Tri-Sonic Pickups: General Information, Brian May Red Special Pickups, Coil Winding and Assembly

dsgb

Please check out my latest YouTube video in which I discuss Tri-Sonic pickups in depth. I take a look inside an early 1960s vintage pot magnet style Tri-Sonic and compare and contrast vintage and modern variants. I discuss the characteristics of the specific set fitted to Brian May’s Red Special guitar with reference to a replica set made by Ade Turner of Adeson Pickups.

I demonstrate two methods for engraving the chrome plated brass cover then wind a bobbinless Tri-Sonic style coil on my Stepcraft 2/840 CNC machine using a custom made former to my own unique design. Finally, I assemble all the component parts of a Tri-Sonic pickup and measure its DC resistance and inductance using a Peak Atlas LCR45 meter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXJux4IDfsE
Link to the accompanying article and blog announcement post on my website both of which have content (primarily images) which are not in the video:

https://dsgb.net/faqs/trisonics/
https://dsgb.net/2022/07/01/tri-sonics/

Regards.
Doug

Seziertisch

Can you provide a link to the video?

Grangousier

Which is to say, if you put a video in a post and then edit the post it flattens the video to an image - this is a known and much-lamented bug - and you need to post the video link again.

dsgb

Apologies guys. I wasn't aware of this issue.

Doug

Stuckfast

Is Adrian Turner of Adeson still around? He re-wound a set of Tri-Sonics for me many years ago and I believe he has, or had, the original machines. His rates were ridiculously cheap, too.

Winny_Pooh

Great video, loved seeing the former you made and the process. Would be interesting to compare these and firebird pickups (I use one as a stratty neck pickup) as they are relatively similar although the firebird has 1 vs 2 magnets.

Once played a Burns BM sig 15 years ago and the pickup switching options sounded awesome. Would have bought it for the tone but for the neck shape which felt odd.

Axe_meister

I've always wanted a Red Special style strat.
I.e. custom scratch plate with trisonics and the same switching system.
I wonder if you could get it into the same sonic ball park.
I'm really surprised there aren't any Red Special like guitars around given just how big an artist Brian May is.

dsgb

Hi guys.

To reply to your comments:

1. Stuckfast: A mate of mine (Mark Reynolds) is good friends with Ade Turner and has tested all his prototype pickups for years. I heard that he has finally 'retired'. He stopped making Brian May specification Tri-Sonics a few years back which is why Brian May Guitars have had to outsource to the Kent Armstrong people retaining Ade as a consultant in effect. Blurb from BMG below:

BMG® Super Pickups
Developed and produced in the UK exclusively for this project by electronics specialist Aaron Armstrong, these new pickups are recreations of the Adeson-spec Tri-Sonic pickups installed on the 'Old Lady' herself and are wax-dipped, wired/reverse wired, baseplated, and hand-wound with the same gauge wire, and to the same tolerances, as the originals.

Although Aaron has employed bobbins (rather than air coils) and a single ceramic magnet (instead of two squeezed together), both of these alterations have clearly added rather than detracted from the pickups’ performance as they come with the maestro's seal of approval, and his blind-test praise for delivering "more bite, growl and volume”.

https://shop.brianmayguitars.co.uk/bmg-super/the-bmg-super.html

2. Winny_Pooh: Burns Brian May signature. Understand about the neck feeling a bit odd. It is wider than a Strat but the thickness is more like a Strat. I think this design direction was deliberate to help give a niche instrument some mass market appeal. I modified one to be closer to the original in look and spec. It has a set of Adeson BM spec pickups which are within 1% of the DC resistance and inductance of Brian's originals. Probably wasted on that guitar but the pickup mounting tabs had a nice dog leg which meant they would be better suited to pickguard mounting:

https://dsgb.net/projects/burns/

3. Axe_meister: I posted a thread here on my modified 2012 American Standard Fender Stratocaster. Although this was a Rolls Royce option, putting three Tri-Sonics and the BM switching layout on a Strat is the best way for non BM enthusiasts to get the BM sound (other than digital effects such as AmpliTube) IMHO. When I took that Strat to the 2018 Brian May enthusiast meet-up, it got played constantly in the hotel bar/lounge afterwards so it passed the hard core BM enthusiast test! Definitely is in the sonic ball park. We ran a 14 guitar blind test through Luke's stage rig that year. There was a Les Paul, my modified Strat, a good few home made Red Special replicas, various Guytons including an RS Transporter. They all sounded suspiciously similar which cemented my view that the Queen/BM tone is 75-80% the signal chain of Vox AC30 overdriven with a treble booster. The Tri-Sonics probably account for the rest of it.

https://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/198555/fender-stratocaster-pcb-switching-mod
https://dsgb.net/projects/maycaster/

Sound isn't brilliant on this video but Luke Timmins, guitarist with Supreme Queen puts it through its paces. He was a bit nervous since Pete Malandrone, Brian's guitar tech and some of his mates were there, hence the rushed BoRhap solo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnT_rqOahtQ

Doug