PAF size Ric toaster style pickups? Anyone ever try them?

Creed_Clicks

Never knew these existed today. Opens up a lot of possibilites and GAS! I had thought of one of those Player Series Jaguars with the humbucker in the bridge position. Wonder if you swapped it and replaced with a humbucker size WRHB or a PAF size Ric toaster style for some jangle?
Or an Epiphone dot with Ric toaster style pickups? Anyone ever try these pickup types?

Funkfingers

Define "toaster style". 

There is already a bunch of Filter'Tron looking pickups on the market. From a distance, these resemble 'Trons expanded to occupy regular humbucker mountings. Under the cover, they tend to be generic humbuckers, with slots to reveal the twelve adjustable pole screws. The inner construction is nothing like a 'Tron. Their sound and dynamic response is nothing like a 'Tron.

Part of the joy of Rickenbacker is their unique, eccentric, construction ideas. The pickups are no exception. Their innards sometimes look as if they came off Noah's Ark. They really can be that primitive. Of course, we forgive them for the unique, eccentric sounds.

Creed_Clicks said:

Wonder if you swapped it and replaced with a humbucker size WRHB or a PAF size Ric toaster style for some jangle?

Alegree makes a WRHB type pickup in the regular humbucker size.

Part of the jangle from old Fender Telecaster Custom and Deluxe guitars came courtesy of 1 Meg control pots.

In the case of the Fender Player Jaguar, it would probably be easier to extract jangly tones from the bridge position humbucker by applying a dedicated Bass Cut "strangle" switch.


EDIT
If you want bright jangle from an ES Thinline, try Oil City Winterizer II pickups.

Creed_Clicks

@Funkfingers Thanks for the info there, very informative. This is what I saw, and see there was a PAF size option, which got me curious...

https://www.creamery-pickups.co.uk/custom-handwound-pickups-from-the-creamery/custom-handwound-replacement-ric-rickenbacker-and-toaster-style-pickups.html#rickenbacker

Funkfingers

Those Creamery products are of conventional RIC dimensions. They mount directly onto the flat front of a guitar - rather like a De'Armond Dyna-Sonic. 

Mounting such pickups in a Fender Jaguar or most Gibsons would be difficult. They are too tall to fit between the strings and the top of the body. 

It might be possible to excavate a solid body to create height clearance but this would be irreversible and look severely fugly.

I found no PAF-sized option on The Creamery website. This could be my fault. The navigation on there is unusual.

thermionic

Click on the “PAF/Humbucker size” tab (it defaults to “Classic” on the left hand side).

Funkfingers

Thank you, @thermionic

Hard to know how much of the vintage "jingle jangle" sound was the early "toaster" pickups, how much was RIC woodworking and how much was the recording studio technology?

Certainly, the Jim/Roger McGuinn twelve string sound came chiefly from direct injection recording via two Teletronix LA-2A Levelling Amplifier compressors linked in series.

Nowadays, it is possible to mimic this via DAW plug-ins. I cannot immediately recall what my settings are but I stole them from a Paul White article in Sound On Sound magazine.

Creed_Clicks

I was thinking how they might fit in an Epi dot or a 335 style guitar. A semi hollow with jangle 

Funkfingers

Same way as any other regular ES wiring harness … through the bridge pickup orifice. 

Unless you are confident about performing this task, budget for at least an hour of guitar tech's time. Add £170 for Creamery pickups. This is a fairly hefty sum to venture on G.A.S.

One possible short cut is to modify a pre-owned Epiphone BB King Lucille. This has a rear control cavity access cover plate. Changing pickups is only slightly more fiddly than on a Les Paul. You will need a narrow soldering iron tip to work on the PCB.

Creed_Clicks

@Funkfingers I wouldn’t have the skills and the cost pointed out is indeed a GAS killer and a one two slap in the mouth ! Still would be cheaper than a Ric !

ICBM

In my opinion the majority of the characteristic Rickenbacker sound comes from the construction, not the pickups. I've owned many Ricks with several different types of pickups and they all sound like Ricks. I've even played one with DiMarzio humbuckers fitted, and it *still* sounded like a Rick, albeit a very loud one.

