Pure Vintage 65 JM pickups and reverb tanks

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RaistMagus
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Pure Vintage 65 JM pickups and reverb tanks

Post by RaistMagus » Mon May 02, 2022 2:47 am

Hi all. I got a JM with the PV65 pickups and they sound too polite and tame and scooped. Most importantly, they don't push my reverb tank into drip or slight overdrive, like the AVRI62 guitar used to. With the AVRI62 through the reverb unit I instantly got the tone I had been hearing in old recordings. With the PV65 I really have to palm mute to get any drip, like e.g. with my strat.

Has your experience been the same? Since the AVRI62 pickups are no longer sold, what other pickup do you recommend? I was thinking about the Seymour Duncan vintage, 50s sound with mids and Alnico5 magnets, or the Antiquities (I or II).

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Veitchy
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Re: Pure Vintage 65 JM pickups and reverb tanks

Post by Veitchy » Mon May 02, 2022 3:33 am

Any pickups modeled after late 50s/early 60s/black bobbin pickups ought to be closer to what you're after as they're going to have a bit more mids, however I'd argue that the difference in output isn't that drastic. Perhaps someone who can wind pickups slightly hotter for you may be better if you really want to hit the reverb tank a bit harder. That, or maybe just a clean boost on the floor will do the same job.

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Re: Pure Vintage 65 JM pickups and reverb tanks

Post by N0_Camping4U » Tue May 03, 2022 7:17 am

I put some Curtis Novak flat pole in my Jag and love love them for surf. Check out surf guitar 101 too if you haven’t already, they are super helpful guys. Maybe some flat poke jazzmaster pickups may sound better for you.
"I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner, now I am the master."

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Re: Pure Vintage 65 JM pickups and reverb tanks

Post by thejesusegg » Tue May 03, 2022 3:55 pm

I have PV65s in my Jazzmaster and the while the neck maybe tame, I'd not give that attribute to the bridge pickup. In fact it can be a bit brash. Do you have 500k or 1meg pots in your Jazzmaster? The 62 AVRI has the 1meg pots and maybe that's the big difference?

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Re: Pure Vintage 65 JM pickups and reverb tanks

Post by RaistMagus » Thu May 05, 2022 3:33 am

thejesusegg wrote:
Tue May 03, 2022 3:55 pm
I have PV65s in my Jazzmaster and the while the neck maybe tame, I'd not give that attribute to the bridge pickup. In fact it can be a bit brash. Do you have 500k or 1meg pots in your Jazzmaster? The 62 AVRI has the 1meg pots and maybe that's the big difference?
I am also surprised by the lack of icepick and shrillness of the 65s, I've been reading they can be shrill. Maybe this guitar just resonantes this way. I've used 1Meg pots on both guitars.

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Re: Pure Vintage 65 JM pickups and reverb tanks

Post by wotsch » Thu May 12, 2022 6:38 am

thejesusegg wrote:
Tue May 03, 2022 3:55 pm
I have PV65s in my Jazzmaster and the while the neck maybe tame, I'd not give that attribute to the bridge pickup. In fact it can be a bit brash. Do you have 500k or 1meg pots in your Jazzmaster? The 62 AVRI has the 1meg pots and maybe that's the big difference?
Hey there,
I have the Pure Vintage 65 in my AO60s Jazzmaster and I've found out that they are not balanced - the bridge and the neck pickup have the same DC resistance... Can this have something to do with it? Hm, but then it should be the other way round, bridge tame, neck brash?

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Re: Pure Vintage 65 JM pickups and reverb tanks

Post by Veitchy » Thu May 12, 2022 4:21 pm

wotsch wrote:
Thu May 12, 2022 6:38 am
thejesusegg wrote:
Tue May 03, 2022 3:55 pm
I have PV65s in my Jazzmaster and the while the neck maybe tame, I'd not give that attribute to the bridge pickup. In fact it can be a bit brash. Do you have 500k or 1meg pots in your Jazzmaster? The 62 AVRI has the 1meg pots and maybe that's the big difference?
Hey there,
I have the Pure Vintage 65 in my AO60s Jazzmaster and I've found out that they are not balanced - the bridge and the neck pickup have the same DC resistance... Can this have something to do with it? Hm, but then it should be the other way round, bridge tame, neck brash?
Any neck pickup will sound louder and 'bigger', all other things being equal, because there's a greater amount of string vibration over that pickup. This is especially the case with Jazzmasters, as the wider coil already picks up more string movement. This is often why you see pickup sets with a hotter bridge - so that you can balance the output of the pickups without having too drastic a difference in height.

