ALNICO pickups - the numbers..?

[LtKojak]

Re: ALNICO pickups - the numbers..?

I do know they have an A6 that is used for the Danelectro Humbucker.

The A6's been used in the so called "lipstick" p'up, which originally is a single-coil, which come in two formats, to fit a Danelectro guitar and to fit a in a strat pickguard and/or cavity.

If the Custom Shop also makes a humbucker version on the lipstick, which is of course very feasible to make, is one I've personally never seen, not even in pictures.

HTH,

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: ALNICO pickups - the numbers..?

That sounds cool, Scott.

I'm looking on ebay at some parts to wind a pickup with - just to try it out and I've found an Alnico 9 magnet and some .375" slug poles that I reckon might be good to go with.

Using information from various websites, what could I expect from a regulated 5,000 turns of wire (not sure what thickness - I can't remember the numbers) using the parts I'm looking at..?

The thickness of the wire is a huge difference even just between 42awg and 44awg but beyond that the shape of the coil makes a huge influence on the tone. (the pitch and tension influence the shape but in different ways) It would be hard to say for certain what x wire at x amount of turns with x mag would sound like exactly. You would need someone with tons of winding experience to tell you that one.

Dont forget the insulation on the wire has a huge effect also. For a relatively simple device there are lots of subtleties to pickups.

 

[DeathMetalRob]

Re: ALNICO pickups - the numbers..?

The thickness of the wire is a huge difference even just between 42awg and 44awg but beyond that the shape of the coil makes a huge influence on the tone. (the pitch and tension influence the shape but in different ways) It would be hard to say for certain what x wire at x amount of turns with x mag would sound like exactly. You would need someone with tons of winding experience to tell you that one.

Dont forget the insulation on the wire has a huge effect also. For a relatively simple device there are lots of subtleties to pickups.

Noted. I've got the info from StewMac.

If I have say 42AWG wire and put (throwing numbers around) 6,000 turns on the slug coil and maybe 3,000 on the screw - what would I end up with..?

 

[p4vl]

Re: ALNICO pickups - the numbers..?

I put the Alnico 9 in the BG Hellabucker, which is a very bassy, open and uncompressed high output humbucker that comes with an Alnico 5 stock. The Alnico 9 turned it into an angry chainsaw; chopped bass, full of mids and highs (this was with my Peavey XXX, which is normally very bassy). If anyone is looking to replicate the sound of old Norwegian Black metal albums without the fuzz or if you're tired of all that pesky low-end, check out the Alnico 9 (which was rough cut, I believe).

 

[DeathMetalRob]

Re: ALNICO pickups - the numbers..?

I put the Alnico 9 in the BG Hellabucker, which is a very bassy, open and uncompressed high output humbucker that comes with an Alnico 5 stock. The Alnico 9 turned it into an angry chainsaw; chopped bass, full of mids and highs (this was with my Peavey XXX, which is normally very bassy). If anyone is looking to replicate the sound of old Norwegian Black metal albums without the fuzz or if you're tired of all that pesky low-end, check out the Alnico 9 (which was rough cut, I believe).

Sounds good to me, mate.

I'm looking up parts including an A9. I'd like a fair amount of bass register but, not so much as an Invader, say.

Making my own pickup could be bonkers but, hey if I can, why don't I?

 

[eviltobz]

Re: ALNICO pickups - the numbers..?

Noted. I've got the info from StewMac.

If I have say 42AWG wire and put (throwing numbers around) 6,000 turns on the slug coil and maybe 3,000 on the screw - what would I end up with..?

i made a pair of pups from the stewmac kits which i'm quite happy with. i did it allllllll by hand, which was long, slow, and laborious. and with the sort of tension that i could put on in such a manner without risking snapping the wire constantly, getting ~5000 turns on a coil made for a really fat bobbin, so you'll prolly need a fair bit of practice to be able to even get 6000 on.

most of the advice around making hybrids from the SD pups suggests using coils from adjacent ranges - vintage with mid power, or mid with high - so having such a big difference is going to be outside the norm & most people's experiences I think. and given that stewmac's advice of around 5000 turns per coil is to create a paffy vintage type pup, the 3000 turn bobbin will be pretty weak, so you're likely getting into uncharted territory. it'll definitely lose quite a bit of humbuckingness, but as with all such subjective things, the tone may end up just what you want.

 

[DeathMetalRob]

Re: ALNICO pickups - the numbers..?

i made a pair of pups from the stewmac kits which i'm quite happy with. i did it allllllll by hand, which was long, slow, and laborious. and with the sort of tension that i could put on in such a manner without risking snapping the wire constantly, getting ~5000 turns on a coil made for a really fat bobbin, so you'll prolly need a fair bit of practice to be able to even get 6000 on.

most of the advice around making hybrids from the SD pups suggests using coils from adjacent ranges - vintage with mid power, or mid with high - so having such a big difference is going to be outside the norm & most people's experiences I think. and given that stewmac's advice of around 5000 turns per coil is to create a paffy vintage type pup, the 3000 turn bobbin will be pretty weak, so you're likely getting into uncharted territory. it'll definitely lose quite a bit of humbuckingness, but as with all such subjective things, the tone may end up just what you want.

I'm looking to have a really strong tone out of this pickup. Somewhere between a Distortion and a Custom 5 - I think. No idea what I'll actually get but, it's going to have massive slug poles on the slug and hex poles (Full Shred-style) on the screw on an A9 magnet.

If I want to get a 'scooped' sound almost, really vicious and angry sounding what kind of turns per coil am I looking at..?

Obviously, this won't be a great pickup by any stretch of the imagination - it'll be my first (maybe only) one

If it does turn out alright - happy days.

 

[eviltobz]

Re: ALNICO pickups - the numbers..?

my wind used 42awg iirc (the one that stewmac talks about in their destructions) and the coils came out somewhere in the region of 8ohms, well below the resistance of the SD custom at 14ish (not that i know for sure what gauge of wire they use on that one). as mentioned, i didn't have nearly as much tension on the wire as a proper production pup does, so with that bit of slack and bulge it makes my resistance a bit higher than something wound more professionally, meaning that a good 5k of turns would be even further away from the custom's reading (again, caveats about wire type, resistance vs output etc) so i think that you'll need to get that wire on tighter (some kind of rotating rig to spin the bobbin would be your friend) and get a good load more turns on than i managed. if you wanna push to distortion levels i'm pretty sure you'll have to take it to the thinner wire to get em all on too.

 

[DeathMetalRob]

Re: ALNICO pickups - the numbers..?

Any ideas how an SH-14 using an A9 might sound (making it a Custom 9 I suppose)

Or a Distortion with an A9? Thick ceramic with A9 either side or vice-versa..? Get some thinking going.