Magnets & Copper Wire: A Pickup Building Thread

[smart51]

I've just had some new PCB flatwork made. This one has 7950 turns freshly wound on it.

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I've fitted the pickups to my bass and they've transformed the tone. The old ones had the same magnets, but were shorter and had 4000 turns and a preamp. They sounded nasal and thin, even at the neck, but allowed a lot of mwah to be dialed in.

These have 7800 turns at the neck and 7950 at the bridge. There are 4 single coils, arranged in pairs like two parallel humbuckers. One switch allows you to choose between the two north coils and another between the two south coils. Each has its own volume control. It means you can have the outer coils, the inner coils, the two bridge coils or the two neck coils. As you'd expect, the coils nearer to the bridge sound thinner and brighter, the coils nearer the neck sound fuller and darker.

The tone is pretty much what you hear on this YouTube link.

 

[zuma]

I've fitted the pickups to my bass and they've transformed the tone. The old ones had the same magnets, but were shorter and had 4000 turns and a preamp. They sounded nasal and thin, even at the neck, but allowed a lot of mwah to be dialed in.

These have 7800 turns at the neck and 7950 at the bridge. There are 4 single coils, arranged in pairs like two parallel humbuckers. One switch allows you to choose between the two north coils and another between the two south coils. Each has its own volume control. It means you can have the outer coils, the inner coils, the two bridge coils or the two neck coils. As you'd expect, the coils nearer to the bridge sound thinner and brighter, the coils nearer the neck sound fuller and darker.

The tone is pretty much what you hear on this YouTube link.

Bass sounds great, and that whole production sounds top-notch.

 

[MPU]

Has anyone worked with dummy coils? I bought an Alembic SC pickup and need to make a dummy coil to cancel hum. Any useful tips and info?

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Has anyone worked with dummy coils? I bought an Alembic SC pickup and need to make a dummy coil to cancel hum. Any useful tips and info?

I experimented with Dummy Coils for a while many years ago. I'm not an Expert, but I think I understand the basics.

The simple form of Dummy Coils is pretty simple. Make up a new coil that's approximately the same geometry and specs as the pickup you are trying to De-Hum. Same size, same number of turns, but no magnets. Mount it near the pickup and wire it in series, opposite direction. That's it. It's the other half of a humbucking pair, but with no magnets. So, that half isn't adding signal from the strings; it's only adding inverse signal from EMF to cancel the hum.

A simple dummy coil like that will change the sound of a single coil pickup somewhat. Because of the added inductance and resistance of the combined coils. You may like it, or you may not.

If you really don't want to change the sound of the pickup, then you can make a dummy coil which has much lower inductance and resistance. Some folks have made them to attach to the underside of the pickguard, going around the perimeter. Much larger size of the coil, and only a few dozen turns of larger gauge wire. But it takes some engineering and experimenting to tune the coil to capture the same range of EMF as the pickup's coil. Wired up the same way, but with minimal change to the inductance and resistance. I've never messed around with those. But there are a few old threads around here by people who have.

 

[Chris Hass]

Anybody know where I can source some rails that are bigger than 57mm?? Everything I find is for guitars.. strats/humbuckers. I really don't want to deal with string drop off.

 

[MPU]

Anybody know where I can source some rails that are bigger than 57mm?? Everything I find is for guitars.. strats/humbuckers. I really don't want to deal with string drop off.

You mean steel rails? If you have plastic bobbins, you can use two shorter rail pieces and cut them to correct length. Or make your own rails out of steel flat bar.

 

[BTL]

Anybody know where I can source some rails that are bigger than 57mm?? Everything I find is for guitars.. strats/humbuckers. I really don't want to deal with string drop off.

I get my blades and baseplates from Send Cut Send and my bobbins from Hubs/Protolabs.

 

[slowburnaz]

I get my blades and baseplates from Send Cut Send and my bobbins from Hubs/Protolabs.

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This is the way...

 

[NKBassman]

This is the way...

Oooo I see some new pickup models on your website.
Is there a thread somewhere on TB where these have been discussed?

