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Bartolini pickups....maybe

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12/5/2002 3:11 PM

Bartolini pickups....maybe

I have always been impressed with both the playing and tone of Tuck Andress (monster rhythm player if you've never heard him). His tone is unbelievably clean. Come to think of it, John Pizzarelli gets a similar tone.

Is this completely mag pickup or a combination of mag and piezo or condenser? I know Andress used Bartolinis on his guitar for a long time, so I'm wondering, assuming they are the sole source of his tone (outside his fingers), what the hell makes them so unbelievably bright and transparent-sounding? Certainly there is some processing and post-production in between the guitar and what I hear from speakers, but one can't construct that tone if the brightness is not there to start with, so assuming one wants to go for as natural sounding a mag pickup as you can get (e.g., to insert in a round-hole flattop) what does that?

12/5/2002 4:15 PM
SK	Well, IMO, they key to a bright clear sound would be lower number of windings, heavier coil wire, and narrow magnetic aperature. I don't know how much of that fits the Bartolini's. I do know his dual rails have a narrow aperature.

12/5/2002 6:44 PM
Jason Lollar	An underwound single coil mounted on an archtop sounds incredible run straight into a recording console bypassing any amplification. EX. a P-90 wound to 5000 turns. Probably not done very often though.

12/5/2002 11:25 PM
anonymous	Yep, I'd largely agree. I also think we tend to overwind pickups these days. Mostly to push the front end hard (I do alot of mildly hot pickups) But I think some of THE BEST tones come from lower output pickups and a tube amp running full out on the power amp (or close to it depending on what you want...sparkling clean's not my thing).

12/5/2002 11:26 PM
SK	that was me...incognito...

12/6/2002 2:15 PM

"These days" now amounts to a couple of decades. I bought a DiMarzio Fat Strat back in 1979 or something and was very glad to leave it behind.

Bear in mind, though, that the overwound thing is deliberately intended to generate tone stemming from overdriving the next stage, or overdriving the next thing in line with some fixed gain stage in between. What works well for that sort of intent is certainly not ideal for anyone who wants the cleanest sound possible or who wants to preserve tha acoustic properties of an instrument as far along the signal chain as possible. Some days I think many of us (myself included) dig ourselves into a Strat-to-Marshall rut a little too deeply to climb out of.

Thanks all for the info though. Underwound I can do. And since I hand wind, I'm *happy* to do it!

12/10/2002 1:55 PM

To be honest, I really cannot understand why anyone would want a high gain pickup. Years ago, before I could apprecite the subtelty of good tone, I purchased one of thouse Dimazio dual blade high output things. I was listening to it the other day, and could not believe how down right awful it sounded. Its Ceramic, absolutely CANNOT clean up, even when turned down. And the tone is almost offensive.
I am definately an Alnico man.
Cheers,
Dick

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