A couple of weeks back I received this faulty old pickup from a Jansen stratphonic hollow bodied bass made in New Zealand.
The meter was showing it was ‘open circuit’ so after the usual tests for dry joints and removing the top layer of windings I decided it needed rewinding.
I do enjoy saving old dead pickups and this one looks so cool with that ‘toaster’ cover.
Pickup Height Adjustment is crucial to your tone. I find that the better the quality of the pickup the more difference the height makes to the tone.
There is, of course, no correct distance from the string so the measurements I’ll give you are a guide and a great place to start. I recommend you set your MrGlyn’s Pickups to these heights when you installed them but feel free to tweak them to your own taste after.
The principal is, the closer to the strings the pickups are the louder and more dynamic the sound, further away is more compressed and quieter.
But there’s another factor. Pickups work by magnetism, if a pickup is too close to the string the magnet will attract the string and cause a strange wobbly sound called a wolf tone. This is much more pronounced with single coil pickups and on the bass strings on the higher frets. These ‘wolf tones’ are sometimes called ‘Stratitis’.
The pickup height is measured from the top of the pickup pole (or cover) to the underside of the string when fretting the highest fret.
Here are my recommend heights:
This week I had an order from Trevor Binford at Binford Luthiery in Onehunga, Auckland. He runs fantastic courses where you can make a guitar from scratch.
http://www.binfordluthiery.com/guitar-buildshop
He wanted a set of Silver Lady Telecaster pickups for his own Tele and asked if I make a Precision Bass pickup. Well, they aren’t on the website (not yet) but I do make them. Always worth asking, eh
www.mrglynspickups.com
Here’s a cool track by Lea’ana featuring Jason Herbert on guitar using a set of my ‘Bellbird’ Strat pickups
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1258520531191334
www.mrglynspickups.com
MrGlyn’s Telecaster pickups come in 2 flavours -
The Silver Lady set : Pure clean vintage alnico III
The Cruel Mistress set : Tele with teeth, alnico V
For sound samples and more information go to the website.
Old Höfner pickups are common visitors at the workshop for re-winds. The insulation breaks down on the winding wire they used and they become open circuit and simply stop working.
Although these are built like humbuckers magnetically with 2 rows of pole pieces powered by a single bar magnet they have a single coil inside them.
The bobbins are often very fragile. They’re made of thin plastic and can deform easily. Don’t try this one at home kids.
I was happy with how they came out in the end. They have a really pleasing clear chime to them.
If you have any dead pickups or want to upgrade, get in touch.
