Steinberger Spirit pickups: a confirmation.

[freefrog]

CarlosG : this one is for you.

What don't I do when I'm stuck at home by health issues, uh?

So, I had the idea to submit a set of Steinberger Spirit pickups to a Teslameter.

As I expected, they appear to be built like passive EMG's: their full size humbucker plastic housing seems to host a narrower pair of coils with plain bars inside, the whole being drowned in black epoxy. Like Firebird pickups, but not centered: the two coils are closer to the bridge in the bridge pickup, and closer to the neck in the neck transducer.
I'd have to destroy these PU's in order to know if the bars used as magnetic poles are made of steel with a magnet laid horizontally under the coils, or if they are two vertical magnets (one per coil). Magnetic measurements make me think the second hypothesis is correct.

Pic below. I've put some ugly green adhesive tape on these pickups just to be free to draw on them. My botched dark lines show where are the magnetic poles, according to the strongest flux detected by the Teslameter. Coils seem indeed built and positioned like in an EMG HB, whose inner structure can be seen in this video:
https://youtu.be/mp92DSVgjM4?si=1l_xBtGCua8Q1V7Z&t=327

The plastic housing of the mid pickup makes it look like a stack but magnetism suggests it's finally a single coil sized rails humbucker...

FWIW. Hope this to be useful to someone and to some extent.

 

[freefrog]

BTW, I had suggested Bill Lawrence PU's as an alternative to such humbuckers. Seeing how they appear to be built, it might be preferable to emulate them with a pair of BL L550's (P90 / mini-hum sized L500's, whose narrow frame can therefore be mounted off-center, under a full size plastic cover or not).

 

[Mincer]

The Spirits seem to be an experiment on how you can build a barely functional guitar for the least amount of money.

 

[freefrog]

The Spirits seem to be an experiment on how you can build a barely functional guitar for the least amount of money.

I've one as a travel guitar and I like it. Enough to have mounted a Roland GK on it and some fancy wiring of mine. Mileages may vary.

 

[ICTGoober]

BTW, I had suggested Bill Lawrence PU's as an alternative to such humbuckers. Seeing how they appear to be built, it might be preferable to emulate them with a pair of BL L550's (P90 / mini-hum sized L500's, whose narrow frame can therefore be mounted off-center, under a full size plastic cover or not).

Not true! Bill Lawrence L-550's look like mini-hums, but in actuality they are the size of P-90's. The amount of plastic in the housing of these units is staggering. It's all one molded piece that seems to be a mini-hum in a ring - but it's untrue.

d24c0728532f2e4516a6169c573e84699be3ff.jpg (1280×1280) (digimart.net)​

 

[freefrog]

Not true! Bill Lawrence L-550's look like mini-hums, but in actuality they are the size of P-90's. The amount of plastic in the housing of these units is staggering. It's all one molded piece that seems to be a mini-hum in a ring - but it's untrue.

d24c0728532f2e4516a6169c573e84699be3ff.jpg (1280×1280) (digimart.net)​

...BUTT... I've never said nowhere that it would be doable without minor mods...

I do own a BL USA L550 like you describe. Personally and seeing the texture of the plastic used, I don't think it would be difficult to trim the fake mounting ring, to add a strip baseplate etc. I pass my time to do such things for decades...

More later maybe. If I find what I'm thinking about in my memories and archives, I might come back to talk about mini-hum / P90 sized Bill Lawrence's, since my first contact with the brand around 1980 involved such a model. In fact, that' precisely why I've bought a new L550 more recently. ;-)

 

[freefrog]

Well, my idea about the L550 is effectively discussible, finally.
Not that it seems undoable : I still think it would be relatively easy to adapt a L550 and a Spirit to each other.
But I've just measured the recent L550 that I mentioned above vs a vintage L500 : the coils are just 2mm narrower in the 550 (while the distance between rails changes of something like 1mm only). Not sure it would justify a mod.

 

[Mincer]

I've one as a travel guitar and I like it. Enough to have mounted a Roland GK on it and some fancy wiring of mine. Mileages may vary.

I've compared them to my Synapse, and every one I've tried had stiff tuners and some weird fret issues. I really wish Gibson would sell the brand to someone willing to put out real Steinbergers again.

 

[freefrog]

I've compared them to my Synapse, and every one I've tried had stiff tuners and some weird fret issues. I really wish Gibson would sell the brand to someone willing to put out real Steinbergers again.

Well, a Synapse is obviously better but I haven't any problem with the frets or tuners of my Spirit. Otherwise I would have sold it. Maybe I've been lucky...

 

[ICTGoober]

I've never said nowhere that it would be doable without minor mods... :

It's doable, but hardly minor IMO.

 

[Mincer]

Well, a Synapse is obviously better but I haven't any problem with the frets or tuners of my Spirit. Otherwise I would have sold it. Maybe I've been lucky...

Consider yourself lucky. Steinberger groups out there are full of people trying to fix the bridges, and wanting to replace the pickups (EMG Selects really shouldn't be any company's choice for pickups).

 

[freefrog]

Consider yourself lucky. Steinberger groups out there are full of people trying to fix the bridges, and wanting to replace the pickups (EMG Selects really shouldn't be any company's choice for pickups).

I've bought it because I wanted a cheap travel guitar that I could easily replace if it's stolen...

I had no expectations: I've found the pickups bland-generic and have immediately replaced them. The bridge is obviously flimsy but I don't use it as a trem. The guitar stays in tune most of the time, on the shelf or when I travel with it. I also take it on stage as a spare guitar when I've too much gear to drag. I've used it a couple of times in front of 500 persons to play some pop songs: people had fun seeing this old tall guy with a so little axe...

