Thank you so much for all the support Micah. I appreciate your words of encouragement. My brain started writing a version of Lynyrd Skynyrd: Simple Man as Simple Dude... when I saw the comment. Hahahaha!
I've been deep diving your whole catalogue of videos and I just wanted to say 1. Awesome content I honestly thought you'd have way more subscribers based on quality alone. 2. You really do a great job of taking the cork sniffing out of guitar tech, a guy like you trying all these cool projects honestly has more in common with heroes like Leo Fender, Seth Lover, and Nathan Daniel than almost all of these "boutique" gear makers. Keep up the good work. Also I wonder how you would do at making a filtertron style pickup, it would be nice to have that little expensive piece of kit demystified.
Thank you so much. The reason I dont have more subs id simply my upload schedule the past 2 years has been aweful but im was working on things for the channel the past year and im trying to get it all going good and steady.
"Gold Foil" pickups straddle the zone between "edge-polarized" and "top-to-bottom" polarized magnets. The classic gold foil has a coil wound around a top-to-bottom magnet. In some instances, it is a pure ceramic and in others a rubber magnet. That magnet sits on a mild steel baseplate that has one side extending outwards and bent up. If you look quickly at many gold foils, they can seem like they must be dual-coil because of the row of adjustable screws along one edge. But pause for a moment and you'll realize there is no way in hell a 2nd coil could fit in there. And you're 100% correct. Those screws are inserted into a raised side of the ferromagnetic baseplate, such that whatever the polarity of the top of the coil/magnet is, that raised side is the *opposite* polarity. As such, the eddy currents and sensing area is between the bent edge of the baseplate and top of the coil. In other words, it's kinda sorta like a P90, if it only had one magnet and that magnet was shaped like an L. Poke around for pics of a gold foil that has screws along one edge and you'll see what I mean.
Thank you so much for watching and taking the time to write a comment Mr.Von Fuego. I thought the same thing it was an alnico sound but not the same as slug magnets at all.
I have commented before, but I noticed something in this video. You do a lot of extra work having to hammer and chisel. If you have a drill, or don't mind the a little extra expense, you could save yourself a lot of extra work by buying yourself a cheap set or two of carbide burrs. They are made for cutting steel like cleaning up welds or porting cylinder heads, but work great for carving and shaping wood, and modifying pickup holes. They do tend to clog up with sawdust on the big jobs, but clean up great with a wire brush or propane torch. I use them a lot both in the auto shop and fine tuning and carving woodwork.
Thank you for watching and leaving such a kind comment Nick. Thats a good suggestion, I can think of many cool ideas regarding active pickup circuits. I'll put that in my notes right now! If/when I make a video on the subject I will give you a shout out. Thanks again bro.
So much fun! It's wild hearing how different magnetic field shapes and strengths change the output of the pickup. It makes sense. can't wait to see the next experiments!
Thank you for watching and taking the time to write such a kind comment Erick. I love doing these experiments. Sometimes the results are 180 degrees from expectation other times its on the $ . Thanks again for all the support and interest you have shown to this channel.
Agreed that the edge humbucker sound was the best all around. However there was a hint of Malcom Young in the edge single coil. Dunno. Maybe the mids got boosted or something. Nice work!
I had wondered if an alnico magnet put behind the single coils of a ceramic pick up would be a simple upgrade and it looks like you have demonstrated it works if there is enough clearance in the guitar body cavity thank you,
You ought to look up Ianhatesguitar's interview with Kent Armstrong. It's almost 2 hours long and completely worth it. He discusses making the perfect "horseshoe magnet" when designing a pickup. I can't think of anyone who understands pickups better, and he gives his email.
Thank you for watching and taking the time to write a comment Troy. Ill have to put that in my notes right now. I'll definitely check that out. Its hard to find info on magnets that is spoken in layman's terms. I had some guy on here in the comments talking about polar magnetic flux circuits or something? I still got lots to learn about magnets LOL. Thanks again brother.
