Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

I don't have a ton of experience with them but I'm kinda fond of the sound in my nighthawk reissue. Kinda unique sounding and suits that guitar well.
 
Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

Powdered Toast Man said:
I just put an SM-1 mini HB in the neck position of my American Standard Tele and I absolutely love it! It's It's a fair bit better than the actual SD 59's that I have the neck position of both my other Telecasters.
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I just pulled an SM-1 for a Gibson tribute mini (more of a firebird by construction). I'm just wondering how the matching bridge pup is since I have nowhere to try it out.
 
Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

the guy who invented fire said:
Compared to what??
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As far as new duncans go, mini's are a little more expensive, $87.95 vs $72 for a normal humbucker. However, I almost always buy used, which is impossible with mini's. You can't find them anywhere. So the prices that I'm really comparing are the $40-50 used name brand humbuckers to the fact that you have to buy mini's new at $87.95. Maybe it's just me, but this fact would have me reconsider getting any guitar with mini's.
 
Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

ItsaBass said:
Mini humbuckers were not mounted to the bodies by lodging the rings into the routs! They were mounted via internal metal mounting plates. The ring and the pickup were held in a fixed relationship to each other by a spacer for each screw, and a soldered-on nut below the ears of the baseplate. This whole "unit" screwed into the mounting plate, similarly to the way a P90 screws straight into the guitar.
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To my mind, this all by itself is one big reason mini's are not as popular as they could be. It's not easy to convert your existing guitar, particularly non-mini Gibson-style guitars ironically, to receive mini's. Most of the time, folks will try to convert a P90 guitar to mini's, which is the "easiest", but even here there are problems. One is the need for the mounting plate (or simple bar in some cases), which no-one seems to make or sell. You can get away with just wood screws in the neck pu cavity but because the hole in the bridge pu cavity leading to the control cavity takes away the wood you would screw into on the treble side of the bridge pu, it's the plate or forget it. And setting up the ring with the soldered nut and the spacer to hold the ring in place is so counterintuitive that I think this alone turns a lot of players off. It's just a weird, weird set-up.

Another problem with mini's is the baseplate ears have holes for mount screws are too large for standard humbucker mount screws and require a different (wider) screw. If you're going to mount it in the pickguard of a Tele or Strat, you have to get a different screw and usually you have to cut a good 3/8" to 1/2" off the screw to fit the shallower routs. Even in a Firebird there are sometimes complaints with my customers because the fit through the Firebird ring is tight for the larger screws. There are some mini baseplates that take the smaller screw used on full-size buckers but they're hard to get a hold of sometimes.

I think mini's have huge potential but in addition to these conversion problems, they tend to be made in either the very weak vintage range or metalhead range by most winders, especially big winders. They're either 6k/A2 or 24k/ceramic. Solve these problems and a Golden Age of Mini's is not far behind...
 
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Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

And here I was thinking you'd solved it already with the winding of my set

I'm almost annoyed;)
 
Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

Let me start by saying that because something is "unpopular" doesn't mean it's necessary bad.
I have a mini in my thinline tele, and personally, I think it's a great sounding pickup. (It's the Antiquity).
I removed the ring, and mounted it to my pickguard, but the point is, it sounds great ... I think both the minis and the Firebird pickups fit the tone profile of a tele very well, and for me, they are an improvement over the regular neck tele pickup, but still retain a little of that tone. Even though they are different pickups, I think for the same reason, Firebird pickups are sometimes used in the neck position on teles. One of my good friends has used that setup for years.

I tried a Seth in a tele neck position, and never could get the balance right between the two pickups ...
I had the idea of using a mini for quite a while ... it's an idea I got from seeing Richard Thompson's original Ferrington, which has a mini in the neck position, mounted directly to the wood. I figured, if it's good enough for him ...
As far as Firebirds, besides Clapton, who toured with one for a while, another guy I associate with a Firebird is Gatemouth Brown, who played one for years. I think it gave him a tone that was perfect for his type of jazz/ blues.

