Surprised to have found an example of an exceptional Probucker?

[zionstrat]

I just played a new Epi Adam Jones Les Paul and was blown away by the neck pup. It was thick and strong, but had a surprising "extreme chime" on the high-end. It was almost like a filtertron with massive thickness and I would really like to add this tone to a number of my heavy guitars...

I was totally surprised to see the specs listed a Probucker Custom neck. Can anyone confirm this is the Adam Jones pup and does anyone have experience with this pup?

Some of my favorite pups are burstbuckers and I think they are similar, but from the reviews, unless this is something unusual, I didn't expect it to be a great pickup

Surprisingly, the bridge is listed as SD distortion and the best I can say is it was weak in comparison... This is a big surprise, I've never had a epi pup outperform an SD..

On the neck, everything from mild to extreme crunch was exceptional... The sd distortion by itself was weak, but when the neck was added it picked up lots of depth and brightness. And the neck alone was ridiculous "big".. almost like double tracking.

Of course the distortion could have used some adjustment, but it didn't look too high or low. And every guitar is different, but this was very unlike any Les Paul I've ever played.

So open to any and all input on this guitar and this pickup!

 

[Chistopher]

No no no, I think you found an example of you being exceptional

Probuckers I think are supposed to be Burstbuckers. I have a First Act guitar that I very heavily tweaked, and I put Probuckers in it and they sounded great. They came out of a Les Paul where they didn't sound too great. In the LP the neck was muddy and the bridge was thin, in the First Act, the neck was very nice and the bridge sounded a little thin. I have a pair of Burstbucker 2/3 that are sitting around for the same reason. They didn't sound good in the LP that came with them, so now they are sitting on a shelf waiting for something else to try them in.

 

[ehdwuld]

I have a Probucker 2&3 in my florenine semi hollow LP
and I like them

not sure where the muddy part is
maybe it doesnt reveal itself witht he semi hollow

 

[Rex_Rocker]

What does it read on the meter? Or did you just play it at a store? Is it a PB2 or 3? Maybe if it's a 3, it would make sense it's so strong in the neck.

 

[ehdwuld]

epiphone has started calling the alnico classics probuckers as well

 

[freefrog]

So the guitar is a LP with covered neck PU and the screw poles towards the bridge?

I'd be curious to know if its neck PU is fitted with a 4 conductors cable and how it's connected to pots... Unbalanced parasitic capacitance accidentally / randomly due to wiring can positively generate secondary resonant peaks whose presence would explain the "surprising 'extreme chime' in the high end" evoked in this case. ;-)

 

[soulforger]

I have always been a fan of Gibson's Burstbuckers, and the Probuckers based on them I think are pretty great, basically potted BBs I think?

 

[zionstrat]

What does it read on the meter? Or did you just play it at a store? Is it a PB2 or 3? Maybe if it's a 3, it would make sense it's so strong in the neck.

No I wasn't working on this one.. I just happened to be driving by GC...

I agree a three, if it works like a burstbucker, would fit the bill on the low end.. it's got that great thickness..

But overwinds usually lose their high end.. where did this get brightness from?

 

[zionstrat]

So the guitar is a LP with covered neck PU and the screw poles towards the bridge?

I'd be curious to know if its neck PU is fitted with a 4 conductors cable and how it's connected to pots... Unbalanced parasitic capacitance accidentally / randomly due to wiring can positively generate secondary resonant peaks whose presence would explain the "surprising 'extreme chime' in the high end" evoked in this case. ;-)

Wow Tell me more! If I can get this out of any four wire I want to learn how.

Yep it's the covered pup with the screws the wrong way around...

I've never messed with flipping pups... could the coils be an opposite from normal have anything to do with it?


And now back to any accidental random four wire opportunities

 

[zionstrat]

I have always been a fan of Gibson's Burstbuckers, and the Probuckers based on them I think are pretty great, basically potted BBs I think?

I believe that's true.. I put a lot of bucker threes and bridges and boy do they kick butt...

But again, I've never really played a powerful heavy pup that also had a brilliant high-end and it wasn't scooped either.

Just to be clear, I have wound my own and installed many a pickup over the years but never found this exact sound.

The only way I could describe it would be to double track a very bright pickup and a very powerful pickup on two tracks.. on playback you would turn the treble track up to the point where it is equal to or even slightly stronger than the thick track.

Honestly it might be too much in a band or in the mix but by itself it was like having a harmonizer that was playing an octave up.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

No I wasn't working on this one.. I just happened to be driving by GC...

I agree a three, if it works like a burstbucker, would fit the bill on the low end.. it's got that great thickness..

But overwinds usually lose their high end.. where did this get brightness from?

Burstbuckers are unbalanced coils. So maybe from there?

