Jack Casady and adding extra magnets to pickups

[JimmyM]

So I just found that interview with Jack Casady about his basses. @sikamikanico , Jack didn't specify what strings he added the magnet but said he used a 3/4 size magnet, so that must have been what he did.

Jack Casady: Alembic, Guild and Fender

 

[dwizum]

Back in the late 80s I noticed the tone on my Pbass was, to my ear, getting kinda thin and weak. So I handed it over to local super-luthier Bill Grugget(RIP) and he rewound and re-installed it.
It came back louder, brighter, and cleaner. For all I know, he sprinkled magic fairy dust in there.

Pickup rewinds are usually just replacing the coil wire (and leaving the magnets and structural pieces alone). Especially on a P bass pickup, where the magnets essentially ARE the structure. If you were to replace the coil wire and the magnets, it's a new pickup, aside from the flatwork, which contributes nothing to the sound or output and just exists to hold the magnets in place.

When I bought my Squire Telecaster earlier this year, it came with ceramic PUs... Based on everything I had heard, Alnico was the way to go. But before I pulled the trigger, I decided to go and try one that had them just to see.
At the end of the day,....I honestly liked the ceramic ones more.
Maybe its just me...I don't know exactly how they work...
But I know what I like!

I happen to really like a lot of the recent Squier pickups too, even though they're ceramic and don't follow vintage design principles. That's the shame in consumer thinking about pickup design. People like alnico because that's what Leo used back in the day. Our ears have been trained to hear Alnico pickups and think they sound good, because of the constant (and sometimes confusing) focus on trying to achieve or recreate what was done in the past. And marketers know about that focus, so they flaunt pickup design elements that match historical designs as if they were the best ever, regardless of if the design element is actually important or not.

But, back in the day, they didn't use alnico because it was the all time best possible material, they used it because that's what was available that met their design needs. Modern materials (like ceramic magnets) can make awesome pickups. Modern design shapes and approaches can give a lot more freedom than Leo's designs. As a pickup designer, modern materials and formats give you a lot of freedom. If you forget about vintage designs, it's easier to design a range of good-sounding pickups on ceramic magnets using whatever design format you want, than on alnico using rod magnets pushed into flatwork. But consumers perceive those designs as cheap or at least automatically inferior, so it's an uphill battle.

 

[DJ Bebop]

So I just found that interview with Jack Casady about his basses. @sikamikanico , Jack didn't specify what strings he added the magnet but said he used a 3/4 size magnet, so that must have been what he did.

Jack Casady: Alembic, Guild and Fender

Jack Casady: We duplicated the pickups as they were on the old '72 model but then I took the pickup and added more alnico power to it, another three quarters of an alnico magnet on the other side. Also I took a page out of a lot of lap steels, I took the windings that were used for those pickups and used a higher gauge wire. I used a 28 gauge wire, very thick. I wanted to thicken the sound up, and they said that I could do anything I want. I could add one pickup, two pickups, three pickups. I said what I want is one great pickup that I can have at any expense.

 

[dwizum]

I used a 28 gauge wire, very thick.

I'm not really familiar with the actual pickup in question, but 28 gauge coil wire would be incredibly thick. On the order of three times thicker than a normal coil wire. When you make that big of a change, it becomes a very different design than a typical pickup. It's hard to pack enough turns of a wire that thick into a pickup, you just run out of room. It's no wonder he found he needed extra magnet power to make up the difference. A pickup made with fewer turns of heavier wire and a stronger magnet will generally have a very clear and bright tone, approaching the "hi-fi" flat response that gets mentioned sometimes. It would probably need a preamp on the instrument to boost the signal too.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

I'm not really familiar with the actual pickup in question, but 28 gauge coil wire would be incredibly thick. On the order of three times thicker than a normal coil wire. When you make that big of a change, it becomes a very different design than a typical pickup. It's hard to pack enough turns of a wire that thick into a pickup, you just run out of room. It's no wonder he found he needed extra magnet power to make up the difference. A pickup made with fewer turns of heavier wire and a stronger magnet will generally have a very clear and bright tone, approaching the "hi-fi" flat response that gets mentioned sometimes. It would probably need a preamp on the instrument to boost the signal too.

That’s kind of what it is. A low impedance pickup that then goes through a transformer to step it up to “normal” impedance. I have no idea what the coil wire is however.

 

[JimmyM]

I'm not really familiar with the actual pickup in question, but 28 gauge coil wire would be incredibly thick. On the order of three times thicker than a normal coil wire. When you make that big of a change, it becomes a very different design than a typical pickup. It's hard to pack enough turns of a wire that thick into a pickup, you just run out of room. It's no wonder he found he needed extra magnet power to make up the difference. A pickup made with fewer turns of heavier wire and a stronger magnet will generally have a very clear and bright tone, approaching the "hi-fi" flat response that gets mentioned sometimes. It would probably need a preamp on the instrument to boost the signal too.

That’s kind of what it is. A low impedance pickup that then goes through a transformer to step it up to “normal” impedance. I have no idea what the coil wire is however.

