jimijames
New member
I dewound a SH-55 to convert it into a neck pickup. I've tried it with the original polished A2, and a polished A3 magnet.
I'm sure someone has already done this before, but I noticed that slugs are .187 in diameter - exactly the same as the narrower rod magnets used in single coils.
So, I went over to addictionfx and ordered some as short as I could find them - as it turns out they were still too long and after (much) work with a macguyver'd drill-turned-cutting wheel, I had all the rod magnets down to the right length, give or take.
I then popped out the slugs for the 3 wound strings and replaced them with the rod magnets - keeping the high slugs in tact. The idea was, I wanted to do something similar to the strabro 90 - except in that case, the screws (which transmit less of the magnetic field) were now slugs (which transmit more, or at least as per my understanding) - so I used two magnets that were closer in strength.
The rods were polished A3, and the bar magnet was a roughcast A2. Now, A2 is stronger, but not by a whole lot.
The humbucker is wired to a push-pull series/parallel and a spin-a-split. Here are my impressions so far:
- Even in series this is one of the clearest humbuckers I've played. Very "open" sound (probably due to the de-winding as well) with that characteristic alnico 2 smoothness on the higher strings. Honestly, I'd like to take a little more off but that would compromise the single coil sound I get out of it. In a perfect world, I'd have it ~6.85k in series, with a tap on the slug coil all the way to ~5k. But, for now this will do. It was an experiment anyway.
- In parallel, the sound is a very good imitation of a covered telecaster neck pickup. With the tone control rolled off a little bit, it's warm and smooth with this very musical breakup. Chords have a very rich character that reminds me (slightly) of John Frusciante's stuff with the red hot chili peppers.
- Split - this is where the magnets pay the greatest dividends. The bass strings are piano-clear. So clear, in fact, that there's a (only slightly) noticeable change going from the D string to the G string. Whereas the treble notes do kind of blend together, the closest thing to the clarity of the bass I can think of is that walking bass sound stevie ray vaughan got. It's not exact - a split humbucker never could be - but it is a great sound. This has instantly become my favorite split humbucker because it can do much more than a colorable impersonation of a strat neck pickup.
Obviously, the next step is to actually play the damn guitar instead of obsessing over the minutiae.
I'm sure someone has already done this before, but I noticed that slugs are .187 in diameter - exactly the same as the narrower rod magnets used in single coils.
So, I went over to addictionfx and ordered some as short as I could find them - as it turns out they were still too long and after (much) work with a macguyver'd drill-turned-cutting wheel, I had all the rod magnets down to the right length, give or take.
I then popped out the slugs for the 3 wound strings and replaced them with the rod magnets - keeping the high slugs in tact. The idea was, I wanted to do something similar to the strabro 90 - except in that case, the screws (which transmit less of the magnetic field) were now slugs (which transmit more, or at least as per my understanding) - so I used two magnets that were closer in strength.
The rods were polished A3, and the bar magnet was a roughcast A2. Now, A2 is stronger, but not by a whole lot.
The humbucker is wired to a push-pull series/parallel and a spin-a-split. Here are my impressions so far:
- Even in series this is one of the clearest humbuckers I've played. Very "open" sound (probably due to the de-winding as well) with that characteristic alnico 2 smoothness on the higher strings. Honestly, I'd like to take a little more off but that would compromise the single coil sound I get out of it. In a perfect world, I'd have it ~6.85k in series, with a tap on the slug coil all the way to ~5k. But, for now this will do. It was an experiment anyway.
- In parallel, the sound is a very good imitation of a covered telecaster neck pickup. With the tone control rolled off a little bit, it's warm and smooth with this very musical breakup. Chords have a very rich character that reminds me (slightly) of John Frusciante's stuff with the red hot chili peppers.
- Split - this is where the magnets pay the greatest dividends. The bass strings are piano-clear. So clear, in fact, that there's a (only slightly) noticeable change going from the D string to the G string. Whereas the treble notes do kind of blend together, the closest thing to the clarity of the bass I can think of is that walking bass sound stevie ray vaughan got. It's not exact - a split humbucker never could be - but it is a great sound. This has instantly become my favorite split humbucker because it can do much more than a colorable impersonation of a strat neck pickup.
Obviously, the next step is to actually play the damn guitar instead of obsessing over the minutiae.
