Tim Commerford

Him and his bass tech. Thats it. Noone else. So unless you know either of them, youre not going to find out.

 

He wound the pu's by hand. You need to read the Bass Player interview with him. I forget the issue. Most of his equipment is modified in some way, hardly any of it's stock.

 

70's fender jazz bass pickups, rewound by himself

if im wrong, I know that the awnser is in the bass player mag.

 

would re winding by hand change the tone alot? i know how much copper wire is in those pickups and wow that must have took him alot time to wind by hand.

 

Keep your nut. I read that article. It did not contain information on his equipment. In fact, he went out of his way to say that he had wired stuff on his own or with his tech and that he would not tell anyone.

Tim99.

 

http://www.musicplayer.com/lounge/setups/tim.htm

For Commerford, it all starts with pickups. His current main bass is a BEAD-tuned Fender Jazz with an ash body, maple Precision neck, and Leo Quan Badass bridge. Tim’s main bass contains the pickups from the similar instrument he used on three Rage albums and numerous tours. “I smashed that bass on MTV and I regret it to this day. It had these ’70s Jazz pickups I got in England; when I’m on tour I’ll go to all these luthier shops and look for Jazz pickups. Now that the bass I use has those pickups in it, it sounds just as good.” After Tim first acquired those pickups, he rewound them by hand, which he says gave him more sustain and feedback. “I’m not looking for the cleanest sound in the world; I like that edgy, dirty tone. If you use different wire on your pickups, you’ll absolutely get a different sound. To wind pickups by hand, you have to take your time and slowly stack the wires. It’s not the kind of thing you can do in one day; it took me about two weeks. I liken it to winding the winch on my four-wheel-drive truck: You don’t want to just hit the rewind button and let it stack up wherever it wants. You want it to stack perfectly so it almost looks brand new. And thicker wire doesn’t take as long to wrap.” To accommodate his hard-hitting style, Tim sets his action really high, “like on an upright bass.”

 

Hey, my name is Tim. How come nobody asks me about my pickups?

 

Tim's the man. Way cool cat.

He's a definite influence for me. Passionate for sure.

 

It's all about changing resistance. A thicker gauge wire will have more resistance than a thinner one (42 awg?). And winding with a higher resistance will get you a "hotter" output (the more sustain he's talking about, I believe.)

 

Bogart, why don't you experiment for yourself instead of handing out testicles?

Not being difficult, but Tim is kinda arrogant in his secrecy. If he's not gonna divulge what guage wire he uses or how many windings, what makes you think anyone here would know?

 

you've got it opposite. a higher guage (e.g. 42AWG v. 40AWG) will have a higher resistance. but lower guages correspond to bigger diameter, so a thicker guage will have less resistance.

less resistance gives you a weaker output, and using a smaller guage also changes the inductance and the resonant peak of the pickup, which gives it a slightly different sound.

robb.

 

What I want to know, barring materials and whatnot, is how do you test resistance on a pickup withou disturbing the winding source, as in if you have too few windings, do you have to cut the wire free of the bobbin before you can test it?

I always wanted to experiment with that, but was unsure of the protocol.

 

Not to get off-track, but I believe I've heard a rumor that Timmy C. recorded the Audioslave CD with a Sadowsky tuned BEAD. I believe that Roger has substantiated the story as well. If I'm not mistaken, the bass was for sale not long ago too.

 

sweet, where did you hear that?

Charlie

 

It's in the BP issue with Timmy on the cover. BEAD. Not the black bass w/ the whammy bar on it