Help on the Roscoe Beck V pickups

[Viscus]

Can someone please tell me (or measure) the DC resistance for the Fender Roscoe Beck V pickups? I need the measurements for at least one coil of the bridge and neck pickup (neck side).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Viscus]

anybody?

 

[BassmanAK]

If you have a multimeter (it can be a cheap one), you can measure it yourself.
Probably part of the reason you're not getting an answer is you'll need to unsolder some wires from pots to find the resistance, since simply measuring it on the pot (or off of a switch in this case) as is will give a false reading.
Fender's info sheet on the bass is here: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Good luck.

 

[Viscus]

I don't have that bass anymore. I was hoping somebody had those pickups lying around. They were sounding great in single coil mode, so I wanted to make something similar in standard fender size.

Neither Bill Lawrence nor Fender provided any help. I know turn count and wire gauge would be better, but knowing dcr is also a good start. Thanks anyway.

 

[testing1two]

I have always loved these basses. As I understand, there's a lot more going on with those pickups than just sticking 2 jazz coils together.

Here's an excerpt from a Bass Player review:

Another important element of the instrument's fat-and-round sound is the pickups' alnico "Tri-Pole" magnet configuration. Although the pickups appear to have 12 polepieces each, there are actually 22, as each string has two dedicated magnets directly below it, located underneath the pickups' covers. Fender says this arrangement reduces the "double-beating effect" for better intonation past the 12th fret, because the magnets have a softer magnetic pull, especially on the B and E strings.

And an excerpt from an interview with Roscoe:

The pickups we ended up using are handmade by Bill Lawrence. I have to give Bill full credit, because without him, I think the project would have died. After my first phone conversation with him, he told me the problem with making a passive 5-string pickup: it had to do with the magnetic field. So Bill not only corrected the "warble" problem on the B string but all across the instrument, because the strength of the magnets varies according to the mass of the string. There are smaller magnets you don't see; there's a stronger magnet underneath the G string than the B. It was all a matter of mathematics...Constantly during the design process, I compared the sound of the bass to my '66 Jazz until it was right.

Here's the full article & interview: Link Removed

 

[Viscus]

I have read all that before, but that's the only bit of information I could find. Some pretty interesting design elements.

I wish i didn't sell that bass. It's hard to find it; pickups even harder.

 

[testing1two]

I have read all that before, but that's the only bit of information I could find. Some pretty interesting design elements.

I wish i didn't sell that bass. It's hard to find it; pickups even harder.

I hear ya. If I could somehow get the neck of my Ken Smith onto a Roscoe Beck body I think my life would be complete...

But back to the pickups: I agree that the Bill Lawrence pickups were/are pretty special. That said we've come a long way in the past 15+ years and I would wager that a number of pickup makers could develop a dual coil pickup that nails the vintage jazz tone in single coil mode. Aero and Delano come to mind.

As I'm sure you're aware, the Roscoe Beck pickups are now listed as "warranty replacement only" so they can't be ordered but the Lawrence pickup was also used in the bridge position of the older American Dlx 5-string P-basses. Here's the Fender part number if you want to try having a dealer special order it for you: [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]0056135000[/FONT]

 

[Viscus]

Here's the Fender part number if you want to try having a dealer special order it for you: [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]0056135000[/FONT]

Thanks, I'll try that. In the meantime, I'm still hoping someone will chime in with the specs.