Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
- djetz
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Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
(Well, truthiness, anyway. If a mod wants to move this to the library, OK, but I'd rather it stays out here where anyone can see it and comment/argue/tell me I'm full of it.)
Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
There’s a lot of misinformation about these pickups online, so let’s put all the facts we have about them in one place. I’m writing about original 70s WRHPs here, not the modern “re-issues” – I’ll get to them later.
To understand what makes the WRHP (Wide Range Humbucker Pickup) special, you need to know a little about how pickups are built.
There are two basic varieties in pickup design – but I’m not talking about single coil vs humbucker, I’m talking about magnetic rods vs bar magnets.
In Fender pickup designs – Jazzmaster, Jaguar, Strat – the polepieces are magnetic rods.
In Gibson-style pickups – PAFs, P-90s – the polepieces are non-magnetic screws or rods which connect with a single bar magnet. In the two-coil variety, the bar magnet is between the two rows of polepieces, 6 on each side. In a P-90, the screw polepieces pass through 6 holes in the bar magnet. EDIT: some P-90s have two bar magnets, one each side of the screws.
Fender-style single coils are known for their clarity, Gibson-style bar magnet pickups (single or double coil) are known for their warmth. This is because the bar magnet design emphasises the midrange, while the magnetic rod design emphasises the highs and lows.
That’s why Fender pickups are perceived as “clean” and Gibson-style are “warm” (or "muddy") – it has more to do with the magnetic rod vs bar magnet design than a simple “single-coil vs humbucker” issue. It’s not about the number of coils, it’s about what’s attached to the coils.
How the WRHP differs
It’s a two coil humbucker, but with rod magnets like Fender single-coils, not a single bar magnet connected to non-magnetic polepieces.
That’s the “secret” – that’s why they’re known for their clarity and detail. The high end is clean and sparkly because the highs aren’t muffled by a midrange boost like in bar magnet designs.
CuNiFe
There’s a lot of speculation about the composition of the magnetic rods in WRHPs – they’re made of CuNiFe, which is an alloy that isn’t used much any more.
CuNiFe is not some kind of rare magical secret ingredient that makes guitar pickups sing like angels, it’s just an alloy that’s gone out of fashion with magnet makers because methods of making AlNiCo and other magnetic alloys have improved since the 70s.
My understanding of why CuNiFe was chosen for the WRHP is that Seth Lover – the man who designed the WRHP and the original Gibson PAF – wanted the rods to be adjustable.
Magnetic alloys are brittle – it’s difficult to mill them into screws, they tend to shatter. CuNiFe is softer than AlNiCo, and it’s possible to make screws out of it. I've read that Seth Lover actually preferred the sound of AlNiCo, but went with CuNiFe because it could be threaded.
I read this in an interview with Lover in an old guitar magazine (I think it was Guitar Player) that I found in a charity shop, but I disposed of all of my guitar magazines years ago. If anyone can find that interview, let us know, please. I’m mentioning this because there’s so much misinformation around, I’d really like to prove what I’m saying here isn’t just another made-up story.
Anyway, along with being soft enough to mill, CuNiFe is a relatively weak magnet. In audio terms, there’s not much output. From what I’ve heard, AlNiCo 2 is probably a closer match than AlNiCo 5 if anyone wants to try to make a modern replica.
It is still possible to buy CuNiFe, and some pickup makers have experimented with it, but because of the expense it’s not economic to use it. If the reputation of CuNiFe as a special magical alloy with unique powers of… whatever it is that it’s supposed to do… continues to grow, no doubt someone will eventually exploit the market.
I believe the CuNiFe factor has little, if anything, to do with the sound of WRHPs, and that a relatively weak AlNiCo alloy would be sonically indistinguishable from CuNiFe. That’s my opinion, yours may vary, but I think mine is based on a basic grasp of physics rather than a belief in magic magnets. Feel free to believe in magic if you insist, I won’t argue about it.
