Inspired by another thread....many actually...
OK, so some of you may have heard of pickup maker Wolfe Macleod - on another forum, he posted an email he received from someone inquiring about his pickups. It is far and away the most outlandish and amusing description of desired "tone" I have ever read in my life - I had to save it for posterity.
Post your own faves if you have any.
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Hi, I am searching for pickups for a custom made guitar. Please read my explanation.
I´m Searching: Pickups to suit and make satisfying contribution to my kind of guitar sound, not for versatility. Preferably custom made pups for both bridge and the neck position. Pickups are to be direct mounted in tight fitted cavities through the top and into the neck through, to capture more of the guitar's overall resonance. Pups will actually have physical contact with both top and neck-through which are glued together around the cavity areas. Also a internal pickup system will be used for reading the wood, blending with the magnetic pups. (Probably a film transducer type, if you don´t have a better or specific advice for that purpose).
The two main issues of a custom pickup would be:
1. Picking up the guitars´ sound in the truest way.
2. Refining/sculpturing and making their own contribution to the wanted final sound.
Wanted sound explained by treble, mids and low-end:
Silky trebles, rounded but clear.
Burnished, silky and enhanced mids.
Tight and balanced low-end.
The overall tone I want:
Burnished and Glassy. It can`t simply be burnished, glassy, silky and smooth enough.
A dark tone quality. Crystal Clear, but on the silky and darker side.
Silky and smooth.
Glassy, but not hard or edgy.
Crystal clear and articulate balanced with a oily tone.
Thick/Fat.
Dense but not hard and still open sounding.
Articulate focused attack with "piano-like brilliance as Macassar Ebony does to guitars.
Not - What I don´t want is:
Brittle
Bite
Gritty
Grind
Sharp
Nasal
Crunch
Rattling and buzzing (caused by magnetic pull of the strings)
Breakup sound
Brown Sound
Harsh
Sizzling
Ice-pickey
Twang
Quack
Mush
Mud
Qualities in guitar sound to suite my playing style and fusion music:
A clear singing sustain for legato lines using overdrive.
Dense and articulate/defined tone for very fast picked line phrasings (overdrive and clean tone).
Good string separation for closed voice chords using clean amp sound.
Dynamic for differentiating stronger and softer attacks and different points of striking the string.
Guitar used: I am about to get build a neck-through-body hollow archtop with a flat zero radius fretboard. The Idea of the instrument is simply the density and sustain of a solidbody given the liveliness, tone amplifying/enhancing body and other qualities of an archtop. Also using the advantages of direct coupling that only neck-throughs can provide.
Pickup placements/distance from saddle and neck is of course adjustable as of yet the guitar is not built. But in general I find bridge pickups placed to close to the bridge making a nasal sound which I don't like. The neck pickup would probably be placed as close to the 24th fret as possible.
Wood selection:
Neck-through: Brazilian Rosewood for glassy, burnished and reverby sound w smooth highs.
Top, back and sides: Koa for strong sweet midrange, warm, thick clear and open resonant tone with tight low-end and lots of sustain.
Fretboard: Macassar Ebony for an articulate focused attack with piano-like brilliance.
The neck-through is in touch with the top at the fretboard, pickup cavities and tremolo/bridge area only. Pickups are to be mounted directly to the top/neck-through, pressed into very tight pickup cavities.
Would be nice if the pickup mounting screws/bolts/bolt´n´nut could be mounted from the back side of the neck through, the cavities would look nicer made for pickups without the dog-ears.
Tone reference:
Ideal would be the 1st string of a Classical Gut string guitar striked with an extremely polished/burnished nail. Added sustain as if the note very bowed(as a violin bow). This might demand a pickup making the strings sound thicker than they really are.
Lace Sensors Gold in my Strat Plus have some but nice glassy sound to them using clean sound, though they are lacking in other areas especially used with overdrive.
Amp/sound:
Fusion style improv music, using gain overdrive for sustain and easy going legato (lead playing sound). A combination of power amp overdrive and gain would be better. Right now I am using the Soldano Caswell preamp and Fender Concert combos (for clean sound).
I am searching for an amp with smooth and not brake-up type of sound, combining preamp overdrive with power amp overdrive sound., hopefully I will have Tony Bruno make a custom one. But first I have to have a guitar with convincing pickups.
Pickups I have tried:
Stock Anderson H2+ is to woody and dry. Seymour Duncan Alnico II pro ( It has a nice sweet tone, but it is too small and are not polished enough
The Anderson single coils sounds too crunch and not polished enough using overdrive/distortion.
