HB pickup polepieces

OilCityPickups

Because the north and south poles are on the edges of the magnet ... and one set of poles has to be 'charged' north and one 'south'. Think of the magnet structure like a horseshoe ... the magnet is the base and the poles are the uprights of the U. 

imalrightjack

seany65;614177" said:

@TheGuitarWeasel, those little doggies are actually Pups, not PUPs.



I have thought about going to one of the many "NGD guitar" threads and posting "Phwoar, look at the PUPpies on that" just to see if I can annoy certain members. )



(Edit : I've just been and gone and done it. "> )



@imalrightjack, ICBM isn't alone in being a bit miffed with PUPs, though. I suppose it's easy to get like that with a particular thing. I get annoyed with the adverts for new TV dramas that they show incessantly, including in the last ad break just before the new drama is shown. They did it with 'Vera' on Sunday.

Oh, I'm aware of that - but he only just chastised me for it at the weekend I'd never heard anybody say PUPs until I used this site, so somebody here is to blame for initiating the perpetuation of the dumbing down of guitar culture

seany65

Thanks TheGuitarWeasel.

Well, I used to use 'PUPs' all the time, so I may be to blame.
">

seany65

I've just been wondering what would happen to a humbucker if you used magnet slugs instead of of ordinary slugs, so that one side is polepiece screws and the other is magnet slugs?

eg: alnico 2 bar magnet and alnico 2 magnet slugs, or alnico 2 bar and alnico 5 magnet slugs.

Would they sound more 'single coil-y' than a normal humbucker that had the screw polepieces a little higher than normal?
What about if the screw polepieces were lower than normal? Would the humbucker still 'buck ther hum'?

OilCityPickups

seany65 said:

I've just been wondering what would happen to a humbucker if you used magnet slugs instead of of ordinary slugs, so that one side is polepiece screws and the other is magnet slugs?

eg: alnico 2 bar magnet and alnico 2 magnet slugs, or alnico 2 bar and alnico 5 magnet slugs.

Would they sound more 'single coil-y' than a normal humbucker that had the screw polepieces a little higher than normal?
What about if the screw polepieces were lower than normal? Would the humbucker still 'buck ther hum'?

My own Oil City 'Brass Knuckle' uses individual alnico poles (no bar magnet) to make a humbucker with much more single coil attributes. more sparkle in the highs, more string separation etc. It uses other things like an inductor plate and taller bobbins than standard to further change the sound too. So yes ... it's a really interesting variation on a theme ... is it better than a 'normal' humbucker? At some things yes ... but it doesent sound like a PAF :-) 

seany65

@TheGuitarWeasel, thanks for the info.

So, your Brass knuckle uses "...other things...than standard to further change the sound too."

Does that include 42awg string as well, or is the string in the pic a different gauge to that?
)

"It doesn't sound like a PAF"

From what I've read recently, even PAFs don't sound like PAFs very often.

ICBM

I can vouch for the fact that the Brass Knuckle sounds much more like two single coils than it does like a PAF.

Also very interesting is that in the bridge position, when split to one coil or the other the two sounds are *drastically* different, much more so than a split humbucker is. The coil closer to the bridge sounds much more like a Strat, and the one further from the bridge much more like a Tele - even though the coils are the same. When combined as a humbucker it still sounds far more like a very beefy Fender than any kind of Gibson pickup.

seany65

Thanks ICBM.

Hmmm. How can you tell it sounds like two single coils rather than one single coil?

Would you say it sounds like what a P90 was originally meant to sound like, but they couldn't manage it and could 'only' get it to sound as it does?



 

ICBM

No, it doesn't sound like a P90 at all. Sorry, I should have said *Fender* single coils.

I'm not sure the P90 was "meant" to have any particular sound! It's so close to the dawn of time in pickup development that I think they just made it work and the way it sounds is the way it happened to... luckily, great.

OilCityPickups

A P90 has a wide flattened coil, whereas Fender single coil pickups ... all apart from the Jazzmaster ... have tall, narrow coils. Tall narrow coils ... especially those built up around the magnets like Fenders emphasise higher frequencies. Wider flatter ones emphasise the bass and mids at the expense of some high end response ... this is also added to by the P90's twin, magnets placed with repelling poles facing under the coil, their fields being extended up to the strings by the fairly thin pole screws.  Originally twin magnets were used as the early magnetic compounds were thought too weak to be useful alone and so far from the strings. 

The Brass Knuckle has close to the bass and the high end sparkle of of a fender single coil because of the tall narrow coils ... 25% taller than a standard humbucker ... that are built around the rod magnets. But it reads mids in humbucking mode from two coils with a wider combined 'aperture'. 

I'm rather proud of that one ;-)

ICBM

TheGuitarWeasel said:

The Brass Knuckle has close to the bass and the high end sparkle of of a fender single coil because of the tall narrow coils ... 25% taller than a standard humbucker ... that are built around the rod magnets. But it reads mids in humbucking mode from two coils with a wider combined 'aperture'. 

I'm rather proud of that one ;-)

So you should be, it's a good bit of lateral thinking which is completely different from most other humbuckers. Even the Duncan Stag Mag is too much of a normal humbucker construction fitted with rod magnets to work as well.

