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Won the Wal pickup on ebay!!!

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#421
I put the magnets outside because it's a tight fit between the nuts and didn't want to break them. One is chipped from dropping it. Do you think it will make difference? I'm no pickup guru. I got into modding pedals then built a few and it's just snowballed from there. Gotta build what ya can't afford lol. It's alot more fun anyway. I have some 3/8 bar cut for keepers that I still need to drill and tap. I think the magnets will fit then. I might try some different magnets too like alnico and neo.
 
#423
i finally tested my pickup out and im not happy with the sound at all. its way to thin and brittle sounding specially on the high end but nice and clear. i used sewing bobbins wound with 43 ga. wire to approx. 2.5K. the bobbins are about a 1/4 tall and dia. 1/4-20 allen socket bolts for pole pieces. all wired in series at 19.9k. ceramic magnets and covers came for seymour duncan basslines MM replacements. its was tested in the neck position with no pre, just wired straignt to the output jack. i had to crank the bass on my sansamp bass driver all the way up to get a decent bottom end.

any suggestions?
 
#424
OPIETAYLOR said:
i finally tested my pickup out and im not happy with the sound at all. its way to thin and brittle sounding specially on the high end but nice and clear. i used sewing bobbins wound with 43 ga. wire to approx. 2.5K. the bobbins are about a 1/4 tall and dia. 1/4-20 allen socket bolts for pole pieces. all wired in series at 19.9k. ceramic magnets and covers came for seymour duncan basslines MM replacements. its was tested in the neck position with no pre, just wired straignt to the output jack. i had to crank the bass on my sansamp bass driver all the way up to get a decent bottom end.

any suggestions?
Click to expand...


It sounds like you have the two rows wired electrically in phase, which is out-of-phase with the magnets. With a humbucker, each coil is wired either start-to-start, or finish-to-finish. Not start-to-finish as you would expect.

So each row should be start to finish, and then the two rows are start-to-start, or finish-to-finish.

So try reversing the leads from one row of coils.

Also, I assume you have one row north and the other south, right?
 
#425
With individual coils like this I imagine you could make each row hum canceling on it's own by reversing the polarity 2 of the poles in each of the rows and then have the ability to do a series/parallel/single type of wiring and still have the single row hum canceled.
 
#426
rdrr said:
With individual coils like this I imagine you could make each row hum canceling on it's own by reversing the polarity 2 of the poles in each of the rows and then have the ability to do a series/parallel/single type of wiring and still have the single row hum canceled.
Click to expand...

You can, but then you can just select two coils from each row and do a split or alternating arrangement.
 
#427
thanks david, that makes sense. im pretty sure the mags are north and south. i have a polarity tester in my order from stewmac to make sure. i just took a stab at it hoping for the best. i wired both rows in series and then i wired the rows together start to finish which again was a best guess. thanks for clearing that up for me. most of the online info i found wasnt all that clear. to learn how to do it right sometimes you have to do wrong first, lol. this one is my "R&D" pickup, i think ill make the new ones with parallel and series on some type of switch.

i want to try some different mags too. i found some on ebay that i think would fit. i looked like the wal pickup uses 4 mags, and i take it that the red mark determines a either north or south? which seems to me that each pair is either north or south. from bass to treble side would be north south north south or visa versa, instead of the traditional one row north and one south? sorry but im a newbie to pickup design.
 
#428
I tried my 8-coil with steel pole pieces, steel keepers and ceramic humbucker magnet. Didn't work at all. Very low output, very weak lows compared to Alnico pole pieced one. Wiring is exactly the same on both pickups so I have to claim the magnet (it has correct polarity, but maybe it's just too weak) or polepieces (not sure about the alloy, they feel magnetic when tried with a paper clip, but a lot weaker than Alnico rods). I'll stick with the Alnico pole version. It works really well.
Marko
 
#429
OPIETAYLOR said:
i want to try some different mags too. i found some on ebay that i think would fit. i looked like the wal pickup uses 4 mags, and i take it that the red mark determines a either north or south? which seems to me that each pair is either north or south. from bass to treble side would be north south north south or visa versa, instead of the traditional one row north and one south? sorry but im a newbie to pickup design.
Click to expand...

The 4 magnets go together like one big magnet, so one row of poles is north and the other is south.
 
#431
How important is the V-V-T-T setup to get the "wal sound"? I was looking at the ACG preamps, and they all had a blend knob..
Someone talked about mixing a bassy neck pickup with a bright neck pickup on the Wal preamp, to get that 3-dimensional sound.
Will your preamps have a V-V-T-T setup, David?
 
#432
the wal preamp on the mk2 has a low pass filter for each pickup (tone in a sense), active blending and a master volume (4 knob), plus pick attack by pulling up on the volume knob. individual pickup gain can be adjusted with trim pots on the preamp board. the acg eq02 is basically the same except that it has a low pass and a high pass that effect both pickups, not individually. the eq01 has 2 low pass filters like the wal but is only available on ac guitars.

the older wal preamp back in the late 70's and 80's had a tone for each pickup, but not like your standard tone, a volume for each pickup and then a master volume (5 knobs). neck tone has a low mid boost by pulling up on the knob, bridge has high mid boost the same way, and the master volume has the pick attack feature.

being able to have a bassy neck and a bright bridge is due to the mixer circuit on the preamp. it allows the 2 different tones to mix, otherwise the 2 tones would effect both pickups unless you run stereo out of the bass and then mix it. so can cant achieve the same thing with out a mixer, ive tried it.
 
#433
Essen said:
How important is the V-V-T-T setup to get the "wal sound"? I was looking at the ACG preamps, and they all had a blend knob..
Someone talked about mixing a bassy neck pickup with a bright neck pickup on the Wal preamp, to get that 3-dimensional sound.
Will your preamps have a V-V-T-T setup, David?
Click to expand...

No, I'll use a blend and a master volume. The two volumes are after the buffers on the Wal preamp, so you can do the same thing with a blend, and it's a buffered blend.

The two tones are important, because you can set one for each pickup. That's how you get the bassy neck and bright bridge. I plan on making a single filter version also.
 
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