Modding Stock Pickups... What Can I Change Here? (with Pics)

[MF_Kitten]

yeah, this is my first post here, found this forum and thought ´´hey, nice place! ´´... i´m not a forum-newbie though, i´m also on jemsite and sevenstring-org

so, on with the topic...

i´ve got an Ibanez RG 350 DX, with stock pickups in a H-S-H configuration... i´m thinking of messing about with the pickups (not with the switching or anything like that, i mean the actual pickups themselves)...

i´m not gunna buy new pickups or components, as i spent my cash on new pickups for my seven string

so i was wondering if anyone could help me with what i can do? for conveniences sake (probably spelled that wrong ), i´ve added pictures of the pickup with the base plate unscrewed... don´t worry, i´ve put her back together... for now...

http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/6271/toptt2.jpg top view

http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/6543/sideviewyd5.jpg side-view

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/5589/insidegp4.jpg inside

also inside

so tell me, what am i looking at here? what do these magnets and plates under the coils do? and what´s that shiny metal thingy under the coil on the right? and most importantly, what can i mess with in here, to change how it sounds? ANY suggestions appreciated also, i´m not gunna rewind them, that´s too much of a hassle for me... i´m thinking more about messing with the magnets and things like that.

Edited May 20, 2007 by Maiden69

[ibanezlover]

Here are 2 pages full of info on pickup types and explaining what differences they make:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Tools:_P...65.html#details

http://galileo.spaceports.com/~fishbake/buck/humbuck.htm

[MF_Kitten]

Here are 2 pages full of info on pickup types and explaining what differences they make:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Tools:_P...65.html#details

http://galileo.spaceports.com/~fishbake/buck/humbuck.htm

thanks doesen´t quite explain what i´m looking at here though... the shiny metal piece looks like it should be a pole piece holder for the adjustable polepieces... but the polepieces on the other side are identical adjustable ones too, so why don´t they too have that shiny piece of metal on them?

[ibanezlover]

Sorry, I don't know that much about pickups, I've never built my own... I have no idea why, to answer your question. Can you actually adjust the polepieces on that side? Most pickups with adjustable polepieces only have 1 adjustable coil, so I would think that your pickup should have 2 holders. Are you the first owner of your guitar? The only thing that I can think of is that someone else opened up your pickups and lost the polepiece holder.

[MF_Kitten]

Sorry, I don't know that much about pickups, I've never built my own... I have no idea why, to answer your question. Can you actually adjust the polepieces on that side? Most pickups with adjustable polepieces only have 1 adjustable coil, so I would think that your pickup should have 2 holders. Are you the first owner of your guitar? The only thing that I can think of is that someone else opened up your pickups and lost the polepiece holder.

bought the guitar brand new, and the screws that hold the base-plate still had wax in them from the wax potting, so they´re opened for the first time ever here, so nope, they haven´t been meddled with before...

and yeah, both coils have adjustable pole-pieces, but only one pole-piece holder... strange, but interesting maybe a design error? doesen´t really make that much of a difference though, as the pole pieces are standard-shaped with an allan-wrench pattern on top, instead of the conventional screws... so they need about as much holding as ordinary unadjustable polepieces...

also, i don´t know alot about pickups myself either, which is why i came here

[Southpa]

Not much you can do aside from stripping out the old coil wire and rewinding with finer gauge wire. This will make a hotter pickup, ie. give more DC resistance and increase output. I know Eddie Van H used to do this (or had it done). But if they aren't broken I wouldn't bother trying to fix them. The fact that you have to ask means that you would be facing some trials and tribulations and might end up ruining perfectly good pickups. If you want bigger and more interesting sounds then I would suggest you DO try the switching mods involving series wiring and adding a DPDT switch.

[ibanezlover]

Have you actually tried to adjust the polepieces on the side w/out the holder? Maybe they're not adjustable, Ibanez could have just make that coil match the other one for looks.

EDIT: Or you could just unwind them and rewind them with the same wire but by hand, because hand wound pickups sound better. It will take a long time, though.

Edited May 19, 2007 by ibanezlover

[MF_Kitten]

Have you actually tried to adjust the polepieces on the side w/out the holder? Maybe they're not adjustable, Ibanez could have just make that coil match the other one for looks.

EDIT: Or you could just unwind them and rewind them with the same wire but by hand, because hand wound pickups sound better. It will take a long time, though.

@southpa and ibanezlover: i don´t wanna rewind, as i´m not going to do something i´m not experienced at... also, it would require soldering in the end, and i have no knowledge about that... i have thought about scatterwinding them, but i have never done anything like that before, so...

i´m not looking for anything big really... anyone know if there would be any effect in switching the bar magnet in the middle out with another bar magnet of the same basic size, except it´s flatter? like it still takes up as much space sideways and in length, but it´s not as tall...

also, i figured out the polepieces... there IS one adjustable and one un-adjustable side Kind of... you see, both sides look the same on the top, with the allen-wrench-adjustable tops, but the ´´adjustable´´ side is thinner on the underside and has the pole-piece-holder, while the un-adjustable side is thick all the way through, but once you adjust it up, you can push it back in with your finger so i now know what that´s all about...

i´m thinking about getting a hold of an epiphone pickup and try to fit the golden nickel cover on top of this one, and just replacing the adjustable pole pieces of this pickup with the epiphone´s golden ones to match... will the different pole pieces make a difference here at all? like instead of the ones in place, i will put golden screw-style ones in?

