Forum design vote #6 (again)

[GilmourD]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

It's pretty clearly stated what is going to be produced in the first post of this thread guys.

The vote is between:
1. A split coil that sounds like a P90
2. An underwound 59/Custom


Where is the confusion in this thread coming from?

Well, when I suggested that the hybrid be a true matching pair starting with a neck '59 (since the pickup it intends to match with is the '59/Custom Hybrid) I was told by DarkMatter, who started this vote, that the pickup would not use existing coils. It was also said that it hasn't been determined whether the two coils would use different gauge wire or the same and just be offset.

So, therein lies at least MY confusion, since the above posts indicate that the vote is NOT for an underwound '59/C hybrid but rather something different.

Since the neck '59 is in essence an underwound bridge '59, would that not be a good starting point? Then the other coil starts with the Custom and underwinds it by the same ratio, and thus you have the '59/C underwound. Half the work is done already and it gives a solid reference point for the other half.

 

[DarkMatter]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

To paraphrase a Mitch Hedburg joke; "you can't please everybody all the time, and today those people are in my thread".

Once again, the hybrid is not misnamed. If you go back to the original idea suggestion thread there are more "hybrid" recommendations than anything else. And why would original coils be silly? Every forum pickup has had original coils. I see no point in have them make something that we could do at home.

 

[GilmourD]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

To paraphrase a Mitch Hedburg joke; "you can't please everybody all the time, and today those people are in my thread".

Once again, the hybrid is not misnamed. If you go back to the original idea suggestion thread there are more "hybrid" recommendations than anything else. And why would original coils be silly? Every forum pickup has had original coils. I see no point in have them make something that we could do at home.

Hence my suggestion. You can't make a neck Custom at home. Make a neck Custom (which would be two matching original coils), take one coil from it, put it together with a neck '59, and there's your matching neck pickup for the bridge '59/Custom.

My thoughts on this idea are that Duncan might really go for it because it would create a matching neck pickup for the Custom series, so they can put in matching ceramic, A2, and A5 magnets to go with the existing Custom series, and it gives you the neck '59/Custom. They'd get four pickups out of it. That splits up the R&D nicely, and creates something marketable as a companion to existing products which sell well.

Am I crazy for thinking that way? LOL

 

[DarkMatter]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

^ and that may be what happens. I'd like to also say that we can still iron out some details after this vote. People were split on whether they should be completely finished before this vote or whether we should get a final pickup then finish it. I tried to split the difference and work on them a bit but still leave some things open.

But back to the hybrid production talk. Many of us (myself included) believe the 59/Jazz is a natural partner for a production set with the 59/custom. The forum pickups should be special and unique.

 

[Masta' C]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

What, no "Fuglybucker 2" or PATB-1n/Fuglybucker Neck hybrid?

Better yet, what about a Gandalf/Frodo matched set to battle the Sentient/Nazgul?

Or maybe instead of the Black Winters, we build a "White Summer" set?

I jest, I jest...

The whole point of a forum pickup is the shared experience. If anyone here is in it for themselves only... just get whatever you want.

Drex, I totally get that. Like I said, I "LOVE" the concept of a forum pickup and we've come up with some great stuff in the past. Even the questionable "Fuglybucker" was touted a success by many of the naysayers who despised it at first. All I'm saying is that I'm choosing to stay out of the "decision" and "suggestion" aspects of this incarnation of the forum pickup and for those that MUST have any particular feature, putting in their own Custom Shop order may be the way to go.

Here's hoping what you guys come up with is the BEST forum pickup yet! :beerchug:

 

[KeeperOS]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

Hence my suggestion. You can't make a neck Custom at home. Make a neck Custom (which would be two matching original coils), take one coil from it, put it together with a neck '59, and there's your matching neck pickup for the bridge '59/Custom.

My thoughts on this idea are that Duncan might really go for it because it would create a matching neck pickup for the Custom series, so they can put in matching ceramic, A2, and A5 magnets to go with the existing Custom series, and it gives you the neck '59/Custom. They'd get four pickups out of it. That splits up the R&D nicely, and creates something marketable as a companion to existing products which sell well.

Am I crazy for thinking that way? LOL

Crazy, no, but you are alone in it as well. To put it bluntly, the Custom series have been paired with the Jazz and (less often) the 59 for quite a while now and to my knowledge no-one had ever showed any real desire to have a new neck pu created specifically for it and TBH, it doesn't figure in to what we're doing right now either. The pickup we have in mind AS A STARTING POINT is the 59/Custom which sounds quite a bit different than either of those two (which IMO is a good thing as I really dislike how the 59 sounds).

Concerning this pickup, the majority (calling it the whole might be pushing it) of the forum members have already expressed a rather strong wish against the reuse of already available coils for it with the caveat that the CS may in fact decide against reinventing the wheel and only tweak sth here and/or there. Ultimately it'll be their call.