All is about different magnetic field shape and strongness. And how copper winds placed in it. Thats hard to describe without painting it ) Humbucker rib magnet make a less rich wide range sound than Single flat magnet, for example, because of that. Single flat magnet gives more wider and stronger magnetic field. More space of string react with it. More harmonics of string disturb this wider and stronger magnetic field. As result, copper winds produce a more complex and stronger signal from extra parts of string. Thanks for yor channel! ))☀️🌿✨ And may the Force be with you ))
Yoooooo, can you make a cooter caster pickup like on waterslide guitars? I’m not sure how they assemble those things but the magical tone that comes out of them needs to be unboxed properly
on high gain i preferred a little the edge alnico over the flat ceramic. it's worth a try :) i have some double ceramic edged bar single coils i could relplace the with 2 alnico bar and see what's happens
Thank you for watching and taking the time to comment Vincenzo. Yes, you can move different types of magnets around in a pickup and get many different tones. Another big impact is the use of metal or brass backplates and covers.
@@heavymetalATC definitely it is! There' s quite a big difference between my guitars with uncovered humbuckers from the guitars with metal covered ones!
i had an idea for a utility external humbucker. so basically, if a guitar has only one single coil and it hums for whatever reason, amps, computers, etc., and i was thinking a lazy fix might be to use another single coil to humbuck, but install it externally instead of under the strings because i wouldn't want my tone to change much, but i want to reduce noise issues. i could then wire directly into the jack and attach the pickup to whatever available surface of the guitar, or maybe make an external box that could be used with multiple guitars.
Thank you for watching and taking the time to write such an awesome comment Wisteria. That is a sweet idea. I know of some people Les Paul himself included that have used dummy coils inside guitars for quieter operation. I however have never heard of or even thought about an external box like a pedal that might do the same function. I dont know how this would work on the outside of the guitar controls but... its gotta be worth a try. Im putting this in my notes right now, If/When I do a video on the subject I'll give you a shoutout. Again... GREAT VIDEO IDEA! Thank you!
Interesting.... I really like the P-90 sound. I'm playing with B/G benders and upgrading the wiring in my Wilshire PRO. Waiting for the mail today! New pots (CTS 500k), orange drop caps, switchcraft switch and input jack
Thank you for watching and taking the time to comment TTS. I'm a P90 junkie myself I'd never played one till a few years ago and I got hooked. P90 just sounds like wooly bad@ss rock and roll to me. Ive been seeing the benders on facebook. Looks like fun you have been getting some great slide sounds! CTS-500s and orange drops are that tone medicine: Cant go wrong with those on any guitar.
I read somewhere that simply putting the bar magnet on the bottom increases the inductance to near that of a humbucker, which is why the P90 sounds close to a Humbucker. I think you proved this with regular single coils. This is something I have thought about a while, and bought GFS's Single Coil gold foil pickups and play them often. They are definitely not for every type of music - they are warm and get lost in the mix with heavier music.
Yes, very much the case... if you put a neodymium magnet flat on the bottom it will make bass and output like crazy.. but unless its underwound that power and bottom end can get muddy.
Nice looking fretboard on that test guitar, almost has that out of phase sound,with some of those flat mag test,probably the nicest test guitar I've ever seen,mediocre brand,but they did a great job on that neck.
Yeah that thing is a little washburn the neck is easy to play but its not the greatest due to being so thin its not very stable. It is a pretty fret board for sure. It seems not to hard to get that pretty multi colored "rosewood" cause just a few years back before the bans and stuff all the companies wanted was pure dark solid color so all that marked up sap wood got put off to the side as undesirable. Good for us. Hahahaha
Can I suggest my tapping of a coil split humbucker again? Where you insert 2 taps into each coil of a humbucker so you can tap it and split it? You would have to get your winds correct to keep the resistance correct, but I think it would offer some unique sound possibilities. I was thinking a humbucker with 8000 winds with taps at 4000 and at 6000 winds, then set up so it can also be split. Possibly using 44 ga wire and Neodymium magnets wound directly with no bobbin other than a cap on top and bottom to keep the wire on it like an old Danelectro lipstick pickup. I think this is the third time I've mentioned this. :)
Thank you so much for watching and taking the time to write this awesome suggestion Greylocke. If you had made these comment in the last 120 days or so I will eventually get to them... As some time. LOLOLOL That is a Great Suggestion. I will put this comment in my notes. I am sure this will be great info to work into an experiment sometime and If/When I do I'll give you a shout-out for the idea! Thanks again I appreciate all the interest and support.
Thank you for watching and taking the time to write a comment Deja Voodoo. I had no idea what it would sound like with the hum-magnet edge but, it seemed very honky and p90 or low-wind humbucker to me.
