Magnetism and Pickup Placement Key Factors in VH Tone

[johnnybgoood]

I know there's the Frankie's Broken Pickup Thread viewtopic.php?t=39638 but I didn't want to hijack it. Here's my contribution to inject some life back into this place.

There is much debate on the web about tone woods and specific humbuckers for Eddie's tone. These are secondary factors. The main factor is the magnetic field structure that causes production of voltage inside the pickup. http://www.moore.org.au/pick/06/06_gobd.htm

A strat single coil bridge pickup won't work because the magnetic field flows differently.


Also, a fully-working humbucker inadvertently cancels some important guitar-string frequencies along with the 60 cycle hum.


According to Seymour Duncan, "Van Halen opted for the JB model pickup." That's a high output pickup. http://www.independent.com/news/2011/ju ... n-special/

Frankie's pickup was broken. Eddie himself admitted this. http://lynnellsworthguitars.com/wp-cont ... world2.jpg That means a split coil pickup will be closer to EVH's tone than a full-out humbucker. So one can conclude that Eddie uses an overwound slug coil that still maintains the magnetic field structure of a humbucker but the pickup is wired as a split coil. Here's the wiring that I think he used after he damaged Frankie's pickup to get it working.


Also after all the variations, on Eddie's guitars, from Frankie all the way to the Wolfgang, the bridge pickup always remains in the same position. The slug of the north coil is approximately 2.125 inches away from the bridge saddle for the high E string.

[chrisom]

Good thread and pics!! Humbucker distance-to-bridge has always been a pet peeve of mine on 25.5" scale guitars. Some of the USA Fender Strats with bridge humbuckers are a bit too far away, making them 'moo-ey' sounding with less edge and subdued attack, and I once owned an original pre-TransTrem Steinberger 6-string where they butted the humbucker right up against the bridge and it was too close and shrill-sounding. I had to look at a bunch of 'Franky' photos (in pre-internet days) to be able to get it right. It took alot of courage to route my Steinberger faceplate and move the pickup, but once I did, it sounded great! I think for me, the idea was to get it to sound like a Gibson sounds on a 24.75" scale but on a Fender-scale guitar. Thanks for your input!

[JimiJames]

The spacing was no mistake or coincident. A guy named Lester Polfus & Seth Lover back in 1955 there-abouts; did the R&D on where "it" was precisely going to be placed on the body under the strings. He references this in a biography.

[echoplexi1974]

Thanks for posting this! Might have re-examine all of my partsocaster guitars

[garbeaj]

I absolutely agree that Gibson spaced bridge pickup placement is critical.

The thing to remember is that there is no one Van Halen tone. They certainly vary album to album and often from one track to another. We can make educated guesses as to which recordings actually feature the Frankenstein. We can use Eddie's interviews to narrow down the tracks that he says featured the Frankenstein.

But we have to bear in mind that there is a giant range of tones, for varying reasons. From the use of different guitars, amps, different amp specs, etc.

Even if we compare tracks that we more or less agree likely featured the Frankenstein and not some other guitar (and that is a HUGE leap from the start) the Frankenstein had many different bridges and obviously different pickups.

It may indeed be the case that he more or less stuck to Gibson spacing between whichever bridge and the bridge pickup. That's what my techs have always done when I have them install a bridge pickup in a guitar with a Fender or Floyd Rose bridge. This placement has always worked well for me.

As far as the "broken coil" theory, as far as I have been able to tell from that old thread and everything else I can glean from listening to all available studio recordings and live recordings from Eddie where we believe he played the Frankenstein and I only hear that stratty quality starting in '81 on the Fair Warning tour and going through the 1984 album tracks which supposedly represent the last time the original Frankenstein was used on record. Photographic evidence suggests that the Frankenstein was the likely guitar that was used to record tracks that feature Floyd Rose tremolo work (except the solo from "I'll Wait" which has a different and unknown guitar with a neck pickup sound and a Floyd Rose).

Eddie did experiment with many different pickups in the Frankenstein throughout it's life. It is impossible to distinguish what sound changes occurred with each different pickup that he tried in that guitar.

It becomes even more difficult to establish which recordings feature the original 335 PAF (that was likely rewound by someone if not Eddie or Seymour).

I really can't give any creedence to the "broken coil" theory because we have no idea what recordings feature this "broken coil" concept at work. It's possible to listen to live recordings where we have photographs of the Frankenstein that show the slightly melted bobbin cover and then try to figure out what tonal qualities exist on those bootlegs.