Now, at the risk of being unpleasant to many, for better or worse we've come to this point and frankly, backtracking after so many months would mean the death of this so please, refrain from trying to reverse decisions that have already been made.
Honestly, and this is just IMHO but, being the guy that throws a tantrum just because things don't go their way is very unbecoming.

 

[kramersteen]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

[ItsaBass]

Forum design vote #6 (again)

Once again, the hybrid is not misnamed.

Yes; it absolutely is, by simple understanding of what the word means and how it is used, both generally and in regards to pickups.

In Duncan nomenclature, a hybrid is a pickup made by using coils from two different models of pickups. That is not necessarily going to happen here (though it might, at the CS's discretion). You yourself are arguing for it NOT to happen. You are saying you don't want the pickup to be made by way of hybridization, yet you insist that the name hybrid is correct. I don't get it.

A hybrid obviously will always have mismatched coils. However, a pickup with mismatched coils is not by definition a hybrid. Duncan, and many other pickup makers make pickups with intentionally mismatched coils. No one calls these pickups hybrids, Duncan, Fralin, DiMarzio, or anyone else TMK...because they aren't! They weren't designed by way of hybridizing two models.

By simple definition, there can be no such thing as a hybrid that uses coils not already in use in another model of pickup. You can have a pickup that is made to be a good neck match to a true hybrid, or a pickup that is somehow otherwise based on a true hybrid, and these pickups could have a very significant coil mismatch. But if they aren't made by combining two already existent models of coils, then they aren't a hybrid. They could even use "'59/C Hybrid" in their own name, to somehow reference the proper name of the pickup from which they are derived. In this use, the word is necessarily connected to '59/C as a proper name, not used to be directly descriptive. But they wouldn't actually be a hybrid (lower case) in their own right, because they were not made by hybridizing two existing pickup models.

By calling the pickup the Hybrid, you are by definition locking it into being made from existing coils...but you yourself don't want this to happen.

I don't care how the pickup is made, true hybrid or not; my construction/design desires have nothing to do with my point. I just think that it shouldn't be called something that it isn't, necessarily. Not only is it common sense, but it prevents its design from being grossly misunderstood by voters.

 

[DarkMatter]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

Ok



I didn't realize the forum had created its own specific definition of a word that already had a broader definition.

 

[LtKojak]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

Some time ago, I came across an amazingly-sounding very old 'pup, allegedly made by Duncan in the late '70s, I'd think.

Butyrate bobbins, PAF sticker, the screw bobbin wound with PE (Plain Enameled) wire, the slug bobbin was wound with SPN (Single Poly Nylon) wire. The rest looked like a distressed PAF clone.

I didn't take any notes; I just had to replace a too-short lead. By memory, it measured in the mid- 7Ks area.

That's what I had in mind when proposing a "hybrid" for the neck spot, being already a production p'up with the same characteristics (the '59/Custom), I thought it was a no-brainer?

Oh, man...

 

[GilmourD]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

Just remember guys, argue about the pickup. Don't argue about each other.

Sent from my Moto X 2014 using Tapatalk

 

[Davii]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

*stumbles in knocking things over*

Whilst looking for options on my 12 string, I came across this video, and noticed the pickups. Admittedly, not a humbucker rout, or under a humbucker style cover, but thought it interesting considering the Zebro idea

 

[Diminished Triad]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

As a point of reference, is there a past forum-designed pickup that today enjoys continued support from a majority or strong plurality of the active membership?
I enjoy reading the many views and like a few of you I'm not able to vote (at least yet). I think lots of work went into guiding the group this far and it would be unfair for me to vote one way or another until I have stronger feelings towards one design (and in my mind conclude "I'm going to buy that pup!" as soon as SD finishes producing it).

Why hasn't SD produced a matching neck pickup for the Custom series? All the times I've seen "forum designed" as part of a description of a SD pickup I've felt the pup is probably truly different from most others and also believed it's likely to be on the warm/hot side. The forum-designed pups have come across as "out of the box" thinking and designed. Keeping the design non-conventional also keeps the forum-designed pups very relevant. They really add something to the already existing inventory of pickups. Good stuff...

 

[KeeperOS]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

Well, not exactly but not totally off base either.

Each forum designed pickup was intended to fill a certain role that wasn't covered by the SD line.

The original pickup, the BruBucker was in fact a medium output PAF pickup, basically designed to be in that sweet-spot where it's hotter than a Seth/59 but not as hot as a Pearly Gates. That was arguably the most successful of them all, in large part, I believe, because it was designed with a very clear idea of what they were after and left the specifics to the CS (including, to the best of my knowledge, the technical specs).