Thank you for watching and for taking the time to make a suggestion WTS. That one is going in the notes right now. I did a similar thing with putting a neo on the back of a ceramic telecaster pickup and something happens like the one magnet acts as a filter for the other or some kinda eddy current circuit distortuions stuff I dont understand but it had treble like I have never heard in all my days... and neo and ceramic usually make more BASS? so yeah it could have a strange result??? good one though 100%. I put it down.
I have a Squier 20th anniversary stratocaster with long pole pieces and double bar ceramic magnets added to the side of the pole pieces. I tried to lower the magnetism on the neck pickup with neodymium disk magnets, first by putting them directly into the poles and then by passing them over the poles a couple centimeters away. For the first time I liked the sound of ceramic pickup after that process. Please try it for yourself Clem.
Thank you for watching and for taking the time to type a kind comment Fausto. I have an old 80s epiphone strat copy that has those double magnet single coil pickups. Those things have high output kinda like tiny p90s. I'm glad you were able to get a sound you wanted from them. Thats awesome! I found the neodymium magnet on the back of the ceramic tele pickup to be a neat trick, maybe I should look into more ceramic/neo magnet stacking? Thanks again for the support and information.
You are doing all the fun stuff I'm always thinking of doing. Ever tried a dummy coil? Knock off the magnet and wire the pickup in just to cancel the hum like a humbucker. One phase will amplify the hum the other will cancel. Logic would be reversing the wires. Just connect it to output pre volume pot.
i dont know much about active pick ups but we have some instruments here that use them . i like the active bass for recording a lot , i can get so many different sounds on one guitar . i t has those tape wound strings which are like plastic coated flats if that makes sense . this works well for me as when i record music i tend to play guitar for many many hours , this leaves my fingers raw , switching to a 4 string its like ouch ow i cant even do it . i used to tape up with hockey tape and use masking tape over that so its like padded but it glides and dont stick . since i got those tape wounds i dont need to tape my fingers because the tape is on the strings ! ha . anyway i wonder if you could make a more powerful magnet like an electromagnet pick up , seems like those neodyniums would be more powerful so it wouldnt have greater results - ignore me . bad idea , i did enjoy the video and those tones were drastically different from one another . i am 4 songs in . this one is a bit different . i think you will like it .
That is actually a quite valid question I had not really considered! Now that you mention it, you know whats crazy about that? Im into old timey hipster retro crap so really dont get into much crazy stuff myself for a regular guitar rig: If I wanted to just chill and play guitar today id probably want clear sparkly easy going chuggy hendrixy SRV Gilmore sound SO... Id go into the wooden live room, put the stock stage right tube amp from amazon on the floor plug a boost and drive into it like klon and TS clone? then probably use the sunburst squire strat with the alnico pickups. That being said if I wanted to record some dirty distant ambient sounding stuff like it came out of a cypress thicket full of Gators: Id go fully opposite use the 10' 59 tweed champ clone with the dark alnico speaker, the nos mojo parts clark gainster petey made me as a sweetener right before the amp, and into that the $1 suitcase spring reverb, feeding it with the diy $30 tube preamp to exite it and the russian germanium dirty boost right out front being tickled by the volume pot of that 60s teisco or p90 junior with a slide and if I had ebow then that too... Yeah I guess it depends. When I make electronic type music: hip hop, rap, techno, pop and indie stuff: Thats when I really go crazy Ill have lamps plugged into light sensors into synthesizers running through toys and diy plate reverb and old drum machines going into transformers plugged through tape decks into the computer and all manor of insane stuff. So yeah Awesome question and Id really not thought on it too much.
If that's what you get off the top of your head, it's scary to think what a little thought would do! You have a curious mind and adventurous spirit keep on trucking. I am loving it. You should design some insanely great sounding pickups that no one else would ever think of putting together and sell it priced for a blue collar man. Like my favorite inventor, Mr. Leo Fender himself! We need people to that in today's world.
Great video. Have you considered making a strat sized P-90 by taking the pickup with screw pole pieces from a humbucker, and putting two mini magnets on each side?
I had not considered this but it is a very good idea and I may have to try it. Im going to put it in my notes right now. Thank you so much for taking the time to type out this great suggestion.
No problem. It's an underrated design that few know about but it sounds very unique, not like a strat or P90 but just different. Love to see your take on it.@@heavymetalATC
I was instantly hooked to your channel. I want to build a two string pickup to run a seperale signal trough an octaver. But the holy grail would be a pickup that can send the signal from all individual strings trough 2 or 3 channels. It's that something you would do?