 

[slowburnaz]

Oooo I see some new pickup models on your website.
Is there a thread somewhere on TB where these have been discussed?

I haven’t personally posted anything about them. Folks know my work mainly for the multicoils, so that still makes up most of my sales. But, yeah, I’ve been playing with different ideas regardless


There’s also another model that I haven’t had time to put on the website. It’s a triple coil with an integrated 3-way switch to allow for neck coil only/neck and middle coils / neck and bridge coils.

 

[NKBassman]

I want to try them all. lol

 

[Chris Hass]

I haven’t personally posted anything about them. Folks know my work mainly for the multicoils, so that still makes up most of my sales. But, yeah, I’ve been playing with different ideas regardless


There’s also another model that I haven’t had time to put on the website. It’s a triple coil with an integrated 3-way switch to allow for neck coil only/neck and middle coils / neck and bridge coils.

Like Ibanez ATK style? Hmmmmm.

I really need a nice aggressive pickup for a project soon..

 

[slowburnaz]

Like Ibanez ATK style? Hmmmmm.

I really need a nice aggressive pickup for a project soon..

Sorta… I’m pretty sure that the ATK triple coils used the middle coil as a dummy coil to buck hum only (AFAIK, I’ve seen conflicting info, so don’t take my word for it, heh).

Mine are a little different, where the main goal is to change the overall aperture with the different settings (true single coil being the narrowest, neck/middle being the narrow aperture humbucking mode, and neck/bridge being the wide aperture humbucking mode).

 

[MPU]

I bought a Riverhead Jupiter bass. Vintage bass for me as it’s 40 years old. It had Nordstrand pickups and I wanted something that looked a bit more like the originals. I didn’t try to copy Jupiter pickup, instead I combined Riverhead Unicorn and Jupiter pickup style and made a ”could have been”- style cover. The pickup itself is Alembic-inspired wide aperture single coil with big ceramic magnet and lowish around 4k resistance. I’m going to sand the 3d-printed cover and either clearcoat or paint it.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

I bought a Riverhead Jupiter bass. Vintage bass for me as it’s 40 years old. It had Nordstrand pickups and I wanted something that looked a bit more like the originals. I didn’t try to copy Jupiter pickup, instead I combined Riverhead Unicorn and Jupiter pickup style and made a ”could have been”- style cover. The pickup itself is Alembic-inspired wide aperture single coil with big ceramic magnet and lowish around 4k resistance. I’m going to sand the 3d-printed cover and either clearcoat or paint it.

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Very cool, Marko! It's interesting that the grain pattern from the 3-D printing makes it look almost like stitched leather. Maybe leave the texture on the top surface? A good application of 3-D printing. Did your school get a 3-D printer?

 

[MPU]

Yes, we have a 3d-printer at school. I made keychain files yesterday with a group of 10 years old pupils. We use Tinkercad.

 

[MPU]

Pickups finished and installed. The bass had slight bend on the fretboard that truss rod adjustment didn’t straighten so…. I took the fretboard off with heat, sanded the neck straight, routed slots for cf rods and glued them in, glued the fretboard back, leveled it and refret the neck. Now the neck is straight without any bends. I wanted to use the same fretboard because I wanted to use the same 40 years old woods.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

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Pickups finished and installed. The bass had slight bend on the fretboard that truss rod adjustment didn’t straighten so…. I took the fretboard off with heat, sanded the neck straight, routed slots for cf rods and glued them in, glued the fretboard back, leveled it and refret the neck. Now the neck is straight without any bends. I wanted to use the same fretboard because I wanted to use the same 40 years old woods.

Very nice work, saving an old monster!

On those pickup housings, did you just sand and polish the plastic? Or did you put on an additional coating? They look very nice, in shape and the finish detail.

 

[MPU]

I sanded the covers, then high fill primer, then black paint.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

I sanded the covers, then high fill primer, then black paint.

Ah, okay. I didn't think that the 3D printed plastic would polish up quite that pretty.....