Brandonwound pickups?

[marqueemoon]

Cool. Definitely appears to be a different construction than the Fralins. Interested to hear a comparison.

[Deed_Poll]

That Brandonwound looks pretty fat but also pretty square, so my guess would be a sidewinder? But it could also be a stacked coil if I'm wrong about the squareness.

I've been getting to grips with my CNC coil winder these last few days! First pickup coming very soon - it's like an old Teisco design but with a noise cancelling coil. I'm thinking of it conceptually as being like an excessively asymmetrically wound humbucker, with rod magnets for one side and a Jag-style claw to channel the field away from the dummy coil. We'll have to find out how it sounds! It looks like a Jaguar pickup had a crack baby with a mini humbucker.

I've started work on my own noiseless Jazzmaster type design - a couple, actually. The first one I'll try is an inside / outside dual coil. If my calculations are correct, a coil with a much larger perimeter needs far fewer windings to match the same antenna / noise as a fatter conventional coil (I guess this is how the Ilitch system works and is so tonally unobtrusive). Of course, mine won't be anywhere near as large or as far away from the strings as that, but maybe with some clever claw design it can be mitigated.

I'm using 3D printing to package things efficiently, and I'm wondering how few turns I'll need to effectively hum cancel a JM pickup if I run the dummy coil just inside the perimeter of the pickup cover.

[Larry Mal]

Sure thing! I bought mine directly from them but I think they also sell them via Reverb. Photos as promised - I took shots of the neck pickup:

Thanks! I really don't know what I'm looking at here, but I guess it didn't alarm me enough not to try a set out. I made an offer for $200 and accepted a counter-offer at $210 plus shipping. I'm always happy to try something out, and your review was very good.

I was hoping that Dr. Mike might say what he thought these pickups looked like, but it's hard to tell, isn't it? Like our friend from Katz guitars points out, you could make a case for these being either a stacked pickup or side by side or even something else totally, you know?

I'll be sure to give some thoughts when I get it all together.

[Larry Mal]

My pickups have arrived, and I'll probably get the guitar up to the shop tomorrow unless I decide to install them myself, which I probably won't.

They came very fast. I was going to take some pictures myself, but I really can't see anything to add to the ones that are already here.

The pickups are very light. I have no idea what they are.

I hope I like them... I am not blown away by the sounds in the video. I'll keep the original pickups I think.

[Larry Mal]

Well, I have a lot of good things to say about these pickups!

They are good. They sound very Jazzmaster. If I didn't know that these were noiseless pickups in there I would just be thinking Jazzmaster... and actually, I was playing my old Japanese made Jazzmaster and kind of remembering the reason I fell in love with it all those years ago. It could be nostalgia, but again I was hearing all the sounds there, the great things and the not so great things that overall make the Jazzmaster what it is.

In case I'm being too subtle, I'd say that these pickups are what this guy says they are and if you are looking at noiseless, and want something that approximates vintage, and are daunted by the incredible expense of the competition, I'd say go for it.

Now, I just got them in today, and spent only about an hour with them, so let's bear that in mind. However, what I always look for with pickups is clear and present high end, check. I also want a lot of dynamic range to them, and that's here, these aren't compressed or anything. I also try to evaluate note separation in chords, and that's fine here, nothing fantastic or anything.

However: I am noticing that there are some flaws with my overall guitar that will need addressing, namely I guess the weather stripping under the pickups has compressed and is no longer getting the pickups where I might want them (especially the bridge pickup).

That's as may be because incredibly I am still finding this guitar to be noisy in my environment, which is always noisy, there's a reason I grind this axe the way I do.

This isn't maybe completely surprising since this guitar was the first guitar I ever shielded in any way and I've learned a lot since then- namely, that you can shield pickup covers but also that the cheap Stew-Mac carbon paint doesn't do shit and that's exactly what's under there. So I guess I'll have to break the guitar apart and shield it better.

It is what it is, but these are good pickups, is what I am trying to say. And I am not saying that I hear any hum to them in any position, just the EMI and RFI that I will have to eliminate.

[kingmedicine]

Very cool to see a review of these! How do you think they stack up against Kinman’s and Fralin’s hum cancelling options? (At least I thought I had seen a thread where you were comparing those options previously, apologies if I’ve got the wrong poster)

Well, I have a lot of good things to say about these pickups!

They are good. They sound very Jazzmaster. If I didn't know that these were noiseless pickups in there I would just be thinking Jazzmaster... and actually, I was playing my old Japanese made Jazzmaster and kind of remembering the reason I fell in love with it all those years ago. It could be nostalgia, but again I was hearing all the sounds there, the great things and the not so great things that overall make the Jazzmaster what it is.

In case I'm being too subtle, I'd say that these pickups are what this guy says they are and if you are looking at noiseless, and want something that approximates vintage, and are daunted by the incredible expense of the competition, I'd say go for it.

Now, I just got them in today, and spent only about an hour with them, so let's bear that in mind. However, what I always look for with pickups is clear and present high end, check. I also want a lot of dynamic range to them, and that's here, these aren't compressed or anything. I also try to evaluate note separation in chords, and that's fine here, nothing fantastic or anything.