I have heard that “(insert boutique pickup maker name here) says that he can’t make new WRHP reproductions because the CuNiFe is 75% of the sound” – but I suspect that if anyone who knew what they were talking about said that, it was more of a polite way of saying “go away kid, you’re bothering me” than a serious statement of fact.
***************************
Since I’ve spent several hours working on this, I’m going to formally claim authorship and release it under a Creative Commons No Derivative Works Licence:
No Derivative Works or NoDerivs (nd): Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform only verbatim copies of the work, not derivative works based on it. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ for details.
Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
There’s a lot of misinformation about these pickups online, so let’s put all the facts we have about them in one place. I’m writing about original 70s WRHPs here, not the modern “re-issues” – I’ll get to them later.
To understand what makes the WRHP (Wide Range Humbucker Pickup) special, you need to know a little about how pickups are built.
There are two basic varieties in pickup design – but I’m not talking about single coil vs humbucker, I’m talking about magnetic rods vs bar magnets.
In Fender pickup designs – Jazzmaster, Jaguar, Strat – the polepieces are magnetic rods.
In Gibson-style pickups – PAFs, P-90s – the polepieces are non-magnetic screws or rods which connect with a single bar magnet. In the two-coil variety, the bar magnet is between the two rows of polepieces, 6 on each side. In a P-90, the screw polepieces pass through 6 holes in the bar magnet. EDIT: some P-90s have two bar magnets, one each side of the screws.
Fender-style single coils are known for their clarity, Gibson-style bar magnet pickups (single or double coil) are known for their warmth. This is because the bar magnet design emphasises the midrange, while the magnetic rod design emphasises the highs and lows.
That’s why Fender pickups are perceived as “clean” and Gibson-style are “warm” (or "muddy") – it has more to do with the magnetic rod vs bar magnet design than a simple “single-coil vs humbucker” issue. It’s not about the number of coils, it’s about what’s attached to the coils.
How the WRHP differs
It’s a two coil humbucker, but with rod magnets like Fender single-coils, not a single bar magnet connected to non-magnetic polepieces.
That’s the “secret” – that’s why they’re known for their clarity and detail. The high end is clean and sparkly because the highs aren’t muffled by a midrange boost like in bar magnet designs.
CuNiFe
There’s a lot of speculation about the composition of the magnetic rods in WRHPs – they’re made of CuNiFe, which is an alloy that isn’t used much any more.
CuNiFe is not some kind of rare magical secret ingredient that makes guitar pickups sing like angels, it’s just an alloy that’s gone out of fashion with magnet makers because methods of making AlNiCo and other magnetic alloys have improved since the 70s.
My understanding of why CuNiFe was chosen for the WRHP is that Seth Lover – the man who designed the WRHP and the original Gibson PAF – wanted the rods to be adjustable.
Magnetic alloys are brittle – it’s difficult to mill them into screws, they tend to shatter. CuNiFe is softer than AlNiCo, and it’s possible to make screws out of it. I've read that Seth Lover actually preferred the sound of AlNiCo, but went with CuNiFe because it could be threaded.
I read this in an interview with Lover in an old guitar magazine (I think it was Guitar Player) that I found in a charity shop, but I disposed of all of my guitar magazines years ago. If anyone can find that interview, let us know, please. I’m mentioning this because there’s so much misinformation around, I’d really like to prove what I’m saying here isn’t just another made-up story.
Anyway, along with being soft enough to mill, CuNiFe is a relatively weak magnet. In audio terms, there’s not much output. From what I’ve heard, AlNiCo 2 is probably a closer match than AlNiCo 5 if anyone wants to try to make a modern replica.
It is still possible to buy CuNiFe, and some pickup makers have experimented with it, but because of the expense it’s not economic to use it. If the reputation of CuNiFe as a special magical alloy with unique powers of… whatever it is that it’s supposed to do… continues to grow, no doubt someone will eventually exploit the market.
