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Hexdistortion PU how to make?


Matt

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Hi, im looking to wind my first PU for the bridge in a guitar im making,

Im looking to make a killer, HOT, Screaming, harmonic-spitting, growling beast with a fair decent tone.

So im looking into Hexdistortion pickups as an idea to add to my list of mods.

Can anyone help me as ima bit of a newbie, in how to make one and what parts i would need.

Im also looking at the Q-Tuner pickups which also look pretty cool, but really complicated!!! so any ideas would be gratefully appreciated.

Cheers

Matt

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Oops! I just noticed you had asked them the question already. Anyway, these guys know a lot more than you're likely to find here. If you own one of those pickups you might want to study it a bit. Find out how its built, what the output is and all other specs. That'll help you.

If you haven't built pickups yet I would suggest reading up on the subject first.

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Cheers, yea i have quite a bit of research but its just this thing thats bothering me, ive got most of everything sorted, such as a homemade sustainer and ive looked at a load of dimarzio patents as well as lace and SD for info.

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Have you ever built a pickup before? A hex pickup is a difficult thing to build, I'd try winding a single coil first -which can be surprisingly difficult. Once you have got the hang of basic winding you could try a more ambitious project.

If you are trying to save money just buy the pickup you are trying to copy ( a Dimarzio?), it will be a lot cheaper in the long run.

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I'd imagine that he wound 6 (or 12 if it's a humbucker) individual coils which are then sent to 6 very simple onboard distortion circuits. These six signals would then need to be mixed together and sent to the output jack.

Because each string is distorted individually it means that your can play multistring harmonies, etc. without them sounding messy.

But I still think it would be very difficult. If you've not got any experience with pickup winding or electronics it will be a very steep learning curve.

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You could use a Roland GK hex pickup, and wire each output to a simple clipper for a similar setup. Don't know how you'd wind a hex pickup, except to wire a small round single coil for each string, mount them on a plate aligned to your string spacing and use a common ground with 6 output leads. As for the Q-Tuners, buy his book, and you'll know how he does whatever it is he does.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Oh yeah

And I have the book but Q-tuners etc are not featured. Half is on various homemade pickup designs for the bass, and the other half is on making fretless basses.

It's got some interesting designs but not essential reading.

psw

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thanks psw,

the sustainer I have not made yet, its fairly simple and am afraid its nothing like the hex version that you seem to be nursing through its first few stages. but ill post you when i get around to making it.

really the aim of my idea was to experiment with different ways in suping up the output without getting to complicated.

Matt

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Hey matt

dig around the internet for how to make a hex pickup from dismantaled relay coils. Pickup maker's forum mentioned them as I remember and Ansil commented on them in my thread somewhere.

I'd be interested in finding the details again so email me if you find them

psw

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...erm well from what I found and of what ansil sent me, he used one half of a X2N coil and then 5V 6 reed relay coils with nails through them and rare earth magnets on the bottom. they each had their own trim pots. He said it was great, but i havn't tried it yet, and i dont know if you need a preamp?

I would have thought that the X2N would have overpowered it?

Anyway hope this helps, i haven't got the time to experiment so any thoughts would be appreciated.

Matt

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