Sidewinders, Multi-coils and other hard to find pickups

[big_teee]

Size 35.
I got this started today.
I'll finish it tomorrow.
I used the just a little smaller 5/16" magnets, instead of the big 3/8" used in the MM MC.
I'll wire it up and give it a spin tomorrow.
T

 

[orange joe]

oh wow thats awesome!!!!!If the test goes well I'd love a set of those!

 

[big_teee]

Somehow I double posted.
OJ I thought you might like that!
The hole drilling scared me, but it turned out OK.
T

 

[orange joe]

Looks great!I would love to hear them!Very exciting stuff.Great work T.

 

[MPU]

Well Sentell got the pickups back today and can find no issue with them.He tested polarity gauss and everything checked out even offered me a refund.But I'm not done with these yet.He is sending them back and I'm going to install them in my old bass which has a passive 500k set up with a .047uf cap on the tone pot rather than the Duncan 2 band pre amp in my new bass.That way I will be able to determin if the issue is with the pre amp.If this is the case I'll be yanking the pre amp.I had the same one in my old bass and didn't care for it.It has a "slap contour" pull pot that is completely useless and didn't really do anything for my tone that my pre amp pedal couldn't do.I find passive pickups through a decent pre amp pedal works best for me anyway.Still the issue itself puzzles me especially since the winder can find no mechanical reason for it.As I stated before the pickups sounded fine independently but when used together the A string was much quieter and had no bass behind it.So I flipped the neck pickup and the same thing happened on the A string.I then flipped the bridge pickup and the effect jumped to the D string so I assumed it was something with the bridge pickup.All I know is my brain hurts just trying to figure out how there is this problem when the pickup is fine.Riddle me that one guys.

I've had something similar with one of my early multicoils. I had somehow wired one of the coils wrong (finish was wired as start). Switching the wiring solved the problem.

 

[big_teee]

I agree with Marko.
It's also easy If you don't mark your bobbins top and bottom, to get one flipped over.
T

 

[orange joe]

Thanks guys I'll report back when I get them.

 

[big_teee]

I tested the Size 35 Soapbar Multi-coil Pickup today.
I built it using the 2 & 2 polarity like a P-bass pickup.
E & A strings were polarized one way and the D &G were polarized the other way.
All 4 coils tied in series.
I tested it in the bridge, and I had the 8 coil MM MC in the neck.
The Pickup worked great, with no polarity issues.
The pickup sounded a lot like the 8 coil MM MC, but not quiet as loud.
I like the pickup and it has a lot of potential.
Going to work on optimizing the wind turn count to tone ratio.
IMO it needs to be a little darker tonally in the bridge position, and that would mean more turns of wire.
I will work on that, and build a neck model, off and on this week.
It should be a neat addition to the list of Multi-coil routes.
T

 

[orange joe]

I tested the Size 35 Soapbar Multi-coil Pickup today.
I built it using the 2 & 2 polarity like a P-bass pickup.
E & A strings were polarized one way and the D &G were polarized the other way.
All 4 coils tied in series.
I tested it in the bridge, and I had the 8 coil MM MC in the neck.
The Pickup worked great, with no polarity issues.
The pickup sounded a lot like the 8 coil MM MC, but not quiet as loud.
I like the pickup and it has a lot of potential.
Going to work on optimizing the wind turn count to tone ratio.
IMO it needs to be a little darker tonally in the bridge position, and that would mean more turns of wire.
I will work on that, and build a neck model, off and on this week.
It should be a neat addition to the list of Multi-coil routes.
T

Very cool.This is getting exciting!!!

 

[orange joe]

Hey guys.Just wanted to check in and tell you whats up with the pickups.I got the multi coils back from Sentell yesterday and just installed them a few minutes ago.He said he recharged the magnets.I don't know why that would have caused the issue I was having but they are functioning properly now.It is truly a much different sound then I am used to but I really dig it.Very nice articulate,punchy,clear tone to these pups.I'll post sound clips as soon as I can.I can't wait to try Big T's version of these pickups.

 

[big_teee]

Hey OJ, glad you got it worked out.
Here's a picture of big brother, and little brother in the test bass.
I like both of them, and they are neat pickups.
T

 

[MPU]

I'm making four coils in J covers. Should be finished and mounted in the bass this morning. 5mm A5 magnets, 8500 rounds of 42AWG wire on each coil, charged and wired like big_tee wired the four coil. I'll post pics and clips later today.
Marko

 

[MPU]

Here's pics and clip as promised.

Soundclip at

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First neck, then both parallel, both series and last is bridge.

 

[winegamd]

Here's pics and clip as promised.

Soundclip at

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First neck, then both parallel, both series and last is bridge.

Those sound pretty good. Not quite what I would have expected, but good.

 

[big_teee]

I've been messing with the MCs a couple weeks now, and the tone circuit seems to be real important.
I'm running the test bass with two 500k volume Pots, and the Master Tone is also a 500k with a .033uf Cap.
The tone cap has to be the right value, or too small, & you get too metallic sounding, or too big, too dark, it seems very picky with the MCs.
I tried two different .047uf, and a .022uf, and the .033uf hit the spot with the 500ks.
I also tried 250k Pots on everything and gradually changed them all out, one at a time to CTS 500ks.
Not sure what the preamp sounds like with them.
T

 

[big_teee]

Multi-Coil Ps Coming soon!
This will be close to the same pickup as the Size 35 Multi-Coil.
2 polarized one way, and the other 2 the other way, like regular Ps.
Going to use the bigger 3/8 magnets in these.
I should have these working in the test bass in a couple of days.
T

 

[orange joe]

Very cool stuff T.I got the Big T multi-coils today and will put them in one of my basses tomorrow.I'll let you guys know how it goes!

 

[MaHei]

Here's pics and clip as promised.


Soundclip at

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First neck, then both parallel, both series and last is bridge.

Sounds great! Very muscular yet clear.

 

[orange joe]

Greetings folks.I installed the Big T 35 multi-coils first thing this morning.I put them in my passive walnut bass with 500k pots and a .047uf cap.They are probably the best pickups I have ever had the pleasure of playing with.Very clear and punchy.They really grab you by the cojones.The Sentells are very nice and sound very similar but there is something about Big T's pickups that simply sounds better to me.I will be ordering another set soon so I can have them in both of my basses.That being said I am going to post the Sentell multi coils in the classified section soon to fund the second set from Big T so if anyone of you guys are interested I'll give you a good deal on them.

 

[bassvirtuoso]

Greetings folks.I installed the Big T 35 multi-coils first thing this morning.I put them in my passive walnut bass with 500k pots and a .047uf cap.They are probably the best pickups I have ever had the pleasure of playing with.Very clear and punchy.They really grab you by the cojones.The Sentells are very nice and sound very similar but there is something about Big T's pickups that simply sounds better to me.I will be ordering another set soon so I can have them in both of my basses.That being said I am going to post the Sentell multi coils in the classified section soon to fund the second set from Big T so if anyone of you guys are interested I'll give you a good deal on them.

This is great to hear. I will soon be trying out a set as well and will be attempting some sound clips too. I'll be interested to see how this'll be different from your experience since they'll be mated to a Mike Pope Flexcore preamp instead of the 500k/.047 setup.