Its interesting that your PVs are the same output. If you're chasing authenticity this is bang on. Fender never used to discriminate between bridge and neck pickups. They'd wind everything to (roughly) the same specs and slap them in. The player would then adjust the heights as necessary to balance the outputs.

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Re: Pure Vintage 65 JM pickups and reverb tanks

Post by wotsch » Sat May 14, 2022 10:09 am

Thanks, that's interesting! According to the Fender website, all Pure Vintage 65 pickups are unbalanced:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/woetscher ... ed-public/

I thought this was a bad thing and thought about changing the pickups...

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Re: Pure Vintage 65 JM pickups and reverb tanks

Post by soggy mittens » Sat May 14, 2022 6:48 pm

I have two main jazzmasters, one that is a 2004 Japanese that I put the PV65s in and that guitar is mellow and works great for songs that don't need it hot, it's way more clean and less percussive etc. The other is a heavily modded squier that I put the antiquity IIs in and modeled around the Thurston sig and that is a squeally little beast that does all the crazy feedback and touch sensitive shenanigans etc. It is nice to have the two options, trying to play some of the more delicate songs with the beast just makes me feel like I'm a bad player, which I am but I don't need the guitars to be reminding me. xD
If OSG has tort me anything...

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Re: Pure Vintage 65 JM pickups and reverb tanks

Post by garyfanclub » Mon May 16, 2022 8:24 pm

Tone knob!

I've got PV65's in my MIJ Jazzmaster, 1 Meg pots, etc. Running 12g flatwounds. Tone knob is usually around 6-7, depending on which amp I'm plugged into.

The neck and middle positions are gorgeous, but the bridge is downright unusably bright (especially clean) if you're not going to turn down the tone knob (or compensate downstream with your amp or EQ).

Interesting that these pickups are unbalanced, I guess I've been able to compensate with height of the bridge p/u. That said, 90% of the time it's Neck pickup or middle. I do like the bridge pickup with fuzzes and some OD pedals, but my JM's not the go-to guitar for that kind of thing.

It should also be noted that the mid-late 60s vintage JM's are pretty much the same way - so the PV65's got that part right.

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Re: Pure Vintage 65 JM pickups and reverb tanks

Post by hexes » Thu May 19, 2022 12:19 am

my JM with PV65s drip well enough that I kept it stock. with any sort of buffer in line it drips a touch more. I have a set of AVRI pickups in my stash. I’ll install them into my JM with PV65s and report back. what reverb pan is in your 6g15? Is it an original 60s unit?
garyfanclub wrote:
Mon May 16, 2022 8:24 pm
Tone knob!

I've got PV65's in my MIJ Jazzmaster, 1 Meg pots, etc. Running 12g flatwounds. Tone knob is usually around 6-7, depending on which amp I'm plugged into.

The neck and middle positions are gorgeous, but the bridge is downright unusably bright (especially clean) if you're not going to turn down the tone knob (or compensate downstream with your amp or EQ).

Interesting that these pickups are unbalanced, I guess I've been able to compensate with height of the bridge p/u. That said, 90% of the time it's Neck pickup or middle. I do like the bridge pickup with fuzzes and some OD pedals, but my JM's not the go-to guitar for that kind of thing.

It should also be noted that the mid-late 60s vintage JM's are pretty much the same way - so the PV65's got that part right.
turning the tone knob down often reduces 6g15 reverb drip a bit. some of the drip lives in the upper midrange and high end, and hotter pickups (like mosrite) clip the front end adding some HF harmonics.

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