 

[freefrog]

Wow Tell me more! If I can get this out of any four wire I want to learn how.

Ironically, a 4 conductors cable makes a pickup with balanced coils behave as if they were asymetrical - or can "correct" an initial asymetry between coils... or aggravate it. it depends on the parasitic capacitive load concretely associated to each coil.

Can it be heard?

DiMarzio Dual-Resonance models answer to this question, since they basically rely on the principles aforementioned.

Humbuckers with a slight offset between coils, like the Gibson BB's evoked by Rex-Rocker, also tend to develop a dual-tuning effect due to capacitive asymetry.

With "normal" pickups, it happens randomly / accidentally, since It totally depends on the precise capacitive values at work and on the frequencies where they generate secondary peaks by interacting with the inductance of each coil.
And the mentioned capacitive values depend themselves on things like the length of cable used but also on the dielectric effect of winding tension, wire insulation, wax-potting and so on...


To illustrate my statements, I'll impudently refer to a topic of mine that I've already mentioned here. Link below. Posts 22 and 23, more specifically...

https://music-electronics-forum.com...ansducers-a-few-thoughts?p=966530#post966530​



Note regarding screw poles towards the bridge : to me, they shouldn't make more difference than in the vid below - except precisely if something like a double tuning effect due to asymetrical capacitances is there...

https://youtu.be/r9L8om-TXIo?si=AajeHQ92zI5pLKxd&t=195

FWIW.

 

[zionstrat]

Free frog, I truly appreciate the time you spend answering questions here!

Okay so if I'm understanding all of this correctly, this effect is entirely accidental and unlikely to be reproduced.

It's had my brain spread spending because I've never heard this before in a single guitar.. The only way I could imagine creating this sound without recording would be to use a low output sparkly bridge and a high output neck and add a preamp to increase the bridge output to get the sound I was hearing.

So now I'm wondering if there's any production guitars that fit this bill or if anybody has ever attempted this timber?

Ironically, I can get a similar tone with the "Tom Petty" mod that we do but it's not this distinctive...

Thanks again for everybody's input!
​​​​

 

[Aceman]

Gibson pickups lists an Epiphone Producer 2 (neck) and 3 (bridge)

I'd have to assume they are Burstbucker 2/3's. So, yeah, I'd like it.

Don't know how that relates to a 2010's Alnico Pro Humbucker set in my Epiphone 339, but I love those.

 

[ehdwuld]

EPI ProBucker pickups set with controls wiring harness The EPI ProBucker pickups are currently offered in various models including the Les Paul Standard PlusTop PRO, Les Paul Ultra PRO, Les Paul Standard Quilt Top PRO, Les Paul Custom PRO, Les Paul Ultra-III, and other models coming soon. These pickups are an inspired version of GIB's BurstBucker, featuring unevenly wound coils and Alnico-II magnets that replicate that "Patent Applied for" airy tone. You'll love the way they sound! ProBuckers feature: 18% Nickel Silver unit bases and covers: This is the same alloy used by GIB. The use of Nickel Silver reduces the occurrence of eddy currents due to low conductivity and provides a more transparent and crisp output. Bobbins manufactured to GIB specifications and dimensions: The size and shape of bobbins has great impact on tonal response. The bobbins used on these pickups duplicate the size and shape of the gold standard in the industry, GIB humbuckers. Elektrisola magnet wire: The same wire used by Gibson. Single build (thickness of coating on wire) high quality magnet wire manufactured to NEMA (National Electrical Manufacturers Association) standards. Pole screws and slugs: Manufactured to Gibson specifications, using the same metal alloys. Also: ProBucker pickups feature Sand cast Alnico II magnets, high quality 4 conductor lead wire and are Vacuum Wax potted to eliminate microphonics

 

[freefrog]

Free frog, I truly appreciate the time you spend answering questions here!

Okay so if I'm understanding all of this correctly, this effect is entirely accidental and unlikely to be reproduced.

It's had my brain spread spending because I've never heard this before in a single guitar..

You're welcome. Always glad to help as long as my health issues permit it. It helps me to forget them a few minutes, actually.

The effect of unbalanced coil capacitances that I mentioned can be mastered and reproduced: if it wasn't the case, DM Dual-Resonance wouldn't exist. But when it's accidental, it requires to use some capacitance meter and to measure electrically induced resonant peaks, in order to "tune" (in or out) the effect if needed.

This tuning can be done by various means including the mere use of low value caps - a bit in the same way than with the resistor on the bottom of a Duncan Stack, but with a capacitor of the proper value instead of this resistor...


Last but not least: what you had never heard before in a single guitar is what I obtain from my Les Paul number one, whose P.A.F. clones have been built with NOS materials. My neck PU is exactly what you mentioned : loud but chiming. Defiantly fat AND transparent.

