slowburnaz
Commercial User
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Sidewinders, Multi-coils and other hard to find pickups
- Thread starter orange joe
- Start date
First of all, apologies for being so tardy in responding. I've somehow missed many of the posts subsequent to my last one.
So far, I've hand wound 1 single coil, enough for one string and used my mic preamp design to play with it. It has potential but that's probably Beranek's Law in play.
Thanks. That pic and sunbeast's comment, as well as the info on the Rautia site and the YT Spector 5 video now makes more sense.
Thank you. As I said above, this now makes sense to me and I have an idea how to implement the multi input preamp, but need to play with some topologies to confirm. My onboard preamp design can be modified to do this, but it's a current hog, so requires an outboard supply. When I get that right, I'll work on low current options.
So far, I've hand wound 1 single coil, enough for one string and used my mic preamp design to play with it. It has potential but that's probably Beranek's Law in play.
I have an ACG Uber 5 string bass. Alan's pickups are wired so each pickup has 2 coils per string. They are wired in series and are essentialy one humcancelling pickup per string. Each of these 5 sets are summed electronically by a board on the back of the pickup and then they are sent to a very comprehensive filter preamp - http://www.acguitars.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ACG_DFM.pdf Now all this chews through a lot of battery power. John East recently told me it is 5mah for the preamp (which should give somewhere around 100 hours per standard alkaline 9v). I suspect is uses more. I only get about 30 hours play time out of a generic aklaline 9v battery in this bass. I am considering routing it for 18v operation and then using 2x8.4v nimh rechargable batteries. The preamp can be bypassed so it is just the pickups and their summing electronics in play. It doesn't sound as good passive IMO. As for is it all worth it over passive single and split coils. I am not so sure. Sometimes the KISS principle applies. I will say that this bass punches like no other I have owned. It is a wall of sound. Double stops and chordal work is amazing. Having each string sensed independantly seems to work well for that. Like anything, a bass is the sum of all its parts and a passive jazz with single coils when everything is right is a thing of beauty to me.
It's just a big bunch of meh to me. The best and most flexible sound I've ever had was from my Alembic Series basses and no passive will ever do that.
The preamp input was sussed literally 10 secs after my last post and the pre is a variant of something I've been using for decades. All I need now is a better pickup winder and a new SMD workstation.
Lindy Fralin builds two 5-string pickups for me under a P90 cover with no holes. The first is his Big Single, a sidewinder design that uses a magnet in top of a mild steel blade. The magnet used in the pickup is a bit of a trade secret and it's not what is shown in the photo.
In order to accommodate a 5-string bass, I had to have wider blades cut from mild steel. I also need to cut and glue together guitar bobbins. I made up a cutting jig and use a blade wrapped in packing tape as a gluing jig. These are ready for winding and Lindy's shop will take it from here.
In order to accommodate a 5-string bass, I had to have wider blades cut from mild steel. I also need to cut and glue together guitar bobbins. I made up a cutting jig and use a blade wrapped in packing tape as a gluing jig. These are ready for winding and Lindy's shop will take it from here.
My second Fralin 5-string option is a Split-J 3+2 staggered under a P90 similar in alignment to a Mustang bass. I cut down, shape and narrow standard bobbins and use a scrap dogear P90 plate for fitment. I'm a sucker for noise canceling so I have both of these Fralin sets wired up with braided leads.
Closing the loop on this, the cut and glued bobbins were a bust, and the brake-cut blades I had were inconsistent in width. So, I decided to have new baseplates and blades cut by www.sendcutsend.com and bobbins 3D printed by www.hubs.com. There's a little more in-depth discussion in the thread here: Magnets & Copper Wire: A Pickup Building Thread
Here are the results:
Here are the results:
@slowburnaz J pickup a possibility? (either MC or sidewinder)
I know that's a super tight fit for sidewinder....
I know that's a super tight fit for sidewinder....
Both are doable in J shell. You just have to adjust the size of the bobbins and blade (in sidewinder).
Good to know. I'm guessing you would have to use a stronger magnet to offset fewer winds for sidewinder.
I'm hoping @slowburnaz will chime in since he's running his own pickup business out of Arizona, which isn't too far from me. Beautiful place too.
slowburnaz
Commercial User
Apologies for the delay…
But yeah, as @MPU said, it's totally doable. If I were to do something like that, I'd be tempted to use a pretty thin piece of steel for a blade style. I'd also probably use neo magnets and 44awg wire to get the wind count up.
In fact, I'm pretty sure @Freekmagnet has built some pickups like this. Maybe not specifically for Jazz shells, but some small footprint sidewinders.
Freekmagnet
Commercial User
@mrperkolator, @slowburnaz I have made some almost Jazz Bass footprint sidewinders, but to be honest, they just didn't have enough oomph for me. I found that sidewinders need a little more width to them, otherwise they just sound thin and wimpy. Someone else might disagree or have different findings, but that's about what I got out of it. I moved on to different designs.
For me, the way to go for a Jazz sized humbucker is just a split coil. Easier to execute and more predictable results.
For me, the way to go for a Jazz sized humbucker is just a split coil. Easier to execute and more predictable results.
Last edited:
Yes!
Natural tone preamp
I have yet to finish the first builds due to some issues with the capacitors, but I am quite confident it will work. It should be even easier to make phantom power work with a more conventional preamp.
Edit: one important consideration is that the impedance of a balanced circuit with phantom power is quite low so there are some dependencies on the preamp design.
Last edited:
slowburnaz
Commercial User
I have. Didn't like the results, though, as fitting them into a cover sized like a Jazz made it so the coils were small…. I actually made them elliptical to get more winds on them.
If I were to do it again, I would sacrifice the cover size to maintain the size of the coils.
I can say I do like the sound on my standard multicoils when one column of coils is selected. I've been tempted to make a version that is just a single row, though I imagine the size would be something like the Bartolini "candy bar" covers.
Last edited:
