Won the Wal pickup on ebay!!!

[recnsci]

David, what are dimensions of individual string pickup? BTW, you should consider making narrow four pickup version and selling individual unmounted pickups (that is just that barrel single string pickups).

 

[Prostheta]

I might be interested in one for a build next year. What is the designed string spacing? Sorry. On the droid and can't result wade through fifteen pages of "when?"s.

 

[Stealth]

I wonder what the best approach would be if you wanted to make a narrow (jazz-ish) aperture pickup using Wal "coil-lets" like those. Would it be better to alternate polarities and winding direction string by string (so it's NSNS) or similar to in-line humbuckers (NNSS)? Either way there will be signal attenuation when the string crosses over to the polepiece it doesn't "belong to".

Edit: I suppose it would be easy enough to find out, if the surrounding armature would allow you to just swap the polepieces, or the complete bobbins if the ppolepieces are glued into the bobbin.

Edit edit: Apparently, MPU has already tested the alternating-every-other method and it yielded a good result exactly because the effect was evenly distributed.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

Oh man. That looks great. It's full of wires...

It's only five wires.

 

[Stealth]

I was referencing 2001: A space odyssey there.

Five wires isn't much, but considering most pickups have two, this is plenty.
Again, broad generalization, I know...

 

[tubby.twins]

I was referencing 2001: A space odyssey there.

Five wires isn't much, but considering most pickups have two, this is plenty.
Again, broad generalization, I know...

I picked up that reference, and had a good chuckle. And I've got an older Bartolini triple-coil pickup with 7 wires.

I'd love to try a 5-string version of this pickup. David, do you think such a pickup could fit in a (tall) MV5 shell?

 

[SGD Lutherie]

I was referencing 2001: A space odyssey there. :

One of my favorite films... and I missed your reference!

Five wires isn't much, but considering most pickups have two, this is plenty.
Again, broad generalization, I know...

That particular pickup is wired just like any 4 conductor pickup.

 

[LowB-ing]

I wonder what the best approach would be if you wanted to make a narrow (jazz-ish) aperture pickup using Wal "coil-lets" like those. ...

Another idea would be to have a small sidewinder for each string, instead of a "regular" humbucker. This is something I've been thinking about for months but I haven't worked up the courage to ask as David seems to have enough on his plate already, and I don't actually need another pickup at this point. But I do want one

David what about it? Wouldn't you be able to get more output at a the same resonant freq with this method compared to regular sidewinders? The cool looking adjustable pole pieces would be a nice bonus also! I'm guessing they would not fit in standard J casings due to the poles being wider than the blades in your regular sidewinders, MM coil width might work though, meaning two of these would fit in an MM casing.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

I'd love to try a 5-string version of this pickup. David, do you think such a pickup could fit in a (tall) MV5 shell?

You mean a MM 5 case? Yes, that would work and I plan on doing that.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

I wonder what the best approach would be if you wanted to make a narrow (jazz-ish) aperture pickup using Wal "coil-lets" like those. Would it be better to alternate polarities and winding direction string by string (so it's NSNS) or similar to in-line humbuckers (NNSS)? Either way there will be signal attenuation when the string crosses over to the polepiece it doesn't "belong to".

I made this pickup back in 1990 or so:

It doesn't look like much anymore, but what you see here is the bottom of a 5 coil Jazz pickup. One of the magnets has fallen off. The bobbins have pole pieces that extend though the perf board that's holding them in place. Then it slipped right into a Jazz cover. It was fairly low output, so I ran it though a JFET preamp. I used this at the bridge position in my '87 Ibanez for a couple of years.

Those bobbins are probably about 50 years old and came from the Edison Dictaphone factory in West Orange NJ before they razed it. Thomas Edison's lab is right next door. So there's some history in those coils.

But it can be made with alternating polarity coils, or like a split coil pickup. Some Bart Jazz pickups, like the 9W-5J are made in a similar way.

 

[Stealth]

Cool. I ran into that exact picture on the MEF moments ago and wondered about the polarity. I assume any regular FET preamp (like a Tillman) would work, right?

You can truly claim you made a vintage but modern pickup at the same time.