Maybe Epi has found how to mimic the recipe with modern materials (I know that some Gibson Custom buckers sound surprisingly close to that real vintage P.A.F. fat n' chiming tone... but they don't appear to be sonically consistent from one year to the other). Maybe this finding is an happy accident limited to a batch of PU's, if not to a single one.

Their advertising doesn't necessarily gives the reason of what you experiment IMHO: many contemporary humbuckers (including some really cheap MIC knock-off products) feature the same kind of proper NS baseplates and bobbins + "correct" PE wire / slugs / screws / magnets... and Epi carefully forgets to mention how their wax-potting potentially defeats some P.A.F. tonal features - that's precisely why I've spontaneously attributed your experience to more than the pickup itself. But without having it here to do some measurements, I can't tell if my idea is anything else than a simple hypothesis, of course.

Enjoy anyway.

 

[Chistopher]

Anyone have a probucker they can take coil readings on? I know my burstbuckers don't read very far apart in DCR, I'm assuming probuckers are the same

 

[zionstrat]

Free frog I get the idea of a resistor used to match the resistance of two coils for absolute perfect noise rejection...

"This tuning can be done by various means including the mere use of low value caps - a bit in the same way than with the resistor on the bottom of a Duncan Stack, but with a capacitor of the proper value instead of this resistor..."

I know you've tried to explain this before but I don't get what a capacitor would do in the same situation... I think of capacitors as a way to dump bass in series or treble in parallel...

You posted a number of diagrams that I've understood in the moment but I can't seem to connect the dots to this magic sound... Perhaps you've explained all there is to explain and I just need to go read and read and read again and again

I guess another question is if this sound can be created, why isn't everybody and their brother trying to replicate it ? Or maybe I've just been unlucky and never had the right humbucker in the right guitar?

Even so, I'm surprised I haven't seen other threads where people describe this very specific sound. But I'm glad to hear you got a Les Paul dialed into it!

 

[freefrog]

Free frog I get the idea of a resistor used to match the resistance of two coils for absolute perfect noise rejection...

"This tuning can be done by various means including the mere use of low value caps - a bit in the same way than with the resistor on the bottom of a Duncan Stack, but with a capacitor of the proper value instead of this resistor..."

I know you've tried to explain this before but I don't get what a capacitor would do in the same situation... I think of capacitors as a way to dump bass in series or treble in parallel...

You posted a number of diagrams that I've understood in the moment but I can't seem to connect the dots to this magic sound... Perhaps you've explained all there is to explain and I just need to go read and read and read again and again

Take two identical coils : if for whatever reason they have different parasitic capacitance values, they won't resonate at the same frequency.

This "dual-resonance" makes humbuckers behave a bit like what one calls "double tuning circuits" in radiophony:

https://www.robkalmeijer.nl/technie...hniek/hambladen/qst/1991/12/page29/index.html

And this double tuning creates peaks and dips in the high harmonics, as shown in my aforementiond topic on MEF.

In most cases, these peaks and dips are located beyond the audio range or beyond the narrow bandwidth of typical guitar loudspeakers.

In some cases they can be heard, generating either a loss of high frequencies, either chiming effect due to a narrow secondary peak. That's what DiMarzio Dual-Resonance is all about.

In fact, I had to correct this phenomenon a few times, on bright designs whose unbalanced capacitances were causing a painful drone effect around 11khz... But if these designs had been fat sounding from the start, the secondary 11khz peak would just have compensated their fatness in a nice way.

You'll find as an attached file a 5spice sim showing how a same humbucker can generate secondary peaks or dips in the high range just by changing the capacitance of one coil. Each coil works like a high-pitched VariTone circuit in such cases...

I guess another question is if this sound can be created, why isn't everybody and their brother trying to replicate it ? Or maybe I've just been unlucky and never had the right humbucker in the right guitar?

Even so, I'm surprised I haven't seen other threads where people describe this very specific sound. But I'm glad to hear you got a Les Paul dialed into it!

To me, the sound that you describe might simply be the tone of some real vintage P.A.F.'s, like those that Everybody and their brother ARE trying to replicate under the shape of countless clones...

I clearly remember an article about vintage P.A.F.'s in which the testers were mentioning how much more frequencies these old PU's were "pouring" (to quote their word) compared to modern ones. That's my experience as well... with VERY few pickups these 4 last decades. YMMV.



5spice sim of variable coil capacitance:

 

[zionstrat]

Wow! Now I get it. The radio side band example really helped...Thank you thank you thank you!


So do you find the dual resonance has the sparkly high-end in most guitars? I have to admit it's not one that I've tried.