Lipstick Upgrade for Danelectro

[OctopusRider]

Are the SD Lipstick Tubes still the best upgrade for Danelectro? I have the Danelectro '59M NOS+ guitar from a couple years ago. The stock pickups sound good to me for what they are but I can’t help but thinking this guitar could sound better. Anybody upgrade their Dano with the SD’s?

[Mincer]

SD Lipsticks are indeed an upgrade, but let's face it...the traditional Lipstick sound is bright and weak. Many people don't like the way lipsticks sound, so no matter what brand it is, it doesn't work for them. What issues are you having with the Dano?

[OctopusRider]

I was having trouble getting the bridge pickup to match the neck in output. I just took the pickups out to see what the problem was. There was no rubber tubing on the pickup screws so no matter how high I raised the bridge pup the screws on the back of the body would stick out further on the back. I didn’t want to lower the neck pup much because it sounded pretty good as is.

Anyway, I used some Fender rubber tubing from some unused Tele and Strat pickups and added them to the Dano screws. Now the bridge pickup matches the neck and the screws aren’t protruding from the back. This seems like a pretty big miss from the Korean design or assembly.

Yeah, these lipsticks aren’t for everyone. They don’t sound good in all of my amps but in my Fender Twin and DLX Reverb they sound fantastic to me; They are very articulate, airy and clean. In my AC15 and DSL40 it really takes some drastic EQ’ing to sound good.

So, I think I’m good for now but if I need something better in them, I’ll try the SDs eventually. Thanks for the response Mincer!

[freefrog]

For questions of coil geometry, stock Dano lipsticks's with their longer housing might sound a bit brighter than the Duncan lipsticks in one of my Strats, but there's not a big difference to my ears... I've no experience with Dano sized Duncan lipsticks but they shouldn't be that different either, logically.

Personally, I've mounted lipsticks because I wanted the sound of lipsticks with their weak DCR, low inductance and boatloads of Eddy currents: that's the way to SRV's tone in "Tin Pan Alley"...

Not sure there's much room for improvement in such a pickup design: the cylindrical housing can host a coil with a magnet inside it but keeps them away from the strings. And as I said, it contributes to high Foucault currents, flattening the resonant peak... A plastic housing would solve this issue but would still keep the guts of the pickup far from the strings...

If regular lipsticks are too weak and bright, it's possible to mount them with 1M pots (and/or at least a no-load tone pot, like the one in my Strat with lipsticks), THEN to correct their brightness with a capacitor from hot to ground... it will shift down the resonant frequency while the higher resistance pots will make the resonant peak more pointy, like with a normal Strat pickup.

Knowing that lipsticks have an inductance around 1,3H (half the value of a SSL1), a 330pF cap added in parallel should drag their resonance in the SSL1 territory. For warmer mid-centric tones, 1nF to 3,3nF would be something to try (1nF being already able to shift down the resonant frequency in the SSL5 range)...

Lipsticks also work well in series, IME.

FWIW. HTH.

[OctopusRider]

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Knowing that lipsticks have an inductance around 1,3H (half the value of a SSL1), a 330pF cap added in parallel should drag their resonance in the SSL1 territory. For warmer mid-centric tones, 1nF to 3,3nF would be something to try (1nF being already able to shift down the resonant frequency in the SSL5 range)...

Lipsticks also work well in series, IME.FWIW. HTH.

I believe stock Danos are wired in a series in the middle position. It’s is considerably louder than in the other two positions and the tone is golden to my ears—Kashmir, White Summer/Black Mountain Side, Piper At The Gates of Dawn, etc.

Adding a capacitor seems justified and simple. I think I’ll try that. Thanks freefrog!

[ArtieToo]

The lipsticks in my Dano are humbuckers, so a little more beefy than the one's in my Strat. But the tone pots are push-pulls that do split and OOP. When split, they're very similar to the Strat. The Strat positions 2 - 5 are excellent. The #1 pos, (bridge only) is weak, and almost worthless. But the other 4 positions make up for it. Especially when used with my BBE Acoustimax, with the sonic maximizer. A match made in heaven.

[OctopusRider]

The lipsticks in my Dano are humbuckers, so a little more beefy than the one's in my Strat. But the tone pots are push-pulls that do split and OOP. When split, they're very similar to the Strat. The Strat positions 2 - 5 are excellent. The #1 pos, (bridge only) is weak, and almost worthless. But the other 4 positions make up for it. Especially when used with my BBE Acoustimax, with the sonic maximizer. A match made in heaven.

Those look pretty sweet and I bet they sound fantastic. Is your neck in the Dano pretty stable? I used to have one similar to that design but the neck was getting out of wack from string pull.

[ArtieToo]

It appears to be pretty stable. Then again, I got it from my luthier friend who did a complete setup on it before he gave it to me.