If there's a point, it's that a mini, or Firebird pickup might be a perfect solution for you. You might arrive at that solution through a long process, and you might find a tone that is a little more unique, but just works.

If you look around at some of the custom builders out there, you'll see them using Charlie Christian pickups (Asher), even horseshoe pickups (Cardinal) ... these pickups were very rarely used just a few years ago, other than as vintage replacements. People are using a greater variety of pickups than ever, and that's a good thing.
 
Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

Hello, Found this looking for Firebird info.

True Mini-humbuckers and Firebird pickups are two entirely different things. A Mini-humbucker with the adjustable polepiece as came on late 60's LP's fitted to a P-90 style ring are just that - scaled down humbuckers. They sound as such - like an under-powered PAF type but without added clarity or attack expected from a low output pickup - this could work for some hollow-body players, but it doesn't work well on solid-bodies.

Now Firebird pickups kick arse :-) They are a different animal. The have alnico blade polepieces under the cover, no bar magnet underneath. The are killer as neck pickups on Fender style guitars, giving a sound fatter than Strat/Tele neck pickup, but still clean and snappy" from the magnet design.

I think part of the problem is Gibson never really designed guitars that suited either pickup well.

It's kind of funny that Tom Anderson and PRs have re-introduced mini-humbuckers recently in the past 5-10 years. I believe they are both closer to the Firebird design, but don't quote me I haven't seen one off a guitar.
 
Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

tonechaser said:
I don't have a ton of experience with them but I'm kinda fond of the sound in my nighthawk reissue. Kinda unique sounding and suits that guitar well.
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I agree, the mini humbucker in Epiphone Nighthawk has interesting sound. Strong, hight output, warm and a little muddy. The muddiness can be reduced by adding treble. This humbucker sounds different from Epiphone Alnico Classic in Les Paul.
 
Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

If your guitar already has Hb pickups, the route would be wrong for a minimum. I have a Duncan firebird minimum in a Tele and I love it. It's a great neck pickup in a Tele
 
Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

The real answer here is that they're so awesome that a majority of the commoners are not even near their level of cool yet and so, cannot comprehend their awesomeity.
 
Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

Because our guitar heroes didn't play mini hums on the records we listened
to/ currently listen to. There are very very few originals in music.
 
Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

tonaholic said:
Because our guitar heroes didn't play mini hums on the records we listened
to/ currently listen to. There are very very few originals in music.
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Caleb Followill uses mini hums in his 325. His sound is epic.
Good enough for me.
 
Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

I think lack of guitars that will accept them is a big factor.
Confusion over what's what is another.
I'm glad I discovered the firebird pickup. To me, it's a great sound somewhere between a humbucker and a single coil. Bright and articulate but still fat.

I made my own guitar to accept one. :D

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Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

I've never heard them in an LP but I must say they make an excellent "upgrade" for hilo-trons in semi hollow gretsch guitars. One of the biggest errors people do is to try and upgrade hilotrons with filtertrons or even worse with standard size humbuckers, having to route and dig up the body to make them fit in. If you're not happy with a hilotron, go for a minihumbucker, all you have to do is take off the metal cover, bend back or break off the L stand offs and place the miniHB inside the original hilotron cover. MiniHB's in gretsch guitars sound very filtertron like and this process saves you all the hassles of hacking your guitars top.
 
Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

Some of the Gibson Firebird pickups are actually wound between 15k to 20k & used ceramic magnets which is unaceptable in this age of pickups .
& would leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth looking for a vintage tone
 
Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

I my Epiphone Nighthawk Custom Reissue the neck mini-humbucker has about 14kOhm DCR but probably it uses Alnico 2 magnet. The sound is IMO fat and powerful, but lacks some treble. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't.
 
Re: Why are minihums so relatively unpopular?

I don't use them because I hate their sound: they don't sound right to my ears.
 
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