Thank you for watching and taking the time to write such a kind comment Maarten. You could definitely build you a little 2 pole pickup: maybe even chop up a strat bobbin and glue or epoxy it back together and re-wind it. Yes, a 6 coil pickup is called a hex-a-phonic pickup. They use them for midi guitar I think, but I have had the idea of 6 individual pickups that could be wired and routed in several ways. I know I am eventually going to do this in a guitar build, I already have most of the details figured out on building, mounting etc. I tell you what: Im gonna put this comment in my notes and If/When I use the idea for a video I will give you a shoutout. Great Suggestions, Thank you again, I appreciate the feedback.
@@heavymetalATC wow, that would be fantastic! I'm really looking forward to that. Your approach of searching for knowledge and ignoring all the myths makes it a lot less intimating to try something myself. Thanks for the inspiration!
Alternatively, is it possible to have a pickup that is shallow and allows sliding it under the guitar? Keep the winding away from the strings and only move the magnet under the strings? Then you can just slide it under 1 2 or 3 strings and run it trough an octaver
Thank you for watching and taking the time to comment Tony. To my knowledge I have never heard of Iron nitride magnets. After looking into it a bit it seems to be a very new technology... but very interesting! twice the power of a neodymium they say!!! I would love to do some tests with these magnets. I am just not yet sure where to get them and how much $ they might be SOOOO Im putting this in my notes RIGHT NOW. I will make an effort to look into this. Thanks again Great Suggestion, I really do appreciate it!
The humbucker magnet being dipolar in the flat config begs the question as to whether you’ll see any interesting phase effects if you were to play the same note on the north side and the south side at the same time.
Thank you for watching and taking the time to write a comment Brian. That is a great question? I haven't noticed any of those artifacts with the neo-p90 but at the same time the neodymium seem to act differently so its definitely something to try. I considered using 2 aposing like a p90 and having 2 split coils of 3 poles. You could wire those in series out of phase and have a p90/humbucker "thing" It would be like a noiseless Z-coil humbucker and a p90 at the same time plus it could probably be made to fit in a normal pickup route. Many brain worms in this pickup can. LOL!
Thank you so much for watching and taking the time to leave a comment Louisa. Well, the guitar is pretty much completed as of the last video. but It still needs the neck finished and cut and buff on the body so... maybe at the beginning of spring I will finish and assemble it. In 1-2 more instruction videos plus maybe a setup video? After that I'll make a giant edit of 3-4 years in 25mins or so and have the full piece from table to plugged into an amp with no talking only background music. Thank you again for all the interest in this channel.
Thank you for watching and taking the time to write a kind comment 9Demirtas. I have tried something similar with a single coil and a pair of electro-magnets on 24volts. The humbucker idea is a new twist though. Great Idea! I will put that in my notes right now. If/when I do a video using the idea I will give you a shoutout. Thanks Again... Awesome Suggestion.
I have no memory o which one it was and its been 3 months so you prob dont either but either way thank you for taking the time to watch and comment woo6.
вы можете написать мне по электронной почте в Heavymetalatc@gmail.com но я не могу обещать, когда я проверю это и отвечу. Я отсутствовал на канале в течение года, и я только сейчас начинаю возвращаться и наверстывать упущенное.
i don't know if you can and want to help my curiosity but i had the idea of building an hotrail humbucker pickup for a 6 strings bass, but i have not a single clue on where start nor even where to look for advice so here i am can and would you like to help me doing your magic with what other see as "scrap and neodymium"?
Thank you so much for watching and taking the time to comment D.A. I really do need to do some bass content for this channel at some point. I recon it should be a 6 string with a hotrail neodymium humbucker when I do. Thank you for the suggestion this is a great subject. I will put this comment in my notes and If/When I make a video on the subject I will give you a shoutout. It may be a while before I do any bass content so are there any specific questions you have? I may be able to help you accomplish what your after.
@@heavymetalATC awesome, no rush and don't go crazy, i'm enjoying your videos and i love how you experiment without editing out even what is wrong, keep it up and i'll wait for the "railroad" to the bass pleasure town
I gotcha tims. Hell I was gone for about a year... I was doing stuff I just didnt up load or edit any of it yet, but I got a shop to work in now and all that. Thank you so much for hanging around the channel so long bro. I really do appreciate it. I know I go ghost about every 1-2 years but its nice to recognize people when I get back to it.