Yep, has a transformer stage to bump up the impedance instead of a preamp like EMG's, and that way it doesn't need an active pre because Jack prefers passive, apparently. Hey, the guy did a lot of 60's drugs in Frisco, but he did make the best selling semihollow bass in history so it must work.

 

[DJ Bebop]

Yep, has a transformer stage to bump up the impedance instead of a preamp like EMG's, and that way it doesn't need an active pre because Jack prefers passive, apparently. Hey, the guy did a lot of 60's drugs in Frisco, but he did make the best selling semihollow bass in history so it must work.

Sorry

 

[shoulderpet]

Pickup rewinds are usually just replacing the coil wire (and leaving the magnets and structural pieces alone). Especially on a P bass pickup, where the magnets essentially ARE the structure. If you were to replace the coil wire and the magnets, it's a new pickup, aside from the flatwork, which contributes nothing to the sound or output and just exists to hold the magnets in place.



I happen to really like a lot of the recent Squier pickups too, even though they're ceramic and don't follow vintage design principles. That's the shame in consumer thinking about pickup design. People like alnico because that's what Leo used back in the day. Our ears have been trained to hear Alnico pickups and think they sound good, because of the constant (and sometimes confusing) focus on trying to achieve or recreate what was done in the past. And marketers know about that focus, so they flaunt pickup design elements that match historical designs as if they were the best ever, regardless of if the design element is actually important or not.

But, back in the day, they didn't use alnico because it was the all time best possible material, they used it because that's what was available that met their design needs. Modern materials (like ceramic magnets) can make awesome pickups. Modern design shapes and approaches can give a lot more freedom than Leo's designs. As a pickup designer, modern materials and formats give you a lot of freedom. If you forget about vintage designs, it's easier to design a range of good-sounding pickups on ceramic magnets using whatever design format you want, than on alnico using rod magnets pushed into flatwork. But consumers perceive those designs as cheap or at least automatically inferior, so it's an uphill battle.

The whole vintage pickup thing is mostly for marketing, back in the early days of Fender it was more about doing things cheaply rather than striving for the best tone, yes the P pickup design was a stroke of genius but you can be assured that Fender would have gone for the cheapest and easiest way of winding the pickups, pretty sure I read that Leo Fender just told his workers to wind the pickups till they were full and with the technology (or lack of) that was available im fairly sure consistency would have been all over the place so 2 pickups would likely have been quite different despite appearances

 

[edwinhurwitz]

Casady's double magnet thing came about with the Hagstrom Bisonic pickups that were in his Starfires. If you look at the bottom of the pickup, there's a slot for an additional magnet, so Bear, aka Owsley Stanley, put one in there as an experiment and it improved the sound. I got some of the magnets for my Bisonic and Dark Star pickups from Rick Turner (he still had a stash of them that he had cut back in the day about 15 year ago). At some point, Guild started putting in two magnets per pickup, which is how you mostly see them these days.

 

[sikamikanico]

So I just found that interview with Jack Casady about his basses. @sikamikanico , Jack didn't specify what strings he added the magnet but said he used a 3/4 size magnet, so that must have been what he did.

Jack Casady: Alembic, Guild and Fender

a couple sources say treble strings, including:

OK, a few thoughts on the JC pickup. I actually had one here to study for a while.

The Casady bass is a reproduction of a Les Paul Signature bass, but the pickup is different. The original pickup was designed by Bill Lawrence, and is very different from the Les Paul triumph pickups.

The Triumph and Recording pickups were stacked humbuckers with multiple taps. The Triumph pickups were wound with 32 gauge wire. The Recording guitar was wound with heavier 24 gauge wire. They probably used the thinner wire on the bass pickups to be able to fit more winds.

The Les Paul Signature pickup were conventional humbuckers and used common 42 gauge wire, but used fewer turns of wire. Instead of the pickup being tapped, the transformer is.

So what Jack did was to go with the heavy 24 gauge wire on his model. Larger wire gives more lows and highs and the mids are more scooped sounding. he also added a second magnet that goes 3/4 of the way across under the treble strings. The Casady pickup measures 23 Ohms. Not Kilohm.

View attachment 1955990

alternative Jack Casady epiphone pick up

 

[JimmyM]

a couple sources say treble strings, including:

alternative Jack Casady epiphone pick up

Interesting thread. Can't say I ever thought of the couple JC's I've played as lacking in mids, but that was years ago so who knows what I'd think now?

 

[NoiseNinja]

Like you, I don't understand the mechanics of pickups or the how and whys they do what they do.
Back in the late 80s I noticed the tone on my Pbass was, to my ear, getting kinda thin and weak. So I handed it over to local super-luthier Bill Grugget(RIP) and he rewound and re-installed it.
It came back louder, brighter, and cleaner. For all I know, he sprinkled magic fairy dust in there.
When I bought my Squire Telecaster earlier this year, it came with ceramic PUs... Based on everything I had heard, Alnico was the way to go. But before I pulled the trigger, I decided to go and try one that had them just to see.
At the end of the day,....I honestly liked the ceramic ones more.
Maybe its just me...I don't know exactly how they work...
But I know what I like!

