"Longevity" of pickups

[Adieu]

Re: "Longevity" of pickups

Which leads me to hijack and derail the entire thread: IS it possible for a pickup to change in sound over time? I have a 1978 Ibanez V-2 (not V2; different pickup) that I swear has gotten harsher sounding over the past 20-30 years? I assume it is my ears that have changed, but maybe some corrosion process could shift eq slightly??

(V-2 = 16k, A5 magnets, hex poles if that matters at all.)

Degradation in potting, if any... loosening of parts, if none.... magnet possibly gettinf exposed to something hella strong up close

Then again, changes in your own tastes or your hearing's own EQ are just as likely, if not moreso

Oh and amps and tubes and speakers all HAVE, on average, gotten far harsher since the 70s

 

[Adieu]

Re: "Longevity" of pickups

Maybe we're not lucky here in Europe (or is it the climate in my area?) but the last decades, I've periodically met humbuckers with inner short cuts. For one of my bandmates (a touring pro whose guitars are often mistreated), I had to repair twice "capacitive short cuts", which made the pickups sound all treble as if they had 4.7nF capacitors in series... just like the bridge SC in "Nancy", the Telecaster used by Roy Buchanan, which had the same issue (and that Buchanan has used to build his trademark tone so it wasn't an issue for him). A few others of those that I've handled had just died without apparent reasons, despite of their wire safely wound around plastic bobbins... In some cases, unwinding the first layers of wire allowed to resurrect the failing coils. In other cases, we had to unwind / rewind whole coils. :-/

Being exposed to a strong external magnetic field is not good either for a guitar PU. See what happened to Andy Summers :

https://books.google.fr/books?id=xM...ummers telecaster pickup demagnetized&f=false

Dried beer sediment clogging em up / shorting them??

 

[freefrog]

Re: "Longevity" of pickups

Dried beer sediment clogging em up / shorting them??

LOL. Yep, with my "touring pro", it's possible... )

 

[BriGuy1968]

Re: "Longevity" of pickups

1990 was 28 years ago...that’s not old enough for you?

I’m gonna agree with Adieu here… for a piece of equipment with no moving parts that doesn’t get exposed to any meaningful amount of current and seldom receives any external wear as well, 28 years wouldn’t even come close to what I would expect the lifetime to be. The bridge and center pickups I replaced in my 1985 Westone were actually still working even after going through a fire AND being hosed down by the firemen (the neck pickup didn’t fare quite as well).

Let’s face it boys and girls, the REAL lifetime expectancy of a pickup is “until the next best thing comes around.“

 

[Chistopher]

Re: "Longevity" of pickups

Look up the pickle juice Pearly Gates if you wanna know about pickup longevity.

 

[Chad]

Re: "Longevity" of pickups

At exactly 62.578 years, all pickups self-destruct.

 

[Dave Locher]

Re: "Longevity" of pickups

Degradation in potting, if any... loosening of parts, if none.... magnet possibly gettinf exposed to something hella strong up close

Then again, changes in your own tastes or your hearing's own EQ are just as likely, if not moreso

Oh and amps and tubes and speakers all HAVE, on average, gotten far harsher since the 70s

I am pretty sure it is my ears, but I have recordings of this guitar with the full band from the early 1990s and it does not sound harsh at all. Same amp all these years, so maybe I have the treble a little higher on the amp as well?
In any case I am replacing it soon because I can't enjoy that guitar compared to my other two.

 

[freefrog]

Re: "Longevity" of pickups

I am pretty sure it is my ears, but I have recordings of this guitar with the full band from the early 1990s and it does not sound harsh at all. Same amp all these years, so maybe I have the treble a little higher on the amp as well?
In any case I am replacing it soon because I can't enjoy that guitar compared to my other two.

Simple questions: does your tone control works normally with the "suspect" pickup on this guitar or does it react like a volume pot? Do you obtain normal resistance readings from it or no reading at all (but possibly a value of a few nanofarad on a capacitance meter)?

In both cases, it would be an example of capacitive short cut as described in my former post. It's not that rare: some say that the Frankenstrat on Van Halen 1 had a capacitive bridge pickups. And it's trebly for logical reasons (when we crank up a treble pot on an amp, it does nothing else than putting a cap in series in the signal path).