Mick

Sorry to but in on this conversation, but it's kind of relevant. 

I have a Epi fitted with Gibson USA 490R and 498T humbuckers, and it sounds pretty muddy.  I was told I could try lowering the pickups and raising the poll pieces to brighten it up a bit.  Does any know where I can find a idiots guide to setting these things up please. Or any advice would be appreciated.

ICBM

Mick said:

I have a Epi fitted with Gibson USA 490R and 498T humbuckers, and it sounds pretty muddy.  I was told I could try lowering the pickups and raising the poll pieces to brighten it up a bit.  Does any know where I can find a idiots guide to setting these things up please. Or any advice would be appreciated.

Replace them with more open-sounding pickups. Those pickups are just a bit muddy-sounding no matter what you do in my opinion.

It's also worth replacing the pots and wiring, if they're the originals - it makes a small but noticeable difference. (And the jack, for reliability reasons mostly.) If you use the volume controls a lot and find treble loss when you turn them down is a problem, "50s" wiring can improve that.

If you don't want to replace the pickups, it's very simple - unscrew the polepieces so they're above the covers, usually you want a slight 'arch' on the heights so the Es are only just above the surface, the A/B are about a half-turn higher and D/G are slightly higher again. Then lower the whole pickup by about the same amount.

Mick

ICBM said:

Mick said:

I have a Epi fitted with Gibson USA 490R and 498T humbuckers, and it sounds pretty muddy.  I was told I could try lowering the pickups and raising the poll pieces to brighten it up a bit.  Does any know where I can find a idiots guide to setting these things up please. Or any advice would be appreciated.

If you don't want to replace the pickups, it's very simple - unscrew the polepieces so they're above the covers, usually you want a slight 'arch' on the heights so the Es are only just above the surface, the A/B are about a half-turn higher and D/G are slightly higher again. Then lower the whole pickup by about the same amount.

Thank you, I'll try this first, it's a fairly new guitar, so wouldn't want to start replacing stuff straight away. So raising the pole pieces, is this done to each row on both pickups?  On mine one row on each is roughly set like you said, but the other row on each pickup is kind of flush. The volume and tone knobs seem to respond pretty well to be fair. It's a Epiphone Prophecy GX with coil tapping if that makes any difference.

ICBM

Mick said:

Thank you, I'll try this first, it's a fairly new guitar, so wouldn't want to start replacing stuff straight away. So raising the pole pieces, is this done to each row on both pickups?  On mine one row on each is roughly set like you said, but the other row on each pickup is kind of flush. The volume and tone knobs seem to respond pretty well to be fair. It's a Epiphone Prophecy GX with coil tapping if that makes any difference.

Does it have two rows of screw poles on each pickup? If so those don't sound like 490/498s, unless there's some variation I haven't seen. The only Gibson pickups I can think of with two rows of screw poles are the Dirty Fingers, which certainly do sound 'muddy' - if you're after a normal Gibson humbucker sound anyway, I really like them for what they do.

Normally there will be one row of screws and one row of non-adjustable 'slug' polepieces. Even if they do have two rows of screws, just raise the outer row (closest to the bridge and neck on the respective pickups) - what you're trying to do is 'unbalance' the humbucker to give it a little more of a single-coil string sensing character.

Mick

ICBM said:

Mick said:

Thank you, I'll try this first, it's a fairly new guitar, so wouldn't want to start replacing stuff straight away. So raising the pole pieces, is this done to each row on both pickups?  On mine one row on each is roughly set like you said, but the other row on each pickup is kind of flush. The volume and tone knobs seem to respond pretty well to be fair. It's a Epiphone Prophecy GX with coil tapping if that makes any difference.

Does it have two rows of screw poles on each pickup? If so those don't sound like 490/498s, unless there's some variation I haven't seen. The only Gibson pickups I can think of with two rows of screw poles are the Dirty Fingers, which certainly do sound 'muddy' - if you're after a normal Gibson humbucker sound anyway, I really like them for what they do.

Normally there will be one row of screws and one row of non-adjustable 'slug' polepieces. Even if they do have two rows of screws, just raise the outer row (closest to the bridge and neck on the respective pickups) - what you're trying to do is 'unbalance' the humbucker to give it a little more of a single-coil string sensing character.

You're probably right about it having only one row each tbh, I'm having brain fade, and don't have the guitar to hand at the moment.  Will check that asap.  I know the early versions of this guitar were fitted with the Dirty Fingers, but this is supposed to be the newer version 2012-current.  Purchased new in September 2014. 

Mick

Forgot to come back to this thread. 

You are correct, it does have only one row of adjustable poles on each pickup.  I actually haven't got around to adjusting them yet, busy with other stuff, but I did plug it into my little ID:Core 40 the other day, and must say it sounded really nice through that amp.

Thanks for your help.

Skipped

Everybody knows that correct polepiece height is judged by by ear and also by photographing the guitar from various angles.

What's that you say? They sound great one eighth of an inch below the cover?
Forget it. That ain't gonna happen.

seany65

There is a thread on here somewhere in which the polepeices have been removed altogether and replaced with non-ferrous screws, and the owner is happy, so I suspect it's not completely impossible for Mick to be happy with the height of his scews.