I believe the CuNiFe factor has little, if anything, to do with the sound of WRHPs, and that a relatively weak AlNiCo alloy would be sonically indistinguishable from CuNiFe. That’s my opinion, yours may vary, but I think mine is based on a basic grasp of physics rather than a belief in magic magnets. Feel free to believe in magic if you insist, I won’t argue about it.
I have heard that “(insert boutique pickup maker name here) says that he can’t make new WRHP reproductions because the CuNiFe is 75% of the sound” – but I suspect that if anyone who knew what they were talking about said that, it was more of a polite way of saying “go away kid, you’re bothering me” than a serious statement of fact.
***************************
Since I’ve spent several hours working on this, I’m going to formally claim authorship and release it under a Creative Commons No Derivative Works Licence:
No Derivative Works or NoDerivs (nd): Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform only verbatim copies of the work, not derivative works based on it. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ for details.
Last edited by djetz on Wed Oct 22, 2008 7:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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- djetz
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Re: Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
PART TWO: Alternatives
So you want to make a Jazzblaster?
Since genuine original WRHPs now cost a fortune – they’re made with unobtainable magical magnets, you know – if you’re looking for an alternative, what’s available?
The Fender “re-issue”
Not even close. Another example of Fender abusing the term re-issue.
The “re-issue” that Fender currently makes and sells is a regular Gibson PAF-style bar magnet humbucker in a Wide Range cover. It’s made to look like the original, but it does not resemble the original in structure. It’s no different to any other cheap humbucker, such as the Fender Atomic humbucker, except visually.
You may own one and love the sound, I’m not saying they’re rubbish, but I am saying they don’t sound anything like the originals. In my opinion marketing them as “re-issues” is false advertising. They’re look-alikes, not sound-alikes.
The GFS version
See above. Same thing.
Fralin Twangmaster
This is the only alternative if you want something that looks and sounds like the real thing. Fralin makes a P-92 that’s similar visually, but is a bar magnet pickup with adjustable screws and is meant to sound like a P-90. The Twangmaster is the one that’s actually built like a WRHP, with non-adjustable magnetic rods.
Everyone who tries these pickups seems to love them, but they’re expensive. Still, compared to the price you’d pay for a real WRHP, they’re not so bad. I believe they’re the same size as a PAF style humbucker, not oversized like a WRHP, so they’re not a direct replacement for the WRHP look-alikes that Fender sells.
Sounds comparable, looks different:
Novak JM-HC Jazzmaster Humbucker
There are two varieties, a bar magnet version and a magnetic rod version. Obviously (I hope, by now) the magnetic rod version is the relevant one here. As a bonus, Curtis makes these so they’ll fit directly inside a Jazzmaster pickup cover. He uses the same rods that are used in Jazzmaster pickups, too.
Wilde Pickups (the real Bill Lawrence) L-600
Again there are two varieties, if you’re trying to get a WRHP-type sound I’d suggest the lower rated models. Bill uses different ways of describing pickups to every other pickup maker, has no marketing dept, and seems happy to sell his pickups by word of mouth. But in my opinion, he’s a maestro. He never hypes anything, and his knowledge of the science of guitar pickups is second to none. He is a living legend.
If you can get him and his wife to sell you some pickups – and that’s not always easy to achieve – you will be impressed. The L-600 is the closest model to the WRHP that he makes: it’s a rod-magnet humbucker, and if Bill sells it, it sounds good. Plus, Bill is certainly the cheapest of the boutique pickup makers, around $60 US each for a humbucker-sized pickup.
Seymour Duncan Stag Mag
This is the closest thing to a WRHP that SD sells, in that it’s a rod magnet humbucker. It’s meant to be used for coil-splitting: with one coil turned off, it’s basically a strat pickup, right down to the staggered magnetic rods.