So my opinion is that putting Rickenbacker pickups in a different type of guitar won't sound very much like one, even if they're actual Rick pickups rather than something of roughly the same magnet type/coil wind which fits a different format.

Which reminds me, I don't have a Rickenbacker guitar at the moment... I probably need to do something about that! I do have a 4001 bass, with a 'Toasterbucker' in the neck and a Kent Armstrong Firebird-type pickup in the 'bridge' position - and it sounds just like a Rick.

Creed_Clicks

@ICBM very good points. I have a luthier built Ric 4000 bass that sounds awesome! I played my nephews 2010 USA strat earlier which has thrown a spanner in the works! I haven’t played a strat for years and it felt, played and sounded fantastic.

Funkfingers

In support of ICBM's assertion about construction, I have a RIC 230. Solid maple body, screwed-on maple neck, RIC small humbucking pickups. You've guessed it … sounds like a RIC. 

I used to keep the 230 in Nashville High Tuning. Using it to double track a rhythm guitar part created the overall audio texture of a twelve string guitar.

Ironically, the best blend for this effect was usually NHT RIC with the bridge position pickup of a Fender Jaguar.



* CORRECTIONS CORNER
It's a 230, not the posher 260. Accidental boasting.  

thermionic

I sometimes feel that my 330 sounds jangly almost despite of the pickups, although they are hi-gains and not toasters. The most important factor to me is to have both neck and bridge pickups on to get that sweet, softened attack. Works with a Tele, works really well with a Jaguar, and even a Les Paul gets there.

ICBM

I honestly think one of the key parts of the Rick sound is the double truss rod - I know that might sound a stretch to many people, but I’ve come to think that the resonance of the neck is the most important part of the underlying sound of a guitar, ie most of the bit that’s not from the pickups. The Rick neck construction is *very* different from any other guitar, with much more metal relative to the wood and a thicker fingerboard as well.

That would explain why Funkfingers’ 260 sounds like a Rick, and also why almost all copies and Rick-a-likes don’t. And why they still sound distinctive unplugged - which they do.

Funkfingers

Another aspect of the Rickenbacker sound is the effect that string spacing has on note selection. Some half-open chord shapes fall to hand on a RIC neck that would not on, say, an Ibanez Wizard III.

Creed_Clicks

Very true. I need to think about things a little more before posting here! GAS is a killer...

Dave_Mc

Funkfingers said:

* CORRECTIONS CORNER
It's a 230, not the posher 260. Accidental boasting.  

LOL

Funkfingers said:

Another aspect of the Rickenbacker sound is the effect that string spacing has on note selection. Some half-open chord shapes fall to hand on a RIC neck that would not on, say, an Ibanez Wizard III.

Yeah I can imagine that- doesn't Eric Johnson say something similar about vintage Strat necks? He can fret certain chords with one finger for two strings (not a barre) I think because of the narrow nut width.

JayGee

ICBM said:

In my opinion the majority of the characteristic Rickenbacker sound comes from the construction, not the pickups. I've owned many Ricks with several different types of pickups and they all sound like Ricks. I've even played one with DiMarzio humbuckers fitted, and it *still* sounded like a Rick, albeit a very loud one.

Which isn’t to say that Rick pickups in a non-Rick guitar might not yield something interesting, useable, and just a bit different - a Cabronita style Telecaster doesn’t sound like a Gretsch but it’s still brilliant and makes for a nice variation on the Telecaster theme.

Having decent approximations to things like WRHBs, Filtertrons, Gold Foils and the like in “standard” footprints and mounting formats is brilliant because it facilitates this kind of experimentation without resorting to woodwork so if somebody out there has a suitable donor and doesn’t mind spending the money I’d love to see/hear how it turns out but yeah, absolutely got to be realistic with expectations, and my expectations would not include instant Rick classic tones…

Creed_Clicks

I suppose it would be interesting to see what results could come out of those different types of pickups, in this case, humbucker size Ric toaster style pickups in non Ric guitars.

WezV

going the other way,  It's often possible to fit Ric toaster pickups in a dog ear P90 route, or its its a tighter soapbar cavity it isn't much work to open it up enough to fit.    

Obviously it may need shimming, or extra room for magnets depending on the depth of the P-90 route