SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

[bleachboy]

Hi!

I've purchased a set of Ants after many many hours (days!) of looking around in every forum on the internet, to put in my modded Epiphne Dot.

Both pickups sound great, don't get me wrong, but I do have a bit of a problem with the bridge pickup (it's more annoying than with the neck pickup). In a few words, it sounds great, especially with chords, but it feels very weird with leads. It's not as powerful or responsive as what I'd expect: it seems it has very little headroom and dynamics, if you know what I mean? It seems to reach its highest output level very quickly, as compared to a stock Gibson 339; which pickups don't sound nearly as good, but still there's a huge difference between hard and soft picking.

Dynamics are extremely important to me, as for many of you I'm sure. Even though these Ants sound much more brighter than stock 57's (thank god!), they don't seem to respond to the pick's attack as well as those or even the stock Epiphone pickups. Does it have anything to do with the fact that Ants are slightly degaussed?

The Ants are not especially weak pickups in terms of output apparently. But that bridge is pretty thin and powerless. Again, I'm taking only in terms of feel not sound (although there's maybe a lack of low end to be felt).

Would it change anything if I have them re-magnetized (though I've heard it's much harder to do that on humbuckers than on your average Strat' p-u), or even swap the A2 for another type of Alnico magnet? Any suggestion would be great.

I also, probably, must take into account that the idea of sound I have in my head when I think about PAFs is PAFs in a 59' solid-body Les Paul, a completely different animal for sure (boy if I could swap!). But still, with a 339 I didn't have this problem.

I don't know if it makes any difference but when I opened the box when I first recieved those, the screws on the bridge pickup were tucked under the pickup cover and were unnatainable, but it was an easy fix. I thought, "well that's some relicin' they did there!"

On a side note, I've put (with a LOT of difficulty) a Jonesyblues series/out of phase wiring harness in it too.

Thank you all very much!

 

[lemonman]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

Yes, it's the degaussed magnet that does it. Try a full strength A2 to keep it similar, but with more punch and girth. The other types (A4, UOA5, A5) are all fine options & worth trying, but will take it progressively in a different direction in tone and feel.

 

[uOpt]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

The bridge should have good bite.

Send them to SD to have a look. It could be that the magnet was degaussed (e.g. bad fret service) or that the cable is partially broken. If you have a magnet testing capability that would work, too.

I would not recommend ripping them open and putting in a standard magnet. That devalues them for no good reason.

 

[bleachboy]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

Thanks! The thing is, I live in france, and the shipping to and back from the US will be pretty high I assume, and will take quite some time, and I need it very regularly if I want to keep my job! But in any case, whether I want to re-magnetize it myself or change the magnet, I will still have to take the whole thing apart and I don't want that! Any suggestions?

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

Have you played with the pickup height? Since the magnet comes partially degaussed, you may need to raise the pickups closer to the strings (which should give it more bite and attack). You can also play around with polepiece height.

 

[hamerfan]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

hi, i have 2 sets and another bridge of Ants. All of these 5 pickups do not have the original mags. my take is that the Ants are a great testbed for mag swaps.
bad news: you cant recharge the Dunaged magnets. there is no way to beef it up unless you cut the cover open. it is dangerous than it looks, but the outcome is gorgeous. i like full RCA2, RCUOA5, RCA4 and A8 in AntBs

 

[bleachboy]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

Thanks for the input. Yes I have already tried to adjust the height and the polepieces, but the issue is not really about the general output of the pickup which is fine. I really think as many of you have said it is about the magnet itself. Bad news about recharging the magnet indeed. I should probably have bought the Seth Lovers instead (and I could have wired the oop/series harness without any noticeable buzz...). But the thing is, this pickup will always have this issue and I'm short of money so I can't swap. I've tried A8s in a 73 SG, they are great but perhaps a little bit too beefy in fact. I'll try and get a fully charged A2.

 

[uOpt]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

Thanks! The thing is, I live in france, and the shipping to and back from the US will be pretty high I assume, and will take quite some time, and I need it very regularly if I want to keep my job! But in any case, whether I want to re-magnetize it myself or change the magnet, I will still have to take the whole thing apart and I don't want that! Any suggestions?

Instructions for recharging and discharging are available on the forum. Basically you get a very strong neodymium magnet on Ebay (5 bucks or so) and use it "correctly".

To have any hope of doing that with success you first need to find a way to measure magnetic strength, e.g. with a compass.

Then you establish whether you have a magnet problem by comparing the strength in your bridge pickup with your neck pickup (which I think you feel works fine?) and then recharge the bridge to have that same strength.

 

[uOpt]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

You can do that from the outside, no need to open the pickup.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

What you are describing is what the Antiquities are supposed to be like: weak. S.D. take an already weak magnet (relative to other mags) and make it even weaker on purpose. Maybe you've never really developed the type of technique that suits low-output/weak pickups (just as I have never really developed one that suits high-output pickups). You need a heavier hand and a more dramatic range of right hand dynamics in order to control them well (just as you need a light touch and a narrower range of right hand dynamics to be able to control high output pickups well). If you aren't using a right hand technique that corresponds to the output of the pickup your using, then a low output pickup will feel stiff, anemic, and unresponsive – and a high output pickup will feel loose, overly sensitive, and overly hot.

If you want the same basic pickup, but a bit more strong and defined/cutting (as if it was brand new), you want the Seth Lover. If you are going to mod your Ants by putting in a full-strength magnet, you might as well just use your 21-day exchange period and get Seths instead. IMO, they'll look better in your Epi than fake aged pickups anyhow.

That said, spend a lot of time adjusting your pickups, both for overall height and for each string. With a humbucker, you have a whole lot of tonal control via basic pickup adjustments. Also try running your amp's volume knob higher than you normally would, to compensate for the weakness of the Ants and give you some of your saturation and compression back.