However: I am noticing that there are some flaws with my overall guitar that will need addressing, namely I guess the weather stripping under the pickups has compressed and is no longer getting the pickups where I might want them (especially the bridge pickup).

That's as may be because incredibly I am still finding this guitar to be noisy in my environment, which is always noisy, there's a reason I grind this axe the way I do.

This isn't maybe completely surprising since this guitar was the first guitar I ever shielded in any way and I've learned a lot since then- namely, that you can shield pickup covers but also that the cheap Stew-Mac carbon paint doesn't do shit and that's exactly what's under there. So I guess I'll have to break the guitar apart and shield it better.

It is what it is, but these are good pickups, is what I am trying to say. And I am not saying that I hear any hum to them in any position, just the EMI and RFI that I will have to eliminate.

[Larry Mal]

Very cool to see a review of these! How do you think they stack up against Kinman’s and Fralin’s hum cancelling options? (At least I thought I had seen a thread where you were comparing those options previously, apologies if I’ve got the wrong poster)

You know, I should probably be a little more scientific about this in some way, but I'll say that so far (and it's only been a hour or so of playing time), I feel like these Brandonwound pickups kind of nail the actual Jazzmaster sound a little more accurately than the Kinmans I have.

Granted the Kinmans I have are Thickmasters, so they are not really designed to be a vintage accurate replica. In fact, Kinman on his site talks about how he has corrected the Jazzmaster pickup, I went ahead and got a quote from there:

"We believe Leo actually wanted a huge, lush round sound from his Jazzmaster with his wide flat coil design but he stopped short of his goal and ended up with too much brightness which compromises girth and the gnarly trebly sound is the reason it did not achieve wide popularity among the Jazz fraternity at the time."

And honestly, at least regarding the Thickmasters, I would say that his description of his Jazzmaster pickups is accurate. They certainly are round, not compressed, good high end and are just all around excellent, excellent pickups. Powerful but not overbearing or distorted. Just fantastic.

That being said, the reason I put that quote up there is because these Brandonwounds so far are impressing me as being more true to the Jazzmaster sound. Like I say, over my hour playing them, especially with distortion, I kept thinking, oh, there's that Jazzmaster thing that I fell in love with back in the day. By which I mean the great parts but also the flaws or idiosyncratic aspects of it... what Kinman calls the "gnarly treble sound", I guess. That snap and aggression.

So I'm glad that I bought these, I had actually been bidding on a Kinman Thickmaster in the bridge position and could have got it for like $60, but I didn't want two of the identical sets of pickups in both my Jazzmasters in the end. And these Brandonwounds are a pretty clear distinction.

Regarding those Fralin noise cancelling pickups that I have, I have a set of his Alnico pole noiseless P90s in a Firebird. So it's a little hard to make a direct parallel. My impression of those is that they are nice pickups, and the last time I spent time with them I kept thinking, oh, I like these pickups more than I had thought I did.

They are good pickups, and do all the things that you want pickups to do, but I guess I would have to say that they are a little more neutral in character and it takes a little more time to dial in a sound.

Again, nothing scientific, but let's put it in terms of microphones: the Fralin noise cancelling pickups are like a great small diaphragm condenser that is flat across the EQ spectrum and accurately captures what you put it in front of. Nothing to complain about there, you know?

But sometimes you want to put a nice, warm ribbon microphone on something and just get that particular sound you are looking to get right away.

So if I was to say my rough and unscientific impressions, I would say that these Brandonwounds are a pretty dead on imitation of vintage Jazzmaster pickups, the Kinman Thickmasters are dialed in to be warm and syrupy but in a good way, and the Fralin noiseless Alnico rod pickups are clean, clear and accurate.

[kingmedicine]

Thanks! I appreciate the detailed response. Good to hear they sound a little closer to JM pickups. I have a set of the Fralin hum cancelling ones right now that sound good, but not quite the same (missing the single coil aggression). I think I’ll give these Brandonwound ones a try.

Also...if anyone is looking at trying these there are a couple discount codes that are up on his social media that seem to work (not huge, but I was able to get 15% off).

Very cool to see a review of these! How do you think they stack up against Kinman’s and Fralin’s hum cancelling options? (At least I thought I had seen a thread where you were comparing those options previously, apologies if I’ve got the wrong poster)

You know, I should probably be a little more scientific about this in some way, but I'll say that so far (and it's only been a hour or so of playing time), I feel like these Brandonwound pickups kind of nail the actual Jazzmaster sound a little more accurately than the Kinmans I have...

[Larry Mal]

Thanks! I appreciate the detailed response. Good to hear they sound a little closer to JM pickups. I have a set of the Fralin hum cancelling ones right now that sound good, but not quite the same (missing the single coil aggression). I think I’ll give these Brandonwound ones a try.

Also...if anyone is looking at trying these there are a couple discount codes that are up on his social media that seem to work (not huge, but I was able to get 15% off).

No problem- hope it was helpful, and I hope it was at all accurate, also. Bear in mind these are just very rough first impressions here.