A5 Phat Cat neck

[C8rockin]

Sorry if this is getting old,... but I've been playing with my PCn again, and this time I wanted to try 2 A5 magnets. I think it was Jeremy that talked about that recently and I realised I hadn't tried 2 A5s.

I very much like the way it blends with my C8. it's the best I've found so far and I've tried alot of magnet combos. But,.... on its own it gets muddy with gain and boomy when clean, but only on the lower strings. Other than that it seems to be just what I'm looking for. I put a de-mud mod on it and that helped but it's not enough.

I've read other posts about underwinding it to 7K by removing about 1200 winds. Is that the magic number? Will doing this fix those things, and is it something I should try to do myself? I haven't been that far into a pickup yet. The most I've done is made a hybrid. and I dont want to screw it up.

Thanks

 

[blueman335]

Re: A5 Phat Cat neck

Rather than take windings off your coil, try a different combination of magnets. A5's have a lot of low end, and with two, you're going to get it in spades. On my neck PC's I use one A5, with one A2, A3, or A4, all of which have more mids & less low end than an A5. The A5 gives brightness to the mix, while the other (warmer) magnet fills in the middle so the tone is more balanced.

An A5/A3 is the brighest of the tones I've tried; the A5/A2 is the warmest (but much brighter than the stock twin A2's), and the A5/A4 has more output with a nice blend of treble, bite, & mids.

 

[C8rockin]

Re: A5 Phat Cat neck

Rather than take windings off your coil, try a different combination of magnets. A5's have a lot of low end, and with two, you're going to get it in spades. On my neck PC's I use one A5, with one A2, A3, or A4, all of which have more mids & less low end than an A5. The A5 gives brightness to the mix, while the other (warmer) magnet fills in the middle so the tone is more balanced.

I've already tried all the combos I can think of with A2, A3, A4, A5 and A8 mags and I'm finding that I don't care for the mix matched combos all that much. I've been at this for months now with this pup.

I guess it's my style of strumming chords and I didn't notice until I started mix matching mags in the PCn, but I seem to strum on either side of the neck pickup and go back and forth from just over the end of the neck to between the two pickups. (probably an acoustic thing I picked up way back) I can hear the difference in tone depending on where I'm strumming while I'm playing and I find it annoying. It could be cool but I'm just too set in my ways to try to learn work with it.

Truth is I've found the PCn to be a little too dark all along, but I like the pickup enough to want to make it work for me. The main goal here is to find a mate for my C8 and I like the way the PCn blends with it and the A5/A5 does that best out of all the mags I've tried (A3/A3 second), and I liked PCn best out of the PGn, A2Pro, Jazz, and the JB with all the different magnets tried.

This is why I feel that removing winds is the next step, But I'm open to any and all suggestions.

 

[jeremy]

Re: A5 Phat Cat neck

removing winds works great, 1000-1200 is what you want to pull off but if you arent confident in your abilitys then dont do it since you dont want to kill the pup

 

[alex1fly]

Re: A5 Phat Cat neck

I seem to strum on either side of the neck pickup and go back and forth from just over the end of the neck to between the two pickups. (probably an acoustic thing I picked up way back)

Yeah. I love to strum around here. Such a great tone. I love how I can make my guitar sound completely different by strumming here.

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: A5 Phat Cat neck

Sorry if this is getting old,... but I've been playing with my PCn again, and this time I wanted to try 2 A5 magnets. I think it was Jeremy that talked about that recently and I realised I hadn't tried 2 A5s.

I very much like the way it blends with my C8. it's the best I've found so far and I've tried alot of magnet combos. But,.... on its own it gets muddy with gain and boomy when clean, but only on the lower strings. Other than that it seems to be just what I'm looking for. I put a de-mud mod on it and that helped but it's not enough.

I've read other posts about underwinding it to 7K by removing about 1200 winds. Is that the magic number? Will doing this fix those things, and is it something I should try to do myself? I haven't been that far into a pickup yet. The most I've done is made a hybrid. and I dont want to screw it up.

Thanks

Don't do that yourself. Just have SD or somebody rewind it low for you. The wax is too thick and the wire will break and you'll lose sight of the end. MJ rewound one to 7k for me years ago and it came out really nice.

 

[wanmei1]

Re: A5 Phat Cat neck

I also can vouch for the fact that taking a 1000 or so winds off a Phat cat will de mud it.
If you decide to go this way then you might consider sending it to either Zhang or Jeremy to have it wound down.
There's other guys here as well that I don't know about but both these guys are experienced pickup maker /modify /repairers.

 

[C8rockin]

Re: A5 Phat Cat neck

Thanks to all!

Zhang, I'm sure you're the one that got me thinking about this, but I couldn't remember where I read it.

I'm definately doing this now, but I think I'll probably order one wound to 7K with A5s so I don't ever have to take it apart, and I'll still have one to play with. I haven't tried A6 or ceramic yet.

I may still try to remove winds myself sometime down the road (if I know me) even if I kills it because I have this "problem" where I can't leave things alone. If I know about it I have to try it. Thats how I learn and I'm addicted now.

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: A5 Phat Cat neck

If you're trying to get rid of mud and boom, don't bother with A6. It's a dark magnet that has its uses but will only make your problem worse.

 

[drew_half_empty]

Re: A5 Phat Cat neck

buy a new pickup

that's really your best option at this point, if after a de-mud mod and what I'm guessing are multiple magnet swaps it may just be time to put it back the way it came & put it on ebay, try something else

 

[C8rockin]

Re: A5 Phat Cat neck

buy a new pickup

that's really your best option at this point, if after a de-mud mod and what I'm guessing are multiple magnet swaps it may just be time to put it back the way it came & put it on ebay, try something else

It's not a matter of not liking the pickup. I like it very much for how it works with my C8. It's just that I'd like to be able to use it on it's own also but right now it's too muddy or boomy.

If removing some output will fix this then it's going to give me some versatility with this guitar that I lack now. I'll soon have only the one working guitar,.... I'm about to start a project with my other one. Anyway, I'm getting tired of tweaking this guitar and I just want to play it. Thats onother reason I'll probably order one for now, and I don't eeeeven want to start another pickup search right now.