Single Coil Variations

[Mincer]

My plan formulated in post #28 has been foiled

While I can find flat A5 pickups
I can only find staggered A2 pickups

Alternatively
I have found a manufacturer who will make me a 5-2 set and ship them with black, cream, and white covers
But not flat

Also will make me a set of stacked A5 pickups with the collection of covers.

Thinking,
Can I settle for staggered 5-2

Or splurge on a custom shop flat 5-2 noiseless set.


Ummmmmmm

I wish they made a flat Five Two set. I guess they could do a Shop Floor Custom, though.

 

[jeremy]

Why not buy the staggered and push flat,a little sticking out the bottom shouldn’t be a problem?

DONT DO THIS with vintage construction pups, you can easily break an inner coil wind and kill the pup. the wire is typically wound directly on the magnets. if you have a plastic bobbin pup, than you can push rods and shouldnt cause any problems.

 

[ehdwuld]

DONT DO THIS with vintage construction pups, you can easily break an inner coil wind and kill the pup. the wire is typically wound directly on the magnets. if you have a plastic bobbin pup, than you can push rods and shouldnt cause any problems.

Thats what I was thinking with the Chinese production pickups . Not the fiber bobbin " handwound from China"



These have formed bobbins with the enclosed magnets

 

[Teleplayer]

If buying ebay alnico pickups there is a loss of tone. Things like magnet spec, wire spec, winding pattern seem to make a difference.

Saying that, I’m actually happy with the tone of Area 67 stacked single coils. They are not a perfect replacement for true single coils, but using gain there is no issue IMO.

 

[freefrog]

Wouldn't the ideal pickup have flat eq with max frequencies across the spectrum. This is based on not being able to add anything but with tone controls and other tricks frequencies can be cut.

Yes and passive pickups have never been ideal: they are basically resonant filters, tuned by coil inductance and overall capacitance. Guitar amps are voiced to compensate that. So the apparently flatter response of the Area in my "raw" measurement is not necessarily a bonus when the pickup is played with a normal guitar rig.

I'm not saying that pickups with a flatter and/or extended frequency response are bad: Lace Alumitone or Bill Lawrence Microcoils illustrate what can be obtained from a design giving that. But they don't sound like Fender single coils, whose resonance has typically a high amplitude and Q factor.