 

[tubby.twins]

You can truly claim you made a vintage but modern pickup at the same time.

Yeah! And you can credibly say you were into the vintage modern thing before it was "mainstream". That's hipster credibility right there.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

Cool. I ran into that exact picture on the MEF moments ago and wondered about the polarity. I assume any regular FET preamp (like a Tillman) would work, right?

Right. I used an Alembic Stratoblaster clone, which is very similar to the Tillman circuit. I had traditional Fender flats on my bass at the time, and it was a very interesting tone.

You can truly claim you made a vintage but modern pickup at the same time.

I find this whole vintage backlash thing as an abomination! I'm going to be 54 this year, so when I started playing it was all vintage. I was one of the first people in my area to use roundwounds... you never saw anyone using them, and I got dirty looks for laying a Ric when you were expected to have a P bass with flats.

So I saw it as a struggle for electric bassist to be treated as a "real" musicians, and for the bass to be more upfront in music. But now everyone wants to be retro and adopt the tone a lot of us were trying to get away from!

I still use flats or half rounds on certain basses, because I like that tone too, but it's a much better time to be a bassist now than it was back then. Most of the amps sucked, and your choices for even things like strings were very limited. Stomp boxes for bass? Don't be silly! We got it good now.

 

[FunkMetalBass]

With these Wal-type pickups, how do you expect them to hold up subcontra tunings? Reasonable output and clarity?

 

[Stealth]

Yeah! And you can credibly say you were into the vintage modern thing before it was "mainstream". That's hipster credibility right there.

Careful, somebody is going to break out the PBR next.

In all seriousness, some of the armatures here are unavoidably hipsterish - the Wal pickup isn't a new thing, but it's so damn rare it's practically a whole different ballgame compared to the traditional P/J/MM-what-have-yous. If I'm interpreting Erno Zwaan's Animal Magnetism right, he used a similar approach for some of his pickups (project 4 if anyone has the book) and the measurements showed really extended highs, although the resonant peak has gone far beyond audio range (take the highest note you can hear, then imagine a fifth above ).

Though that does beg the question - if the pickup is already hi-fi, and the coils are immediately buffered, would there be any sense in experimenting with a "Hi-Z" circuit afterwards, like what's used in Auderes or the TB11? Sounds like this sort of pickup would be perfect for fine-tuning the resonance and, in fact, general voicing of the pickup.

With these Wal-type pickups, how do you expect them to hold up subcontra tunings? Reasonable output and clarity?

If the Wals are similar enough to the EZ Project 4 I mentioned, it'll probably have a very clear and even subcontra voice. But I don't recall ever hearing a Wal bass tuned to subcontra so I can't judge. What I'm certain is that you'll need to use it in conjunction with a buffer (non-passive, but the EQ is optional) and your rig might be a limiting factor.

I wonder if MPU is around to comment.... knowing him he's prolly got one of his homemade Waloids stuck in a lower tuning.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

With these Wal-type pickups, how do you expect them to hold up subcontra tunings? Reasonable output and clarity?

If the strings/bass sounds good any good pickup should sound good. Most pickups have an unlimited low frequency response.

These multi-coil pickups are thick and clear sounding at the same time.

 

[Substandard]

The real question is: when can I give you my money?!

 

[Basstovsky]

He makes many other pickups already so you could technically give him money right now...

 

[Jjango]

I was referencing 2001: A space odyssey there.

One of my favorite films... and I missed your reference!

The "My God, it's full of stars!" quote did not appear in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. It appeared in the 1984 sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact.

The famous line "My God, it's full of stars!" were Dave Bowman's final words as he entered the monolith in the book version of 2001: A Space Odyssey, in Chapter 39. That line did not occur in the original movie, although it was retrofitted to the various sequels, e.g., in the movie sequel 2010: The Year We Make Contact as being uttered by Dave Bowman as he entered the monolith.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

David, what are dimensions of individual string pickup? BTW, you should consider making narrow four pickup version and selling individual unmounted pickups (that is just that barrel single string pickups).

I have sold a few individual string pickups. The dimensions of the bobbins are 3/4" (19.05mm) in diameter and 5/8" (15.875mm) high. For individual string pickups I put a rod magnet in each coil.