NOTE -by recalling how to diagnose a capacitive pickup, this post is also meant to answer to the OP. FWIW.

 

[Adieu]

Re: "Longevity" of pickups

I am pretty sure it is my ears, but I have recordings of this guitar with the full band from the early 1990s and it does not sound harsh at all. Same amp all these years, so maybe I have the treble a little higher on the amp as well?
In any case I am replacing it soon because I can't enjoy that guitar compared to my other two.

90s = tape?

Could just be the recording equipment or the medium you recorded on.

Might also need new tubes and/or have gotten a worse batch of tubes at some point in the last 2-3 decades

COULD even be something as simple as crap strings... some popular modern brands sound atrocious, others are just okayish. According to folklore and older guys' old brand loyalties, they may well have been MUCH nicer in years long past.

Imho:
Ernie Ball --- B- , useable if you have em, but nothing to write home about
D'Addario --- D-, unuseable trash
DR --- A- (points deducted for occasionally getting sets with some corrosion already, presumably old batches)

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: "Longevity" of pickups

OK, I have a '67-68 US made Sheraton with Gibson pups that is still working flawlessly. That's over 50 years.
I have a '57 Strat that sounds as good as the day it was born. That's over 60 years.
Long enough for you young whippersnappers?

 

[Dave Locher]

Re: "Longevity" of pickups

Simple questions: does your tone control works normally with the "suspect" pickup on this guitar or does it react like a volume pot? Do you obtain normal resistance readings from it or no reading at all (but possibly a value of a few nanofarad on a capacitance meter)?

In both cases, it would be an example of capacitive short cut as described in my former post. It's not that rare: some say that the Frankenstrat on Van Halen 1 had a capacitive bridge pickups. And it's trebly for logical reasons (when we crank up a treble pot on an amp, it does nothing else than putting a cap in series in the signal path).

NOTE -by recalling how to diagnose a capacitive pickup, this post is also meant to answer to the OP. FWIW.

Nah, controls both work as they should and it still sounds thick and full. There is just some frequency in there that annoys my ears. I suspect it was always there and I used to compensate by turning the treble down further on my amp.
I ordered a new pickup today from Vineham. I figure this guitar deserves a new pickup every 30 years or so.

 

[freefrog]

Re: "Longevity" of pickups

Nah, controls both work as they should and it still sounds thick and full. There is just some frequency in there that annoys my ears. I suspect it was always there and I used to compensate by turning the treble down further on my amp.
I ordered a new pickup today from Vineham. I figure this guitar deserves a new pickup every 30 years or so.

That's a good thing since you'll be able to resell the "old" pickup as a vintage model in order to pay the new one. )


Regarding the argument above... Agreed, OF COURSE, many vintage pickups are still working, even when they have been damaged... I've some models here from 1961, 1966, 1978 and they all work fine, as do the pickups in various vintage guitars that I've periodically in maintenance...

BUT guitar techs and winders also pass their time to swap and repair dead pickups for logical reasons. How something wound with a wire thinner than hair could avoid to be frail? How a coil could always stay intact when it's wrapped around a collapsing bobbin?...

See the repair job done by Curtis Novak among so many others:

http://curtisnovak.com/pickups/repairs/Duarte-Strat/index.shtml

http://curtisnovak.com/pickups/repairs/1946FenderLap/

http://curtisnovak.com/pickups/repairs/DeArmond-Rowe/

http://curtisnovak.com/pickups/repairs/MiniHum3x3/

http://curtisnovak.com/pickups/repairs/67-tele/index.shtml

(and so on)...

Also, watch how a vintage bobbin looks after a few decades of pressure from the coil:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_d5koB_YNDyY/S3_vUNMh5II/AAAAAAAAAeE/nxwcLTvre0o/s320/Bobbin+#.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_d5koB_YNDyY/S3_vmCCGLyI/AAAAAAAAAeM/I3VnZhuKZcM/s1600/Warp.jpg

I've had a few very early Duncan SH1's with bobbins warped like that, BTW. Possible reason why SH1's don't include no more butyrate parts...