sig. Great pickups. Same as you'll find in the Jaco artist bass and '62 AVRI jazz actually. Bevelled or not, it makes no difference to the sound in my opinion, as when you set the pickup height on a bass it needs to be measured from the top of the pole pieces wherever they may sit.

[Square]

When researching beveled pole pieces on my guitar pickups I read somewhere that leo started this because he had pole pieces with chipped edges that would otherwise go to waste. Leo didn't waste much of anything... Beveling the edges gave them a uniform look that could be put into a new pickup and thus use up the damaged pole pieces in his inventory.

[miles'tone]

Originally Posted by Square

When researching beveled pole pieces on my guitar pickups I read somewhere that leo started this because he had pole pieces with chipped edges that would otherwise go to waste. Leo didn't waste much of anything... Beveling the edges gave them a uniform look that could be put into a new pickup and thus use up the damaged pole pieces in his inventory.

Sounds good to me Square!

[paparoof]

Okay I'm gonna try this one last time. Lots of input so far, but still no answer to the original question.

It seems most of the Geddy pickups I see going for sale here have cloth wire, beveled pole pieces and a relatively darker brown coil wire. I bought some used pickups recently that supposedly came from a "brand new off the wall" Geddy, but they have a brighter, lighter copper-colored wire, plastic insulation on the wires and flat pole pieces.

The seller swears they're legit and I'm trying to get a second and maybe third opinion. There's nothing wrong with them at all, and I got a great price so even if they're not true Geddy's, I'm still fine with it. I'd just like some ID verification - that's all.

I put 'em in my Squier CV J and they work fine and sound lovely, but they sound so very similar to the original Squier pickups that I really wanna know for sure if these are honest to goodness Geddy's. Cause if they are, then that really just bolsters my (already high) opinion of the Squier CV series.

But until I have that other opinion that these are what the dood says they are, I really can't make that judgement.

Would pictures/sound clips help?

[miles'tone]

Right, I see where you're coming from now. I thought they might be from an early first run Geddy bass and if you type 'pickups in early geddy lee jazz bass' into the search engine, you'll find a good thread that says they did have flat pole pieces then.

[miles'tone]

......but it seems they had cloth wire then too. Your dood may have mis-sold I fear.

[Bongolation]

Originally Posted by paparoof

It seems most of the Geddy pickups I see going for sale here have cloth wire, beveled pole pieces and a relatively darker brown coil wire. I bought some used pickups recently that supposedly came from a "brand new off the wall" Geddy, but they have a brighter, lighter copper-colored wire, plastic insulation on the wires and flat pole pieces.
[...]
Would pictures/sound clips help?

Yes.

The GL supposedly uses Fender "Original" vintage pickups, very obvious-looking units...at least currently and for some time past.

Now, somewhere along the line, people here started saying that the original Jaguar basses, also made by Dyna-Gakki, had the same pickups as the GL.

I heard this so much I assumed it was true and even passed along the information without personally checking it out, despite having a Jaguar around here in storage.

I had it out the other day and looked at the pickups and immediately realized that these "vintage" (boy, does FMIC love using that word! ) pickups were absolutely nothing of the sort.

I pulled them last night and sure enough, they're ceramic bar pickups, not even remotely like the "Originals" with Alnico pole pieces.

So, two things here:

1: This guy may have sold you Jaguar pickups thinking they were the same as GLs having heard this misinformation, or...

2: Somewhere in the distant past, GL v1.0 basses (the ones with the trouble necks) may actually have had this same mystery Dyna pickup in it.

Pictures, absolutely!

[SGD Lutherie]

Originally Posted by Square

When researching beveled pole pieces on my guitar pickups I read somewhere that leo started this because he had pole pieces with chipped edges that would otherwise go to waste. Leo didn't waste much of anything... Beveling the edges gave them a uniform look that could be put into a new pickup and thus use up the damaged pole pieces in his inventory.

I would tend to believe that!