Generally, anyway, I try to be content with what I have and to obtain the best from any piece of gear.

I've also read much more complains about Traveler guitars, for instance, than regarding Steinberger Spirits.


Now, THIS TOPIC was for CarlosG, who likes pickups in his Spirit guitar (colors and tastes are not to be discussed) and who questioned us a while back about them: https://forum.seymourduncan.com/for...265918-steinberger-spirit-pickups#post6265918

So the goal for me wasn't to argue about pickups nor to promote Spirit guitars: stuck at home by my health issues, I just wanted to confirm that Steinberger uses pickups apparently built like passive EMG's...

 

[freefrog]

It's doable, but hardly minor IMO.

I admit that modifying / repairing / building guitar gear for a long time has changed my subjective perception of what is major / minor work - and that I fail sometimes to do what I believed to be easy !

I wish I had a pic of the very first L550 (?) met in my life, when I was a teen... to install it in bridge position, my friend had routed his axe with a screw driver (!)... Hence the choice of the narrowest possible BL HB.

Old memories tell me the coils were in a separate mounting ring: they were protuding above it.

I wonder now if the owner had managed to pull the coils and their cable off the P90 sized plastic frame... Some pics of vintage L550's seem to suggest that coils were just screwed inside this frame... while current L550's with red cable have still 2 screws in the back but without void spaces between coils and frame.

Or was the pickup a L500 in fact? Possibly. Right now, I just remember my friend naming it a 550.

Sorry for the sterile rambling. I'm getting old. ;-)

 

[CarlosG]

I very like these pickups (especially bridge) Very versalite. They are very dynamic, almost like p90. And Has tihght low end. Neck pu is muddy a little, but capacitor connected in series with hot and it's great. The only thing that annoys me about them is that they sound a bit dull, they lack clarity. I don't like the single coil from this set, it's too weak.
I thought about a 1 meg potent, but then the high freq drop bigger and the treble bleed doesn't work as well as with a 250k without tone pot.
Steinberger humbucker inside looks like Gibson Firebird mini humbucker.
Look: 8:30 https://youtu.be/xvlaJA8NKqA?si=CpyOlH8g75Gn-qtV

 

[freefrog]

Steinberger humbucker inside looks like Gibson Firebird mini humbucker.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to share in post 1, for the record and if ever it was not yet clear (albeit the video link that you posted doesn't show two blade magnets like in a FB mini-hum but a single magnet between blade poles, which I didn't quite expect after my own magnetic measurements).
As said above and confirmed by the video, these coils are also off center (in the Steinberger HB's that I've here it seems especially obvious, as shown by my pics). The whole recipe, being assembled without baseplate, without NS cover and with dampening/potting materials, appears to me as exhibiting several potentially significant differences compared to regular FB mini-hums or Gibson style HB's when it comes to comb filtering of harmonics, to eddy currents and to parasitic capacitance...

 

[CarlosG]

I've compared them to my Synapse, and every one I've tried had stiff tuners and some weird fret issues. I really wish Gibson would sell the brand to someone willing to put out real Steinbergers again.

You are right. Bridge needs bearings. The knobs have some play (up and down), I managed to remove it with hand-cut teflon washers. I also converted the bridge to hard tail.
The guitar also has a problem with the 0th fret. It is set too far back.
I never seen Synapse, but looks very great.

 

[CarlosG]

Yeah, that's what I was trying to share in post 1, for the record and if ever it was not yet clear (albeit the video link that you posted doesn't show two blade magnets like in a FB mini-hum but a single magnet between blade poles, which I didn't quite expect after my own magnetic measurements).
As said above and confirmed by the video, these coils are also off center (in the Steinberger HB's that I've here it seems especially obvious, as shown by my pics). The whole recipe, being assembled without baseplate, without NS cover and with dampening/potting materials, appears to me as exhibiting several potentially significant differences when it comes to comb filtering of harmonics, to eddy currents and to parasitic capacitance...

You are right. I didn't notice that the Gibson has two magnets and Steinberger has blades with one magnet.

I wonder what would be a better quality replacement for it. One that would also have a tight low end, such great dynamics but would be more transparent and brighter.

 

[freefrog]

I wonder what would be a better quality replacement for it. One that would also have a tight low end, such great dynamics but would be more transparent and brighter.

My old brain becoming psycho-rigid, I'll stick to my idea of Bill Lawrence pickups as the qualitative products seeming structurally the closest to these Steinberger / passive EMG alike HB's that you appreciate. Watch the L500 series on wildepickups.com...

 

[CarlosG]

My old brain becoming psycho-rigid, I'll stick to my idea of Bill Lawrence pickups as the qualitative products seeming structurally the closest to these Steinberger / passive EMG alike HB's that you appreciate. Watch the L500 series on wildepickups.com...

I checked the internet and L500R should be for me. I wonder if I should also put the neck l500r or l500c

 

[freefrog]

I wonder if I should also put the neck l500r or l500c

From the horse's mouth (mentioned by Bill Lawrence himself when he was still alive), my archives state:

​C = 4.5k & 2.8 Henry
R = 7.1k & 4.8 Henry
L = 11.8k & 6.8 Henry
XL = 13.3k & 9.2 Henry

FWIW, splitting the R would therefore give an inductance close to the value of the C, itself not far from a Filter'Tron leaning toward a Fender of Fender style single coil (a Duncan SSL1 clocks @ 2.6Henry, for comparison).
​