Each pickup after that suffered from either one of two things; overdesigning or overreaching (or both?).

The Crazy 8 was intended to be that hot-yet-clear pickup that the members designed basically by spec alone. It was hot, had AlNiCo 8 magnet and the parallel axis polepieces, and oh my did it ROCK! To this day one of my all-time-favorites, although back then I was very nervous because a lot of people focused more on the specs than actually what it was supposed to sound like.
I do believe that it also was the Alternate 8's father and inspiration so a double success in my book as I also immensely love the Alt8.

The StraBro90 was the most unexpected of them in the sense that it did a 180 mid-design. Initially intended to be a medium hotness single coil for the neck (because we already had two bridge buckers) somewhere along the line we tried to throw the kitchen sink in it and it evolved into a P90-voiced single coil that would tap for a true Strat tone. Can't say it truly sounded P90 TBH but it was indeed in the ballpark and the tapped tones were amazing. Ended up being a set too which I did get although the bridge is still unused in its' original box (I paired the other two with my Crazy 8).

The FuglyBucker was a sad one because it started with the best of intentions. A neck bucker, designed solely by tonal description, intended to be completely design-agnostic.
To this day I have NO idea how an overwhelmingly vocal minority got their way and ended up combining our tonal description with a pickup set that had one coil with parallel axis polepieces (ala Crazy 8) and another with a fat blade magnet (ala Diablo).
I do believe the intention was that they could be split into two very different-sounding coils for three distinct sounds. The sad part is that the CS NAILED it.
They were, arguably, the greatest pickups to come out of the CS that nobody wanted. The unorthodox look as well as the fact that a lot of people couldn't master the concept of lowering one side under the pu ring first and then the other in order to install them in typical pu rings made them the pariahs of the SDUGF CS creations which is a pity because they sound incredible and I happily use them to this day in my No2 SuperStrat as although they are medium hotness and clear up exquisitely, they also handle high gain like champs!

Now, this time around we went back to designing based on an idea but again that idea has been combined with a distinct technical-spec limitation.
* One choice is that it will be a P90-voiced pickup that will fit in a humbucker route BUT it will feature Z-coils.
* The other is a neck pickup that is intended to be a suitable pair for the Custom/59 hybrid which, as its' intended pair, needs to be a hybrid as well (that is, the two coils must be somehow mismatched, be it the wind, the wire gauge or both).
Both might actually end up being optionally a set themselves, like the FuglyBacker was.

I will spare you my personal preference but it is two very different designs intended to fill two very different roles so I do believe that at the very least it should be easier to decide which one (if any) sounds something you'd put into one of your guitars.

 

[DreX]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

Was SD more involved the last time around, or was it about as hands-off as it has been this time? At this point I'm not sure if the forum pickup is even happening. Interest is at an all time low.

 

[Ptolemaeus]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

Was SD more involved the last time around, or was it about as hands-off as it has been this time? At this point I'm not sure if the forum pickup is even happening. Interest is at an all time low.

Interest is at an all time low because we're arguing about stupid stuff that should be left to the professionals. If the poll is to believed, the humbucker is what we're gonna be going with unless the zebro comes from behind on the last lap.

After this poll we'll argue about the specific voicing and what we want out of it besides pairing well with the 59/Custom. People will start spouting about what mag to use, what sort of wire, what type of wind, etc. until we're all fed up with each other like we are now.

I'm all for a forum pickup, but everyone is debating in circles about things that have been settled a long time ago.

 

[Archer250]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

Interest is at an all time low because we're arguing about stupid stuff that should be left to the professionals. If the poll is to believed, the humbucker is what we're gonna be going with unless the zebro comes from behind on the last lap.

After this poll we'll argue about the specific voicing and what we want out of it besides pairing well with the 59/Custom. People will start spouting about what mag to use, what sort of wire, what type of wind, etc. until we're all fed up with each other like we are now.

I'm all for a forum pickup, but everyone is debating in circles about things that have been settled a long time ago.

Thank you.

 

[Demanic]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

How about this for a neck hybrid: A jazz screw coil paired with an SH-6n slug coil (maybe even double screw?) with a UOA5 magnet, or possibly A4. 4 conductor.

 

[DreX]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

Interest is at an all time low because we're arguing about stupid stuff that should be left to the professionals.

Let's take it to the extreme! Custom Shop picks the forum pickup for us! Tell us what we'll like and we'll like it!

 

[SJ318]

Re: Forum design vote #6 (again)

Demanic- ^1, with an A4 magnet!
That sounds about right. No hotter than 8.5K -9.0K so cleaning up to bell like tones - Deluxe Reverb or Princeton Reverb - in the days before master control and modeling knobs. Killer idea, like this idea from Demanic, and sorry if I missed any one who posted the same general idea.
Thanks,
SJ