There are other rod-magnet humbuckers around, but I don’t know much, if anything, about them, so I’ll let other people comment on them. The point of mentioning this is to show that the WRHP design is not unique and only available from the originals. You might not be able to get the exact sound of a WRHP, but you can certainly get a lot closer with these pickups than the legend of the “unique” WRHPs would indicate.
So you want to make a Jazzblaster?
Since genuine original WRHPs now cost a fortune – they’re made with unobtainable magical magnets, you know – if you’re looking for an alternative, what’s available?
The Fender “re-issue”
Not even close. Another example of Fender abusing the term re-issue.
The “re-issue” that Fender currently makes and sells is a regular Gibson PAF-style bar magnet humbucker in a Wide Range cover. It’s made to look like the original, but it does not resemble the original in structure. It’s no different to any other cheap humbucker, such as the Fender Atomic humbucker, except visually.
You may own one and love the sound, I’m not saying they’re rubbish, but I am saying they don’t sound anything like the originals. In my opinion marketing them as “re-issues” is false advertising. They’re look-alikes, not sound-alikes.
The GFS version
See above. Same thing.
Fralin Twangmaster
This is the only alternative if you want something that looks and sounds like the real thing. Fralin makes a P-92 that’s similar visually, but is a bar magnet pickup with adjustable screws and is meant to sound like a P-90. The Twangmaster is the one that’s actually built like a WRHP, with non-adjustable magnetic rods.
Everyone who tries these pickups seems to love them, but they’re expensive. Still, compared to the price you’d pay for a real WRHP, they’re not so bad. I believe they’re the same size as a PAF style humbucker, not oversized like a WRHP, so they’re not a direct replacement for the WRHP look-alikes that Fender sells.
Sounds comparable, looks different:
Novak JM-HC Jazzmaster Humbucker
There are two varieties, a bar magnet version and a magnetic rod version. Obviously (I hope, by now) the magnetic rod version is the relevant one here. As a bonus, Curtis makes these so they’ll fit directly inside a Jazzmaster pickup cover. He uses the same rods that are used in Jazzmaster pickups, too.
Wilde Pickups (the real Bill Lawrence) L-600
Again there are two varieties, if you’re trying to get a WRHP-type sound I’d suggest the lower rated models. Bill uses different ways of describing pickups to every other pickup maker, has no marketing dept, and seems happy to sell his pickups by word of mouth. But in my opinion, he’s a maestro. He never hypes anything, and his knowledge of the science of guitar pickups is second to none. He is a living legend.
If you can get him and his wife to sell you some pickups – and that’s not always easy to achieve – you will be impressed. The L-600 is the closest model to the WRHP that he makes: it’s a rod-magnet humbucker, and if Bill sells it, it sounds good. Plus, Bill is certainly the cheapest of the boutique pickup makers, around $60 US each for a humbucker-sized pickup.
Seymour Duncan Stag Mag
This is the closest thing to a WRHP that SD sells, in that it’s a rod magnet humbucker. It’s meant to be used for coil-splitting: with one coil turned off, it’s basically a strat pickup, right down to the staggered magnetic rods.
There are other rod-magnet humbuckers around, but I don’t know much, if anything, about them, so I’ll let other people comment on them. The point of mentioning this is to show that the WRHP design is not unique and only available from the originals. You might not be able to get the exact sound of a WRHP, but you can certainly get a lot closer with these pickups than the legend of the “unique” WRHPs would indicate.
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- djetz
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Re: Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
Pictures
Apologies to the original photographers, these pictures are unattributed.
Original WRHP, front and back.
All of the rods are threaded, but half of them are only adjustable by removing the pickup from the guitar. I have heard of people taking out the 3 “backwards” rods from each coil, but I personally doubt that would achieve much beyond making the pickups sound weaker.