All Mahogany PRS 87` w stock pickups: Very nice midrange, some burnished qualities but not big or open sounding.
Seems like a I don`t usually care for hot pickups. They make the tones coming on to hard, hardens the attack as spitted out of the amp as opposed to hitting a note putting vibrato to for an almost volume swell, blooming appearance. They often loose tone as well made by an unbalanced amount of string sound vs. the sound resonating through the wood. I have not tried a lot though, and mostly spring mounted ones.
Ending with a few questions:
· To which degree is it possible for a pick up to alter the qualities of sound (ex. more silky, glassy and burnished) independent of the frequencies(quantities)?
· Is it possible for pups to make all the strings sounds more equal (as if they were of similar gauge), the treble strings thicker and the lower ones more slinkier/slimmer, without filtering out a lot of the guitars` own sound?
· The art of building pickups as the art of building guitars are more much more than measuring data /specs, I would appreciate your specs/type advice according to the listed aspects, that is to closer the wanted sound qualities I described above?
Output (Inductance):
D.C. Resistance determined by:
1. the number of turns of wire:
2. the gauge of the wire:
Capacitance:
· Steel poles are supposed to make a silky top, it that your experience too?
· Kinman's special Alnico-5 magnets that exert 40% less magnetic pull on the strings actually allow maximum Sustain sounds interesting. But some characterises the Alnico magnets´ contribution as gritty with no smoothness, some say its warm and sweet and some say type of magnet makes no difference. What is your experience?
· Lower output Humbuckers, p-90s style, Single coil type or Jazz Master style pickups?
· Potted or unpotted?
· Could the pickups be made of Matching Koa wood or just pickups tops made of Koa (picture below for wood tops or possibly wood construction) tops and gold pole pieces ?
· It will probably be better to make the pickup after the guitar is build and stringed up, but in order to avoid waiting time the pickups could be paid in advance for getting a place in your waiting list. The guitar is done about July next year(2007). And another one is coming up a few months later.
· I am pretty shure you are using the very best of quality parts, although I have to ask, as the request may be an upcharge...?
If this sounds interesting to you or if there is a stock pickup you would want me to try before an eventually custom pickup is made, please let me know.
Looking forward hearing from you.
Sincerely,
OK, so some of you may have heard of pickup maker Wolfe Macleod - on another forum, he posted an email he received from someone inquiring about his pickups. It is far and away the most outlandish and amusing description of desired "tone" I have ever read in my life - I had to save it for posterity.
Post your own faves if you have any.
----------
Hi, I am searching for pickups for a custom made guitar. Please read my explanation.
I´m Searching: Pickups to suit and make satisfying contribution to my kind of guitar sound, not for versatility. Preferably custom made pups for both bridge and the neck position. Pickups are to be direct mounted in tight fitted cavities through the top and into the neck through, to capture more of the guitar's overall resonance. Pups will actually have physical contact with both top and neck-through which are glued together around the cavity areas. Also a internal pickup system will be used for reading the wood, blending with the magnetic pups. (Probably a film transducer type, if you don´t have a better or specific advice for that purpose).
The two main issues of a custom pickup would be:
1. Picking up the guitars´ sound in the truest way.
2. Refining/sculpturing and making their own contribution to the wanted final sound.
Wanted sound explained by treble, mids and low-end:
Silky trebles, rounded but clear.
Burnished, silky and enhanced mids.
Tight and balanced low-end.
The overall tone I want:
Burnished and Glassy. It can`t simply be burnished, glassy, silky and smooth enough.
A dark tone quality. Crystal Clear, but on the silky and darker side.
Silky and smooth.
Glassy, but not hard or edgy.
Crystal clear and articulate balanced with a oily tone.
Thick/Fat.
Dense but not hard and still open sounding.
Articulate focused attack with "piano-like brilliance as Macassar Ebony does to guitars.
Not - What I don´t want is:
Brittle
Bite
Gritty
Grind
Sharp
Nasal
Crunch
Rattling and buzzing (caused by magnetic pull of the strings)
Breakup sound
Brown Sound
Harsh
Sizzling
Ice-pickey
Twang
Quack
Mush
Mud
Qualities in guitar sound to suite my playing style and fusion music:
A clear singing sustain for legato lines using overdrive.
Dense and articulate/defined tone for very fast picked line phrasings (overdrive and clean tone).
Good string separation for closed voice chords using clean amp sound.
Dynamic for differentiating stronger and softer attacks and different points of striking the string.
