Firebird pickups

[vinnie1971]

Hi all

I’ve a Korean made Epiphone Firebird III. It’s old.

It has the OBL Firebird pickups in it. I think they sound pretty good and certainly better than the current Gibson Firebird pickups, but even back then these pickups are wound quite hot and through the base plate hole I can see the magnets are ceramic. But they sound ok. But nothing like as decent as a Firebird conversion I did on a set of mini humbuckers. They were 6.2k and 6.5k for neck and bridge so I removed magnets and metal parts and put in Firebird pickups in the bobbins and a steel plate across the bottom for the horseshoe magnetic field.

The OBL pickups are a bit too compressed for my liking but then I saw these... super cheap Alnico 5 - slightly hot at 8k but theses are going to be more in the ballpark as long as they are constructed like real firebird pickups under the cover.

ALNICO V Humbucker Pickup for LP Guitar/Mini Guitar/Echo Organ/Box Guitar https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07KTZGC8G/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ZUkaEbSV15S3Q

My experience with a custom build Telebird from AliExpress leads me to believe they will be constructed correctly.

I wonder if they’ll sound better than Gibson’s current Firebird pickups? I think even though they’re this cheap - the specs suggest they will...



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[zionstrat]

Re: Firebird pickups

I have no background on this particular pup, but thought it was pretty funny that they say it would be great in an echo organ... unless there is something new under that name, echo organs are the pipes in a pipe organ that are so far away from the main pipes that they provide echos.

Back to the pickup, they are advertising this as a mini. Keep in mind that firebirds and and minis are different pick up designs.

Firebird coils surround a magnet. Minnie's are simply a smaller format version of a regular humbucker. Both see less of the string than a traditional humbucker but they sound rather different because of the magnetic structure.



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[chadd]

Re: Firebird pickups

I have had a love/hate relationship with Firebird pickups for years. For the most part, I prefer minis, but the Lollars in my Kauer Banshee were fantastic. I dropped in a really hot Rio Grande baby Texas so it will keep up with my other guitars in my current band, but I will go back to the Lollar when I don't need so much output.

 

[freefrog]

Re: Firebird pickups

My experience with a custom build Telebird from AliExpress leads me to believe they will be constructed correctly.

A possible choice in such designs is to put two steel blades in the coils and 1 mag between the blades / below the coils (like in the Duncan SM3), instead of following the vintage recipe shown here: https://www.stewmac.com/Pickups_and...Parts/Firebird_Mini_Humbucker_Pickup_Kit.html

If ever you look under the hood, let us know how your PU's are made, thx!

And merry Xmas, everybody...

 

[vinnie1971]

Re: Firebird pickups

I have no background on this particular pup, but thought it was pretty funny that they say it would be great in an echo organ... unless there is something new under that name, echo organs are the pipes in a pipe organ that are so far away from the main pipes that they provide echos.

Back to the pickup, they are advertising this as a mini. Keep in mind that firebirds and and minis are different pick up designs.

Firebird coils surround a magnet. Minnie's are simply a smaller format version of a regular humbucker. Both see less of the string than a traditional humbucker but they sound rather different because of the magnetic structure.



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Lol! I’m aware of the difference. I’ve converted mini humbucker to Firebird pickups myself and got fantastic results.


From China stuff gets lost in translation a fair bit. I’m pretty sure once I get these and pull the covers off there will be one alnico bar manner inside each bobbin just as it should be. But if it’s just a bar magnet under 2 steel blades I’ll order Firebird alnico magnets and do the conversion - right down to the steel conductor plate on the bases


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[vinnie1971]

Re: Firebird pickups

A possible choice in such designs is to put two steel blades in the coils and 1 mag between the blades / below the coils (like in the Duncan SM3), instead of following the vintage recipe shown here: https://www.stewmac.com/Pickups_and...Parts/Firebird_Mini_Humbucker_Pickup_Kit.html

If ever you look under the hood, let us know how your PU's are made, thx!

And merry Xmas, everybody...

Hmmm you got me curious about my Duncan designed “Firebird” pickup which sounds more like a mini hum than a Firebird pickup to me.... I might have to pop the cover off.... if it is a minihum then I feel a Firebird conversion happening ....


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[vinnie1971]

Firebird pickups

A possible choice in such designs is to put two steel blades in the coils and 1 mag between the blades / below the coils (like in the Duncan SM3), instead of following the vintage recipe shown here: https://www.stewmac.com/Pickups_and...Parts/Firebird_Mini_Humbucker_Pickup_Kit.html

If ever you look under the hood, let us know how your PU's are made, thx!

And merry Xmas, everybody...