Originals have a metal braid insulating the wires. Modern look-alikes have plastic insulation. It’s possible that someone could try to pass off a fake as an original by replacing the plastic covered wire with braided wire, so don’t assume that braided wire proves it’s not a fake.
Original WRHP with the cover off. (Thanks to Zhivago for finding this photo)
It’s shallower than a bar-magnet humbucker, because there’s no bar magnet under the coils. The rods are about the same length as regular humbucker screws, but they protrude more because the body of the pickup is slimmer.
Broken WRHP that someone crudely converted into a single coil.
One coil has been removed, and the other coil has been bridged (red wire) so it’ll work as a single coil. Ignore the arrows, I didn't add them to the pic and don't know why they're there.
This picture shows the thin metal plate below the coils that the rods pass through. I believe this is similar to the metal plate on Tele bridge pickups. It’s steel, and would have some effect on the magnetic field, but it’s hard to say what the effect might be. The “claw” thing on Jaguar pickups is a similar idea, it’s meant to “focus” the magnetic field in some way. How much effect it would have is debatable. Probably only a subtle effect, in my opinion.
Apologies to the original photographers, these pictures are unattributed.
Original WRHP, front and back.
All of the rods are threaded, but half of them are only adjustable by removing the pickup from the guitar. I have heard of people taking out the 3 “backwards” rods from each coil, but I personally doubt that would achieve much beyond making the pickups sound weaker.
Originals have a metal braid insulating the wires. Modern look-alikes have plastic insulation. It’s possible that someone could try to pass off a fake as an original by replacing the plastic covered wire with braided wire, so don’t assume that braided wire proves it’s not a fake.
Original WRHP with the cover off. (Thanks to Zhivago for finding this photo)
It’s shallower than a bar-magnet humbucker, because there’s no bar magnet under the coils. The rods are about the same length as regular humbucker screws, but they protrude more because the body of the pickup is slimmer.
Broken WRHP that someone crudely converted into a single coil.
One coil has been removed, and the other coil has been bridged (red wire) so it’ll work as a single coil. Ignore the arrows, I didn't add them to the pic and don't know why they're there.
This picture shows the thin metal plate below the coils that the rods pass through. I believe this is similar to the metal plate on Tele bridge pickups. It’s steel, and would have some effect on the magnetic field, but it’s hard to say what the effect might be. The “claw” thing on Jaguar pickups is a similar idea, it’s meant to “focus” the magnetic field in some way. How much effect it would have is debatable. Probably only a subtle effect, in my opinion.
Last edited by djetz on Mon Jun 09, 2008 1:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
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- djetz
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Re: Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
There are good photos of a modern Fender WRHP "re-issue" with the cover off in this thread:
index.php?topic=12591.0
index.php?topic=12591.0
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- Orang Goreng
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Re: Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
Nice write-up, Dave. However, do you have some references or a bit of theory to back this up? In other words, WHY would a bar magnet emphasize the midrange?djetz wrote: Fender-style single coils are known for their clarity, Gibson-style bar magnet pickups (single or double coil) are known for their warmth. This is because the bar magnet design emphasises the midrange, while the magnetic rod design emphasises the highs and lows.
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Re: Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
This is a comparison photo of the modern WRHP re-issue (top) and a vintage WRHP.
The difference in bobbin size is clear.
And this is the underside of a Fender re-issue: very different:
The difference in bobbin size is clear.
And this is the underside of a Fender re-issue: very different:
- zhivago
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Re: Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
great thread,
here's a few more pics of a Wide Range pup...
here's a few more pics of a Wide Range pup...
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- djetz
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Re: Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
Good question. I can't point you to an audio spectrograph readout, but if I could I'd bet it would back me up.Orang Goreng wrote: Nice write-up, Dave. However, do you have some references or a bit of theory to back this up? In other words, WHY would a bar magnet emphasise the midrange?