P.S. WTF is with the photo?

 

[Leon Of Late]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

P.S. WTF is with the photo?

I'm fairly certain that's him with the guitar in question.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

I'm fairly certain that's him with the guitar in question.

No ****. But why?

 

[uOpt]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

So does the neck pickup perform satisfactory?

And if so, does it work better in the bridge than the bridge pickup?

 

[bleachboy]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

To ItsaBass, actually, in terms of right hand strenght, I'd say the pickup feels the exact opposite of what you describe: to make it sound good, I'd have to play extremely light to benefit from the dynamics of the pup a little more.

I'm actually more used to pups you have to dig a little more into, like: light hand picking = clean sound, medium hand picking = on the verge of crunchiness (?!), heavy hand picking = crunch. That is to say, the pup feels like it functions at its maximum capacity very very quickly compared to any other pickup: it does not make very much of a difference between light and heavy attack, and the harder I pick the strings, the more compressed and squashed the pickup responds, the tone is basically the same as is the general output. The more I attack, the thinner it sounds, which is weird I guess.

I've had these pups set up in my guitar for a couple of years and I've always had this feeling I described in the original post, but tried to avoid regretting my purchase and tried to love 'em, but now it's really starting to be problematic.
About the picture, it was purely to see if there were any Beefheart fans out there.

Also, I installed the pickups at the same time I installed the whole Jonesyblues wiring harness. My father is a luthier, but installing the whole harness throught the F holes of the guitar was not a pleasant task at all, and maybe we damaged something during the operation (that's the perfect word). Or perhaps the whole "polepieces tucked under the pup cover" thing have damaged it in some way. But that's the way it looked when I first opened the box. I've seen another person on the forum describing the same problem with another set of Ants...

To uOpt: I'd say the neck pup works better and is more in accordance with the basic description of the pickup when I bought it, very bright and hollow and sings beautifully. Almost single coilish with new strings. But, when I first installed those in the guitar (without any height adjustment), the first thing that struck me was that at equal height, the neck pup had more output than the bridge. There's obviously a lot more low frequencies there and for a moment I thought it was just an illusion, that the neck pickup was not really louder but covered a wider frequency range.

But still, I've lowered the neck pickup and raised the bridge pickup and though the general output difference was reduced, the neck pup always felt more sensitive to pick attack and dynamics than the other one. It still seems to respond better. Good suggestion about trying to place the neck pickup in the bridge position. Maybe both'll respond better this way, who knows?

hamerfan said "bad news: you cant recharge the Dunaged magnets. there is no way to beef it up unless you cut the cover open.", uOpt would you agree?

 

[blueman335]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

I'd just sell the Ants and get a used pair of Seth's. I have 5 or 6 sets of Seth's, all in guitars. I have one set of Ant's that I took out of a guitar and is still sitting in a box. Just don't like their tone as well. I think it's the aged magnets. Ant's are designed to sound like 60 year old PU's, but that's not necessarily what a lot of players really want. The wonderful sounds of original PAF's many of us are familiar with were recorded with relatively new PU's in the late 1960's/early 1970's. That's what you get with Seth's.

 

[Mincer]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

The Seths are probably where you should have started, but it won't hurt to swap out the magnet in the Ant for a full-strength one, or some different types. The wind of the Ant is really nice, but I don't know if I would pick the Ant if I needed any kind of dirt at all. If I was doing Wes-era jazz, or early BB, then yeah, it would be amazing.

 

[uOpt]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

OK, but does the neck pickup do better when it is in the bridge?

You want to find out whether your bridge pickup is broken somehow. That's how.

 

[hamerfan]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

to uOpt: no, the pickup is not broken. Thats the way an AntB is. No, the Dunaged magnet can't be recharged with a NeoDym mag, because it is already full charged. And no, you cant measure the magnet strength with a compass, you need a gaussmeter for that. With an compass you can determine the orientation, but be carefull not to damage the compass.

bleachboy: get a RCA2 for your AntB, you will like it.

 

[uOpt]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

to uOpt: no, the pickup is not broken. Thats the way an AntB is. No, the Dunaged magnet can't be recharged with a NeoDym mag, because it is already full charged. And no, you cant measure the magnet strength with a compass, you need a gaussmeter for that. With an compass you can determine the orientation, but be carefull not to damage the compass.

bleachboy: get a RCA2 for your AntB, you will like it.

I'm skipping all the bickering about your points there.

Magnetism has quite a few aspects to it that aren't intuitive. You can very well compare two magnets of the same type where you suspect that one is discharged. With a compass. OK?

In any case, the OP seems a bit confused and unable to express how the Ant bridge is doing relative to a similar type pickup in the same position. Since any solution will include getting the pickup back out it is a valid test to see whether his neck pickup does any better in the bridge. Not much more work. Just get it done.

Thankfully the OP left some actionable evidence, which is that apparently the Ant bridge is much weaker than Gibson's 57 bridge. That makes it a reasonable suspicion that something is wrong with the pickup or the wiring.

I have a bad feeling about our ability to make the OP conduct useful tests, but it is what it is.

We also don't know the history of the pickups. New? Used? Mailed across the Atlantic? Clear title? Any paintwork? Carfax?

 

[LtKojak]

Re: SD Antiquity bridge pickup feels weird

No, the Dunaged magnet can't be recharged with a NeoDym mag, because it is already full charged.

That's not true. I've recharged my Ant mags and they took and hold the charge.

Stock, mine were about 20% degaussed.

I've had great results lately with an A3 in the neck and an A2 in the bridge of an Ant set on a R0.

HTH,