| ampage Tube Amps / Music Electronics |
For current discussions, please visit Music Electronics Forum. |
ampage archive
Vintage threads from the first ten years
Re: DeArmond 'monkey' pickups
:
 5/19/2006 9:01 AM |
|
Mark Hammer |
Re: DeArmond 'monkey' pickups Keep in mind that precious few of the strings sitting atop those polepieces would have been bent more than a few cents in those days. Big thick, knuckle-busting, callous-making strings. I have absolutely no idea of the composition of those strings either. Perhaps the pickup properties reflected what needed to be compensated for in the string composition, and construction (were there ANY unwound 3rds before 1960?) |
|---|---|
| 5/19/2006 9:04 AM |
||
| David Schwab |
On 5/18/2006 9:22 PM, Spence said: [QUOTE]I have looked at this issue in some depth and I can see where you're coming from but you should try out a few things. Modern plastic bobbin Fender single coils have the magnets all the same length and are moveable. Try setting them so they're all flat and then A/B against them set staggered. [/QUOTE] Oh yeah, I have a whole box of those! I have messed with them pushing the magnets up and down... I don't mind the magnets staggered in an arch, although it never seems to match the fingerboard. But the vintage stagger was made to compensate for strings we no longer use, and I can hear the volume difference from one magnet to another, and that's what bothers me. Leo said that he decided to use individual magnets because he heard string level mismatches with bar magnets... so we can see why he staggered them. But I'm not so sure they are staggered right for light gauge, unwound G sets.
They do get a certain sparkle. I have a long time customer that will only play blade style pickups. He hates the drop between poles. But I do understand that having individual round poles gives a different magnetic field than a blade. The individual magnets seems to create a more complex field, and you can hear all kinds of things in the top end of the guitar. They pick up a lot of side to side string vibration (from having the simi-circular flux lines) and not as much side to side motion. That gives them a plucky tone. But I'm just sensitive to gross differences between strings... I dislike the standard split P-bass setup... I think it sounds much better reversed (with the coil for the treble strings closer to the neck). I just find it jarring to hear a shift when I go from one string to another... now I'll be the first to say no one will hear it when you are playing in a band situation, but it's just one of those personal peeves I have.  | |
|---|---|---|
| <<First Page | <Prev | Page 4 of 4 |