I believe that having rod magnets directly under the strings allows them to reproduce more of the audio spectrum than if it has to travel through ferrous screws that are connected to a bar magnet that's an inch or so away from the strings and under a copper coil or two. Magnetic rods "hear" the strings directly, a bar magnet has to "hear" through connected screws.
I don't say that's definitely why rods sound more "hi-fi" than bar magnets, but it's a theory.
I don't say that rods vs bar is the only important factor in the way a pickup sounds - the copper wire coils are the other important factor. But that's a whole other story.
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- djetz
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Re: Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
Thanks, Zhivago, and theworkoffire. I was hoping that others would contribute, and those are excellent photos.zhivago wrote: great thread,
here's a few more pics of a Wide Range pup...
I notice that on Zhivago's pictures, there's a serial number rubber stamped on the bottom plate. I've seen other examples, I think that the rubber stamp was normal on these pickups and has worn off some examples.
I notice the number ends in 75, I've seen others ending in 74 - perhaps that part of the number is the year of manufacture. Or a co-incidence, we'd need more numbers to have a real idea...
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Re: Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
I'll see what else I have on my hard drives pictures-wise....
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Re: Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
Fantastic thread! Thank you!
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I am not an attorney and this post is for entertainment purposes only. Please consult a licensed attorney in your state for legal advice.
I am not an attorney and this post is for entertainment purposes only. Please consult a licensed attorney in your state for legal advice.
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Re: Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
Thank you.
I'm glad you posted the alternatives! Now I know where to get some awesome stuff!
I'm glad you posted the alternatives! Now I know where to get some awesome stuff!
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Re: Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
neat-o information!
Would an implication of this be that the humbucking character produced via the combination of two fender single-coil pickups (e.g. linking a regular fender sc pickup and a rwrp sc pickup in a home-made fashion... or perhaps the 2 or 4 position on a strat) would produce a tonality similar to that found in an original WRHP?
del
Would an implication of this be that the humbucking character produced via the combination of two fender single-coil pickups (e.g. linking a regular fender sc pickup and a rwrp sc pickup in a home-made fashion... or perhaps the 2 or 4 position on a strat) would produce a tonality similar to that found in an original WRHP?
del
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"The idea is to put a pick in one hand and a guitar in the other and with a tiny movement rule the world." - David Fair
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Re: Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
Thanks for assembling this. It would be great to hear from folks who have hands on experience with originals and some of the modern alternatives you list. Wonder what comes closest in sound?
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Re: Wide Range pickups – the truth at last
Yes if the pickups are right next to each other, no if they're a couple of inches apart. In a Strat, or a Jag, Jazzy, etc, the distance between each pickup means that the section of string each one senses is different enough for the sound to be affected. You're hearing two different positions on the same string. It sounds different to the way a double coil pickup sounds, where each coil senses almost the same part of the string. The magnetic field from each coil affects the other, too, though I don't think that's a big factor.del wrote: Would an implication of this be that the humbucking character produced via the combination of two fender single-coil pickups (e.g. linking a regular fender sc pickup and a rwrp sc pickup in a home-made fashion... or perhaps the 2 or 4 position on a strat) would produce a tonality similar to that found in an original WRHP?
But if you got two single coil Strat pups, one RW/RP, wired them as one humbucker and taped them together, you'd be getting into the right territory. The Duncan Stag Mag pickup I mentioned is exactly that: two Strat-type pups next to each other, wired as one humbucker. Though it's a lot louder than a WRHP, around 16K, so it won't have the same clarity as the WRHP. The louder you make a pickup, the more you boost the midrange, that's why those overwound shred pickups sound so muddy.
WRHPs have an output of a little over 10K. So, two low-output single coil pups, around 5K to 5.5K each, with AlNiCo 2 rods... if you got something like that, a "vintage" spec neck and middle Strat pair, for instance... I'd say that would sound pretty nice, and it would get you into the same ballpark as a WRHP. It'd certainly be an interesting experiment, wouldn't it? I'd be very interested in hearing the results.
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