interesting humbucker-shaped objects?

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marqueemoon
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interesting humbucker-shaped objects?

Post by marqueemoon » Mon Oct 09, 2017 6:28 pm

I just got dual humbucker-routed Tele partscaster that has some Dimarzio somethingorothers in it. It's a sweet guitar, but the pickups aren't my style tonally. My favorite pickups are lipsticks followed by JM pickups. While on paper I should like gold foils they don't seem to work with my playing style.

I like a glassy and slightly scooped sound. Hum canceling would be cool.

So far Fralin Big Singles are the front runner, but it would be great to find a cheaper alternative. The Lace Alumitones look sort of interesting, but I don't necessarily want extended low end. High end, sure. Dual lipstick humbuckers don't really do it for me aesthetically. I see Curtis Novak does them hidden under a more traditional looking humbucker cover, but spendy.

Suggestions?

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Re: interesting humbucker-shaped objects?

Post by kdanie » Mon Oct 09, 2017 6:33 pm

GFS surf 90s?
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Re: interesting humbucker-shaped objects?

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Mon Oct 09, 2017 7:49 pm

I was thinking humbucker-sized P-90's or maybe some of the strange fare from Jerry Sentell. He makes unique and cool stuff. His "Ricky style" looks interesting:
http://www.sentellpickups.net/humbuckers.html
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http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=104282&p=1438384#p1438384

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Re: interesting humbucker-shaped objects?

Post by Embenny » Mon Oct 09, 2017 8:09 pm

marqueemoon wrote:
I like a glassy and slightly scooped sound. Hum canceling would be cool.
TV Jones Classic/Classic Plus pair, hands down. They are literally everything you're looking for. Glassy? Check. Slightly scooped? Check. Hum cancelling? Check. Filtertrons and Teles go together like peanut butter and chocolate, but it took half a century for Fender and Gretsch (and the community at large) to figure that out.

They're available in a weird looking humbucker mount, or the good-looking traditional mount with an adapter pickup ring.

I've put TV Jones pickups in three guitars (a Gretsch, a Tele and a Jaguar) and they just freaking rock in everything. They hold up under gain while maintaining definition, they can sparkle, they can twang, they can get thick with the tone rolled down, they really suit everything from chicken pickin' up to doom metal (I have never done metal other than doom, and they can handle that no problem, but I don't know about how well they chug through a typical metal rig).

If you've never played TV Jones pickups, you will flip out. I found modern Gretsch and Fender Filtertrons a bit lacking, but Mr. Jones knows Gretsch pickups the way Mr. Novak knows Offset pickups.

Be careful with things like Lollar's HB-sized Filtertrons. They have much more PAF in their DNA. The TV Classics have this crazy sparkle or sheen to them that I haven't heard in another modern filter repro. There's this "kerrang" to the string attack that's really just something. An immediacy to the string attack that is totally absent in, say, goldfoils. Sounds totally, totally up your alley based on your description.

Just so I don't sound like a shill, I'll add some other options that weren't listed yet. You've obviously seen the Fralin options, which include not just the Big Single, but also things like the Twangmaster. The lowest-wind Railhammer pickup would fit your criteria as well, as would the DiMarzio EJ Custom humbuckers (I really wrote those off at first because Dimarzio and EJ make it sound like an 80's shred pickup, but it's actually quite Filtertron-like).

You can also get any custom winder to make you an hb-sized single coil. I had Pete Biltoft of Vintage Vibe Guitars wind me a set of chrome-covered, HB-sized singlecoils with alnico rod magnets (A5 bass strings and A3 trebles) that came out sounding like a Jazzmaster pickup with an extended bass response. Most custom winders could do something similarly creative if you asked.

Do NOT settle for HB-sized P90s. They just don't do "glassy" and "slightly scooped" like you described. Rod magnets will get you there if you go HB-sized singlecoil. But so will the aforementioned humbucking designs.

You can also ask any of the "proper" WRHB winders to make you WRHBs with the three solid rods of each coil omitted. That gives you effectively a z-coil with extra windings, but I'm not as much a fan of that tone.

Joe Barden two/tone humbuckers are another way to go. Weird-looking but incredibly versatile. They get you a noiseless Danny Gatton-style "singlecoil-ish" tone as well as a fat but highly articulate, modern humbucker tone via a coil tap (not coil split). I have a pair in a JM and they're certainly glassy and scooped in their tapped mode, while also being humbucking. But you gotta be willing to put up with the dual-blade look, which I still struggle with. I know I should listen with my ears and not my eyes, but rails just look so 80's shred to me.
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Re: interesting humbucker-shaped objects?

Post by marqueemoon » Mon Oct 09, 2017 9:42 pm

Awesome. Thanks for the detailed info. I love kerrang for sure. I'll check the TV Jones options out along with the other suggestions.

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Re: interesting humbucker-shaped objects?

Post by Gavanti » Tue Oct 10, 2017 8:55 am

Another to consider would be the Roadhouse VistaTones or Kingstons. They both sound great, and I think both are available in the form factor you're looking at.