Guitar used: I am about to get build a neck-through-body hollow archtop with a flat zero radius fretboard. The Idea of the instrument is simply the density and sustain of a solidbody given the liveliness, tone amplifying/enhancing body and other qualities of an archtop. Also using the advantages of direct coupling that only neck-throughs can provide.
Pickup placements/distance from saddle and neck is of course adjustable as of yet the guitar is not built. But in general I find bridge pickups placed to close to the bridge making a nasal sound which I don't like. The neck pickup would probably be placed as close to the 24th fret as possible.
Wood selection:
Neck-through: Brazilian Rosewood for glassy, burnished and reverby sound w smooth highs.
Top, back and sides: Koa for strong sweet midrange, warm, thick clear and open resonant tone with tight low-end and lots of sustain.
Fretboard: Macassar Ebony for an articulate focused attack with piano-like brilliance.
The neck-through is in touch with the top at the fretboard, pickup cavities and tremolo/bridge area only. Pickups are to be mounted directly to the top/neck-through, pressed into very tight pickup cavities.
Would be nice if the pickup mounting screws/bolts/bolt´n´nut could be mounted from the back side of the neck through, the cavities would look nicer made for pickups without the dog-ears.
Tone reference:
Ideal would be the 1st string of a Classical Gut string guitar striked with an extremely polished/burnished nail. Added sustain as if the note very bowed(as a violin bow). This might demand a pickup making the strings sound thicker than they really are.
Lace Sensors Gold in my Strat Plus have some but nice glassy sound to them using clean sound, though they are lacking in other areas especially used with overdrive.
Amp/sound:
Fusion style improv music, using gain overdrive for sustain and easy going legato (lead playing sound). A combination of power amp overdrive and gain would be better. Right now I am using the Soldano Caswell preamp and Fender Concert combos (for clean sound).
I am searching for an amp with smooth and not brake-up type of sound, combining preamp overdrive with power amp overdrive sound., hopefully I will have Tony Bruno make a custom one. But first I have to have a guitar with convincing pickups.
Pickups I have tried:
Stock Anderson H2+ is to woody and dry. Seymour Duncan Alnico II pro ( It has a nice sweet tone, but it is too small and are not polished enough
The Anderson single coils sounds too crunch and not polished enough using overdrive/distortion.
All Mahogany PRS 87` w stock pickups: Very nice midrange, some burnished qualities but not big or open sounding.
Seems like a I don`t usually care for hot pickups. They make the tones coming on to hard, hardens the attack as spitted out of the amp as opposed to hitting a note putting vibrato to for an almost volume swell, blooming appearance. They often loose tone as well made by an unbalanced amount of string sound vs. the sound resonating through the wood. I have not tried a lot though, and mostly spring mounted ones.
Ending with a few questions:
· To which degree is it possible for a pick up to alter the qualities of sound (ex. more silky, glassy and burnished) independent of the frequencies(quantities)?
· Is it possible for pups to make all the strings sounds more equal (as if they were of similar gauge), the treble strings thicker and the lower ones more slinkier/slimmer, without filtering out a lot of the guitars` own sound?
· The art of building pickups as the art of building guitars are more much more than measuring data /specs, I would appreciate your specs/type advice according to the listed aspects, that is to closer the wanted sound qualities I described above?
Output (Inductance):
D.C. Resistance determined by:
1. the number of turns of wire:
2. the gauge of the wire:
Capacitance:
· Steel poles are supposed to make a silky top, it that your experience too?
· Kinman's special Alnico-5 magnets that exert 40% less magnetic pull on the strings actually allow maximum Sustain sounds interesting. But some characterises the Alnico magnets´ contribution as gritty with no smoothness, some say its warm and sweet and some say type of magnet makes no difference. What is your experience?
· Lower output Humbuckers, p-90s style, Single coil type or Jazz Master style pickups?
· Potted or unpotted?
· Could the pickups be made of Matching Koa wood or just pickups tops made of Koa (picture below for wood tops or possibly wood construction) tops and gold pole pieces ?
· It will probably be better to make the pickup after the guitar is build and stringed up, but in order to avoid waiting time the pickups could be paid in advance for getting a place in your waiting list. The guitar is done about July next year(2007). And another one is coming up a few months later.
· I am pretty shure you are using the very best of quality parts, although I have to ask, as the request may be an upcharge...?
If this sounds interesting to you or if there is a stock pickup you would want me to try before an eventually custom pickup is made, please let me know.
Looking forward hearing from you.
Sincerely,
I think he was the tool in #2