A peak under my Duncan designed Firebird pickup - it’s pretty much a Firebird pickup.

It’s wound to about 8.5k so it’s in the hot side, but it’s got an alnico bar magnet inside each bobbin. The magnets are slightly taller than the bobbins and there’s no conductive steel plate to make a horseshoe but it’s more or less a proper Firebird pickup. I guess it doesn’t need the plate as the magnets are a bit taller than regular Firebird magnets and it’s wound a bit hotter.

I’d guess that they’re alnico 5 magnets as the has a thick tight bottom end.

It’s potted but not excessively too.

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[freefrog]

Re: Firebird pickups

A peak under my Duncan designed Firebird pickup - it’s pretty much a Firebird pickup.

It’s wound to about 8.5k so it’s in the hot side, but it’s got an alnico bar magnet inside each bobbin. The magnets are slightly taller than the bobbins and there’s no conductive steel plate to make a horseshoe but it’s more or less a proper Firebird pickup. I guess it doesn’t need the plate as the magnets are a bit taller than regular Firebird magnets and it’s wound a bit hotter.

I’d guess that they’re alnico 5 magnets as the has a thick tight bottom end.

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Thx for the view under the hood! I've worked once on such a DD mini HB (and have found it good sounding) but I didn't know what was inside so your contribution is precious.

The 8.5k resistance is not necessarily meaningful IMHO: we'd have to measure the inductance to know if the pickup has been wound "hot" or if it simply includes a slightly thinner wire gauge than regular FB PU's...

Anyway, if you want a slightly brighter tone from it, you don't HAVE to mod the PU: outside of the well known recipes (higher resistance controls, no load pots and so on), it would be possible to achieve this effect thx to a LR filter in parallel with the HB.

I've an Epiphone Wilshire like that: I've left the stock neck mini HB (6.5k, inductance = 3.5H) but I've mounted it in parallel with a switchable filter including an inductor of 6H in series with a resistor (24k or 15k? I don't quite remember). The filter in parallel with the mini HB lowers its inductance to 2.2H without changing too much its resistance and makes it tonally closer to a FB PU...

FWIW.

 

[vinnie1971]

Re: Firebird pickups

Thx for the view under the hood! I've worked once on such a DD mini HB (and have found it good sounding) but I didn't know what was inside so your contribution is precious.

The 8.5k resistance is not necessarily meaningful IMHO: we'd have to measure the inductance to know if the pickup has been wound "hot" or if it simply includes a slightly thinner wire gauge than regular FB PU's...

Anyway, if you want a slightly brighter tone from it, you don't HAVE to mod the PU: outside of the well known recipes (higher resistance controls, no load pots and so on), it would be possible to achieve this effect thx to a LR filter in parallel with the HB.

I've an Epiphone Wilshire like that: I've left the stock neck mini HB (6.5k, inductance = 3.5H) but I've mounted it in parallel with a switchable filter including an inductor of 6H in series with a resistor (24k or 15k? I don't quite remember). The filter in parallel with the mini HB lowers its inductance to 2.2H without changing too much its resistance and makes it tonally closer to a FB PU...

FWIW.

I do wonder if it’s thinner wire. These bobbins aren’t very tall.

But the pickup sounds good. It’s bright like a Firebird pickup should be but the bass is thicker sounding than my 6.5k alnico 5 ones but they do have the steel conductive plate under the magnets.

It’s not at particularly compressed though compared to the OBL Firebird pickups in my Epiphone Firebird.


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[jeremy]

Re: Firebird pickups

cool. dont know if ive seen a dd firebird pup, thanks for sharing. no idea about the ones you liked to, maybe if i had an echo organ, id check em out

 

[vinnie1971]

Re: Firebird pickups

The DD Firebird pickup is part of the DD Nashville set for the Squier vintage modified Nashville telecaster.

I got the set to go in my custom Offset Telecaster Firebird hybrid made by Elderwood guitars - the Elderwood Jellybird Mockingjay

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[jeremy]

Re: Firebird pickups

nice. what do the two switches do?

 

[vinnie1971]

Firebird pickups

nice. what do the two switches do?

The 5 way is a superswitch.

The 3 way toggle sets what happens on the middle position of the 5 way.

Positions are:

1 bridge
2 bridge and middle
3 middle pickup, neck and bridge, or all 3 depending on the 3 way selector
4 middle and neck
5 neck

Here it is in action as a demo

https://youtu.be/vlC0JUmjZro

And attempting to impersonate Allen Collins’ Firebird here in a proper song here

https://www.bandlab.com/revisions/3a1111d8-562a-ea11-a601-2818789a1e8a

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[jeremy]

Re: Firebird pickups

very cool setup, sounded good in the video too