The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

[JohnnyGuitar]

OK,

I volunteer to handle the polls and I'll try to do it as best as I can - Mike is a tough act to follow.

I suggest the polling process would be handled as such (from where the choice of position poll leaves us):
First we decide what this pickup is good for, then we choose the magnet to determine the voicing it will have and finally we choose weather it would be hum canceling or regular. If other polls are wanted/needed I'll add them but I think that we should give MJ as much freedom as she needs.

Understanding the process is important because each choice influences the next one and different order will yield different results...

The first poll will be about the use of the pickup:
1. perfect cleans (the best cleans, quack you can get - probably lower output)
2. fat blues tones
3. rock and hard rock voicing (vintage voicing with more output and crunch)
4. metal pickup (anything extreme, SD take on a YJM shredding pickup, etc...)
5. P90 voicing in a single coil.
6. other...

If anyone has ideas I might have missed please post them in this thread

Second poll:
1. alinco 2
2. alnico 5
3. ceramic
4. 5-2

If anyone wants other magnets to be included - alnico 3,8, 3-8 combination, whatever post it in this thread before I start the poll. If a lot of folks here are passionate about an idea it will be added. Aged vs. regular magnets - I suggest we leave the choice to MJ.

Third poll:
1. hum canceling
2. regular

Other polls might follow, like the type of stagger or if we choose to go hum canceling - actives vs. passives for example. We might find out we have the design we want a lot earlier though.

I'm starting the first poll tomorrow - afternoon in Europe, morning in the USA.

If anyone has suggestions, ideas, critic about the process or the person handling it - please let me know.

 

[JohnnyGuitar]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

I'll be very grateful If an admin would be so kind and make this thread a sticky...

One more thing - I like the middle pickup idea, however, no one had took it further to details - what voicing should it have, how do you make it mix easily with other sets (technically and tonally), etc... so I don't really know how to approach it - I'm not ignoring it, just waiting for ideas.

BTW,
My Nighthawk uses a weird stacked (if I remember correctly) single coil sized P90 in the middle position. It has some problems of balance with the other pups - but it really shines for solos with vocal mids and attitude... Notch positions are not impressive but usable. Just my small contribution here.

 

[cream123]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

well. here's what i think

we should no decide on the tech specs of this pickup. we should decide on what we want and let the pros at SD take care of it.

otherwise looks good to me

 

[jerryjg]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

Can an A8 go in a single coil?

 

[cream123]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

i'm sure it could

 

[DazH]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

wouldnt it be easier to just do a series of polls for the specs?

i.e
1) type of pickup = single coil/humbucker etc etc
2) magnet design = pole pieces / bar magnet / allen screws etc
3) variety of magnet = alnico/cermaic etc etc
4) hum-cancelling?
5) winding = vintage / vintage hot / modern

and then maybe a last thread for the ins and outs of it all?

I mean, for example:

1) single coil
2) allen screws
3) alnico 8
4) yes
5) vintage hot

a kind of tight hum cancelling single coil, overwound for power. but allen screws to put the tight/brightness back in lost due to overwind with what seems to be popular alnico 8.

5 short polls & quite a few different types of pickups could be made from it.

i'm probably just mad though... ignore me

 

[JohnnyGuitar]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

Can an A8 go in a single coil?

Yes, and I actually rather use it as an option instead of the ceramic one - most of us single coil lovers like the word "alnico" more then we like the word "ceramic"...

Edit:
Cream123 I agree with you. Unless it will be important for the design I rather not go into DC resistance, coils etc... magnets do seem important though.

 

[ibanezrocks]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

I'd suggest giving the first poll more time, to make sure everyone has participated. After that your poll ideas sound great.

 

[KeeperOS]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

Dunno, in all honesty I think we should hold back the polls just for now, first toss ideas on what kind of pickup we'd like it to be (applications voicing etc) and THEN make a poll with the predominant ideas. I think it'd be best to keep as far away from specs as possible for this one (especially since things like magnet, wire gauge, pole type etc all affect each other and I think we all agree there are two persons in charge that are far better than all of us combined in deciding what will work the best...).

Personally, I'd want a pickup that when one uses two of (one at the neck and one at the bridge combined aka pos. 4 in the 5-way) give a sweet, almost acoustic tone while when on the neck alone a whiny blues tone...

That'd be my be all-end all neck/middle single coil

EDIT:

I'd suggest giving the first poll more time, to make sure everyone has participated. After that your poll ideas sound great.

ack, beat me to it

 

[scottish]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

i would really like to see A3 in there myself if its a single

 

[kjrocks]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

Did I miss something? Has a new forum pup even been offered?

 

[ibanezrocks]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

cream posted a thread asking about it, Evan said we could go ahead with a single coil.

 

[kjrocks]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

Nice, I just revisited that thread. Very cool!

 

[jimijames]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

Can an A8 go in a single coil?

The only problem is that A8 has some insane string pull, and with single coils, the magnet is much closer to the string. It would be like if your stratitis had stratitis. I personally would reccomend against it, but everything's worth a try once I say...

 

[KeeperOS]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

This is something I'm not clear about.

Does this mean that an A8 has MORE string pull than a Ceramic?

 

[ibanezrocks]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

A3 would be cool. If A8 is similar to ceramic how good could it be in a single coil?

 

[KeeperOS]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

Well, I've tried SCs with ceramic magnet. It ain't no AlNiCo but it ain't bad either.
If A8 doesn't have more pull than that then it's perfectly fine really.

Not saying we should just jump on the A8 bandwagon just like that but if Seymour and/or MJ were confident they could make something work with that I wouldn't be one to doubt/complain.
After all my all-time favorite bridge humbucker was SDs first A8...

 

[JohnnyGuitar]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

OK,

Polling will start a later, mainly because I wish we could hear from guys here that might be considered as opinion leaders... I never met anyone who knows more about single coils then Lew, Christian and some other guys here.
I suppose they can give us some great tips and they might also shift the polls.

I'm also not really in a hurry and I see this process as an attempt to build a monster pickup that many bros can use and not as an attempt to elect a presidential candidate where there's no turning back from any previous election.

As for ceramic and A8 in Strat pickups - lets see where the design goes... if the choice would be a vintage voiced pickup it might be useless... for a high output metal single - it's a good option as any.


Again, if we follow the method I've offered, after choosing the position the pickup will be intended for we go for what exactly should it do in this position (can you think of a more important question?). I've offered the main categories I could think of... look at it and let me know if I over elaborated it or forgot something. The magnet question will be more important later on.


Yoni

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

Let's just decide on the application and let the great minds at the Duncan custom Shop decide how they want us to get there.

 

[Fusion1]

Re: The Polling Process For The Forum's Single Coil

Wouldn't A8 be do-able if it were with steel slug poles (or better yet steel adjustable slotted or hex poles) with a bar A8 magnet underneath? That way there would be less string pull and still retain the A8 vibe. Would be the perfect bridge sc.