It's so difficult to narrow the scope and make any judgements that mean anything about one pickup that was in the Frankenstein for certain periods. It's also impossible to confirm that Eddie ever used a JB or a JB styled pickup. We have no idea how much or how little input Seymour had in the construction and spec of any of the many pickups that Eddie used.

[echoplexi1974]

garbeaj wrote:

That's what my techs have always done when I have them install a bridge pickup in a guitar with a Fender or Floyd Rose bridge. This placement has always worked well for me.

Dude, why don't you just work on your own stuff? Why do you use techs to do anything? I always thought of this place as being a "DIY" forum. It's weird when someone mentions their "tech". We are the techs!

[garbeaj]

Hah! I know it's ridiculous...I'm just a player!

[echoplexi1974]

I understand. Just ribbing you a little But it is so much fun doing this stuff yourself! Especially if you righteously fail while doing it. I guess it's all part of the chase, getting your hands dirty while messing with this stuff

[Megaro]

Great thread and thanks for the kick start. I love it when science meets Eddie Van Halen, because Eddie usually wins especially when he does everything wrong or in a completely alien way.

This is a relevant thread to me as I am building on a Musikraft Franky body and neck right now. I was kind of wondering where Ed placed that pickup. I always thought it was haphazardly placed, but science says NOT. I sure do wonder if there are a bunch of holes in the route where Eddie was figuring out where to place the pickup, or if he just did the rough math from his other guitars and eyeballed it.

[johnnybgoood]

righteously fail

Awesome quote!!
I briefly looked around the net for a second confirmation, besides Seymour Duncan, that Eddie used a JB. I couldn't find one. But then on a whim I went to the Kramer/Gibson website to see what they're using in The '84 model. Sure enough it's the JB Humbucker. http://www.kramerguitars.com/Products/T ... he-84.aspx And,... it has a coil tap on the push/pull volume knob. Why, as a manufacturer, would they put the coil-tap feature on the '84 if it wasn't essential to the tone? That guitar was strictly made as a hod-rod for one purpose in mind. It would be good to know the pickup resistance with the tap engaged.

[garbeaj]

The thing to remember about the Kramers that Eddie used is that they had very little to do with the production model Kramers. The Music Yo and Gibson "reissue" Kramers have even less to do with the Paul Unkert built guitars like the 5150 and the 1984 guitars that Eddie actually used.

[johnnybgoood]

Here's a snapshot of the 5150 while Ed is playing. It now makes sense that the high E string was caught under the bobbin top of Franky's pickup. Positioning is very close to the strings. Quite possibly less than a 1/16 of an inch.


On the 2012 tour, he protected the bridge pickup coil with black tape.

[Megaro]

johnnybgood's post got me to wondering if this all ties in to a few posts in this section about Ed's unusual string positioning on some of his guitars. In the thread below THE GUITAR MAN~EDDIE VAN HALEN'S GUITARS Book, plexified made a fascinating post about how Ed had a Kramer where he intentionally placed the bass anchor on his Floyd "about 3+ millimeters longer measured from the nut." This followed from the various forum members observations in that thread about how the high E string seemed to be almost falling off the VH1 era Franky.

I think johnnybgood was merely pointing out that Ed has his PUP jacked up right by the strings. But he might have, or at one time had, both a vertical as well as a horizontal placement of his PUP that is most unusual.

I love the knowledge and observations from the members on this forum

[bmf5150]

They guy who designed the peavey Wolfgang told me that the pickup that was in the original Frankenstein was a Gibson re wound by Seymour Duncan to a JB specs,he also said one of the coils was shorted out.

[JimiJames]

johnnybgood's post got me to wondering if this all ties in to a few posts in this section about Ed's unusual string positioning on some of his guitars. In the thread below THE GUITAR MAN~EDDIE VAN HALEN'S GUITARS Book, plexified made a fascinating post about how Ed had a Kramer where he intentionally placed the bass anchor on his Floyd "about 3+ millimeters longer measured from the nut." This followed from the various forum members observations in that thread about how the high E string seemed to be almost falling off the VH1 era Franky.

I think johnnybgood was merely pointing out that Ed has his PUP jacked up right by the strings. But he might have, or at one time had, both a vertical as well as a horizontal placement of his PUP that is most unusual.

I love the knowledge and observations from the members on this forum

It was funny; when I got it back, the bridge was turned around backwards and all that intonation... it was just backwards to the way I would have had it. I just don't see how he played it that way, but he did. It's funny, I've been to a few Van halen shows and I put on Ed's guitar and it's just the complete opposite of the way I set up mine...