[ibanezlover]

I learned to solder in about 5 minutes and a soldering iron costs about $10. It's easy, just google "how to solder". You'll find something.

[MF_Kitten]

I learned to solder in about 5 minutes and a soldering iron costs about $10. It's easy, just google "how to solder". You'll find something.

i know how it works, but if anything happens, i don´t wanna be the guy responsible... i like having pros do it, so that if something should happen, i get some sort of compensation, and they fix it again free of charge

if i change my pickup myself and mess it up, not only do i void my warranty, i also mess it up!

i plan on getting more into it some day when i can afford those kinds of hobbies... right now i play it safe

[IbanezFreak666]

try putting a stronger magnet in it, should give you a higher output. (thats just going on my physics knowlage i have very little experience with pickups)

[Samba Pa Ti]

i know how it works, but if anything happens, i don´t wanna be the guy responsible... i like having pros do it, so that if something should happen, i get some sort of compensation, and they fix it again free of charge

if i change my pickup myself and mess it up, not only do i void my warranty, i also mess it up!

i plan on getting more into it some day when i can afford those kinds of hobbies... right now i play it safe

the warranty is already void since you have taken the pickup to pieces, plus theres not much you can do apart from the change the magnet, which will mostly effect the tone and not the dc resistance/output of the pickups

edit

here is some basic info on magnets

http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/pickups.php

Making the magnet stronger also has an effect on tone, in that the stronger magnet will generally give a sharper attack and "harder" tone. However, the greatest impediment to simply using very strong magnets to get a very high output is the fact that strong magnets will kill sustain by "dragging" the strings.

As a generalizaton:

"Soft" magnet and fewer turns on coil - sweet, bell-like clear tones.

"Hard" magnet and fewer turns on coil - glassy hot Strat sound.

"Soft" magnet and more turns (or humbucker) - smooth, buttery midrange.

"Hard" magnet and more turns (or humbucker) - grunge or "Texas" sound.

Edited May 20, 2007 by Samba Pa Ti

[SwedishLuthier]

First: What do you want to achieve? That makes it much easier to advice.

Now to the ”shiny thing”. It is called a metal spacer and is used to direct more of the magnetic field into the screw pole pieces in a traditional HB design. Here you can see all the parts and what they are called and were they go in a HB. In your screw pole piece only-HB I see no real reason to why they have one side with and one side w/o metal spacer. Maybe to have different sounds from the two coils. Are those pickups split able? That can explain why it is only one spacer. Maybe a better split sound without it?

That is the first thing you can do with that pickup: Add a metal spacer to the second coil and see what it does with the pickup. Another thing you can do is, as stated before, change magnets. Now you seem to have a ceramic magnet in there judging from the grayish-blackish look. That is a magnet for high output. You can change that for a ALNICO5 or even ALNICO2 bar magnet and you will lower the output some and attenuate the treble (even more with the ALNICO2). If that’s not what you want you can add smaller magnets (ultra rare to find) on the outside of the metal spacer and the other row of screws. That will increase the magnetic field and change the shape of it, thus making the pickup “hotter” and with more pronounced treble. The changed shape of the magnetic field will also change the basic tone somewhat.

If the pickups have four leads I would strongly recommend trying out some Series/parallel/out-of-phase/splitter sounds. Some you might like and some not. But that requires some soldering and four leads. You can change a two lead pickup to a four one but that means you’ll have to peal of the protective tape and re-solder things. But you stated that you didn’t want to solder things.

Besides changing magnet(s), as you are not ready to rewind or solder anything, there’s not much you can do at all.

hand wound pickups sound better

Not true. Maybe different but not necessarily better. That is called market hype.

And believe me, there is NO pro winder out there that actually hand wound their pickups. The closest thing you will find is guys like me that hand-guide the wire on to the bobbin using a machine to spin the coil. It is almost impossible to add 10 000 (ten thousand) turns of a wire (that’s for a P90) that is thinner than a human hair to a coil and not breaking the wire.

[psw]

This does seem a little silly...seems like you just want to mess with the pickup without a goal in mind...all the same...

There appears to be a central magnet and magnets either side of the pole screws/metal spacer...remove those and replace with some wooden or card spacers and you may get a clearer slightly less harsh sounding pickup, with a little less output...

Otherwise, a lot really is to do with the coil...

Changing the way the coil is configured...

If the pickups have four leads I would strongly recommend trying out some Series/parallel/out-of-phase/splitter sounds.

is probably the easiest modification and will yeild dramatically different sounds from a pickup...a lot easier to switch a few wires about than to swap magnets (if you can find them), make spacers or replace poles...

pete

[Setain]

You could wrap a second coil around the coil already on the bobbins. Then, with a switch, switch between the two coils in series or just the original. It works really well on single coils if you want both vintage and overwound sounds from one guitar. I personally have done it a couple of times on single coils.