Now I don't know weather the Squier Classic Vibe Series 60's P Bass got a ceramic magnet pickup or not, but listening through the sound samples Thomann offers of the different basses they sell the other day, I much preferred the tone of that Squier to the sound samples of any of the much more expensive higher end Fender P basses.

Also the DiMarzio Model P utilizes ceramic magnets, and I love that pickup, as does many others, and it's a generally quite highly praised pickup.

Mind I do personally still prefer my Anico 5 rod loaded EMG Geezer Butler P pickup over the Model P, but that is just down to personal preferences, the Model P is absolutely one of the greater P pickups out there.

 

[sikamikanico]

Interesting thread. Can't say I ever thought of the couple JC's I've played as lacking in mids, but that was years ago so who knows what I'd think now?

I don't think we have any firm agreement on which frequencies are the "mids", particularly high and low mids, and we also seem to be unreliable correctly identifying/hearing these frequencies by ear. We probably also have different ideas what "flat" is. So in the end, few people agree on pretty much anything

 

[NoiseNinja]

Now I don't know weather the Squier Classic Vibe Series 60's P Bass got a ceramic magnet pickup or not, but listening through the sound samples Thomann offers of the different basses they sell the other day, I much preferred the tone of that Squier to the sound samples of any of the much more expensive higher end Fender P basses.

Also the DiMarzio Model P utilizes ceramic magnets, and I love that pickup, as does many others, and it's a generally quite highly praised pickup.

Mind I do personally still prefer my Anico 5 rod loaded EMG Geezer Butler P pickup over the Model P, but that is just down to personal preferences, the Model P is absolutely one of the greater P pickups out there.

Just looked it up and Fender own home page says: "This model features a Fender-Designed alnico (assume Alnico 5) split-coil pickup for authentic Fender tone" , so guess that solves that mystery.

And I guess me liking the tone that produces (again only judging from the audio samples of the bass Thomann provides) does kind of make sense, assuming the pickup would be somewhat of an approximation to the original 60's Fender pickup (to fit the basses this model is supposed to be replicating), since as said I love my EMG Geezer signature P pickup, and that pickup too is supposed to have been modeled after an original Fender '60 P pickup.

However my point still stands, ceramic pickups doesn't necessarily sound bad, they can even sound amazing, and some higher end pickups does in fact also utilize ceramic magnets, they just happen to be relatively cheap magnets (which says nothing about the quality of them), and therefor what you will find in most cheap budget pickups, which I guess is how this type of magnet got associated with inferior tonal qualities (kind of how short scale basses got associated with being inferior instruments, despite actually in reality not having anything inherently to do with their specific scale length).

Just because pasta is cheap and you once had a horrible tasting cheap dish featuring pasta that doesn't make pasta an inherently inferior type of food/ingredient.

 

[DJ Bebop]

a couple sources say treble strings, including:



alternative Jack Casady epiphone pick up

So it this something that transferred over to the production runs of the bass, the 3/4 magnet deal?

 

[sikamikanico]

So it this something that transferred over to the production runs of the bass, the 3/4 magnet deal?

it looks like it... search around here (or google) for pictures... i saw several from the underside that show the 3/4 bar magnet...

 

[JimmyM]

So it this something that transferred over to the production runs of the bass, the 3/4 magnet deal?

Yes.

 

[JimmyM]

Just looked it up and Fender own home page says: "This model features a Fender-Designed alnico (assume Alnico 5) split-coil pickup for authentic Fender tone" , so guess that solves that mystery.

Alnico 2 is also quite popular for pickups, and Fender uses it in their V-Mods, so I'd never assume that they're alnico 5.

 

[JimmyM]

Speaking of which, let's talk the DiMarzio Model P and J, of which I am a fan. I've been told they're not overwound, which is a typical way of getting hot pickups. So am I to assume they increase their output through magnet mass instead? Like maybe since it's weaker but cheaper, Larry just put a big magnet on it and got the hotness?

 

[micguy]

Speaking of which, let's talk the DiMarzio Model P and J, of which I am a fan. I've been told they're not overwound, which is a typical way of getting hot pickups. So am I to assume they increase their output through magnet mass instead? Like maybe since it's weaker but cheaper, Larry just put a big magnet on it and got the hotness?

It's a different magnetic circuit - steel pole pieces with ceramic magnets, rather than magnets as the pole pieces. It's not one simple thing that makes them hotter, it's a few interrelated things. DiMarzios probably cost more to make than standard Fenderish designs - you can't magnetize the pickup as a whole, you have to magnetize the magnets separately, and then assemble things - it's a more complicated build. In terms of overwound or not, Dimarzio's model P ends up with about the same inductance as the stock Fender designs. The model J is a bit higher than stock Fender designs in terms of inductance. It's also hum cancelling, which again makes it more expensive to build than the stock Fender J pickups.