dug out my old duncan custom/59 hybrid pickup!sounds good!

JD · Post by JD » Tue May 16, 2006 5:04 pm

It'll end up about $100 for the 4 bobbins. I'll keep you posted with my evaluation (about 2-3 weeks).

bmf5150 · Post by **bmf5150** » Tue May 16, 2006 10:14 pm

that will be cool!

gnugear · Post by **gnugear** » Thu May 18, 2006 2:19 am

I just ordered one

bmf5150 · Post by **bmf5150** » Thu May 18, 2006 2:55 pm

awsome bro!!!cant wait to get your opinion on it!i think it would be killer to take the 59 coil out of the mix and put a tom holmes 455 coil there.i would think it would help clarity a ton over the 59.

jnewlyn · Post by **jnewlyn** » Mon May 22, 2006 8:06 pm

Looks like I'm late for dinner here but after building these, which pickup is used afterwards. The rear coil 59 or the rear coil custom/custom?

James

JD · Post by JD » Sun Jun 18, 2006 5:56 pm

I finally got a chance to install the pickups today and give them a quick 20-min tryout. I built these with Alnico V magnets, and the 43 wire on the screw coils (42 on the slug coils). I am comparing them to Alnico II, nickel covered, wax potted Burstbuckers, so they are quite a bit different. My first impression is the midrange and trebles really cut, almost overpower the bass to a certain extent (which is much firmer vs. the BB). The tone controls and amp setup need to be completely different. However they are pretty complex tone wise and "airy" when notes are plucked, which I like. Of course without the wax potting and covers they are much more sensitive to noise, but never squeal. I can't get that fat howling bluesbreaker neck pickup "woman tone" out of these, but more of a good hard rock almost distortion type pickup sound - the neck pickup never gets sloppy or muddy. They are balanced bridge-neck volume output pretty well with just a bit of height adjustment. I found a bit more gap between the pickups and strings sorta opened them up a bit. All in all, its a unique sounding pair of pickups for sure and basically what I thought they would end up sounding like. I'd bet some R&D with the coil winds could produce some interesting variations. I would think more guys would be trying something like this out if more knew about the details of pickup construction.

bmf5150 · Post by **bmf5150** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 10:50 pm

very cool!what wire and how many turns did you make yours to?

JD · Post by JD » Sun Jun 18, 2006 11:08 pm

From the pickup winder:

"...5,500 winds on the first 42 coil and 7,600 winds of the 43 for the bridge pickup. That will definately be on the hot side and well-balanced to boot. For the rhythm pickup, I've wound 6,100 winds of 43 and will use 4800 winds of 42. That should balance out nicely and is actually much closer to the Duncan hybrid everyone described on the user threads you sent (I read them all)."

Ends up about 11.6K bridge and 9.6K neck (assembled). Of course that can be misleading as the 43 gauge wire is finer than the standard 42 wire used on both coils of a typical PAF - the overall DC resistance is corespondingly higher.