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Re: interesting humbucker-shaped objects?

Post by Embenny » Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:35 pm

marqueemoon wrote:Awesome. Thanks for the detailed info. I love kerrang for sure. I'll check the TV Jones options out along with the other suggestions.
This is one of the best demos I've seen of a TV Classic/Classic Plus in a Tele. Very true representation of how they sound, on my rig at least.

Keep in mind the Classic Plus is a very slightly overwound Classic, so if you really dig scooped low output tones (like the lipsticks you mentioned), you might consider bumping down to a Classic in the bridge. The Plus adds just enough grit and miss to help it do a decent Tele impression in the bridge position. It doesn't sound like an overwound pickup at all to my ears, but rather I'd consider the bridge position Classic to be "underwound"; the Plus sounds very balanced to me, while the Classic sounds extra-scooped (on a pickup that already sounds scooped and glassy).
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Re: interesting humbucker-shaped objects?

Post by Steadyriot. » Wed Oct 11, 2017 12:03 am

To give you even more options:

Duesenberg has a few cool and unusual pickups. Like the DS, a 60's Melody Maker pickup in a humbucker housing or the Frantz, modeled after Guild Jazzboxes.
And then there's this freaky thing:
Image
the PH90!

Other cool things to consider are HB sized Goldfoils.
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Re: interesting humbucker-shaped objects?

Post by Embenny » Wed Oct 11, 2017 7:41 am

Steadyriot. wrote: Image
the PH90!
Ok, I thought I had seen everything (single-coil-sounding HBs were an absolute obsession of mine for several years), but that is freaking awesome. Design-wise, it's basically a G&L Z-coil (split-coil using a bar magnet and screw polepieces) but with the weirdest polepiece arrangement I've ever seen! The G string would theoretically sound much warmer than the D string...
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Re: interesting humbucker-shaped objects?

Post by Gordon » Wed Oct 11, 2017 3:31 pm

Steadyriot. wrote:And then there's this freaky thing:
Image
the PH90!
Got one! https://www.instagram.com/p/BQREzskDjlu ... ieurgordon" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (I changed the pole pieces to something more unusual)

Still have to install it somewhere though, that body is sold and I don't have anything else...
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Re: interesting humbucker-shaped objects?

Post by mjs » Wed Oct 11, 2017 4:22 pm

+1 for WRHB. Glass all day. I see Novak does a standard PAF size.

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Re: interesting humbucker-shaped objects?

Post by loveinathens » Thu Oct 12, 2017 1:11 am

Alumitones.

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Re: interesting humbucker-shaped objects?

Post by marqueemoon » Thu Oct 12, 2017 5:47 am

loveinathens wrote:Alumitones.
Definitely curious about these. Have you played them? I'm wondering about the extended bass response when it comes to sitting in a mix or switching guitars in a set.

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Re: interesting humbucker-shaped objects?

Post by Embenny » Thu Oct 12, 2017 10:00 pm

marqueemoon wrote:
loveinathens wrote:Alumitones.
Definitely curious about these. Have you played them? I'm wondering about the extended bass response when it comes to sitting in a mix or switching guitars in a set.
I don't have Alumitones, but I do have a pair of Bardens that also have an extended frequency response, and I will say that they take very, very different EQ/settings than my other "traditional" style pickups. I play through a Kemper, so I just have patches saved that are tweaked for each guitar - but it could definitely be an issue for an analog setup. My opinion has been that most negative reviews for "extended frequency response" pickups has come from people who just plugged them in to the same gear they ran strat pickups or whatever into. They have some great tones available but you've got to tweak settings and realize that they won't automatically fit into an existing rig without some heavy tweaking.
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Re: interesting humbucker-shaped objects?

Post by jimboyogi » Fri Oct 13, 2017 2:45 am

mbene085 wrote:
marqueemoon wrote:
loveinathens wrote:Alumitones.
Definitely curious about these. Have you played them? I'm wondering about the extended bass response when it comes to sitting in a mix or switching guitars in a set.
I don't have Alumitones, but I do have a pair of Bardens that also have an extended frequency response, and I will say that they take very, very different EQ/settings than my other "traditional" style pickups. I play through a Kemper, so I just have patches saved that are tweaked for each guitar - but it could definitely be an issue for an analog setup. My opinion has been that most negative reviews for "extended frequency response" pickups has come from people who just plugged them in to the same gear they ran strat pickups or whatever into. They have some great tones available but you've got to tweak settings and realize that they won't automatically fit into an existing rig without some heavy tweaking.
This ^ makes me think of G&L MFD pickups, which also have more bass response than F style single coils. Because G&L put their pickups into their own guitars, they developed the Passive Treble and Bass tone controls, so that you can roll off the bass as well as the treble. In my experience this set-up works very well, all the frequencies are available, but you can adjust the eq on the guitar to avoid problems matching to your other guitars.
The Alumitones and Bardens would probably both work really well if the tone controls incorporated a "bass" control as well.

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