Видео

Okay these sound good but of course they do with all the FX and distortion. Being hand wound these are innovative and impressive but now at £200+ for a set without wiring/pots etc. For myself, I don't think so. I can go get an EMG 81/85 Zakk Wylde set from Thomann for £154 delivered including pots/wiring. A tried and tested active pickup set and my 'go to' for my gigging guitars. A shame but more than I'd want to pay...

The coils are not wound differently they are wired differently

The only thing I'm not sure I agree with is that you say the preamp has a lower ouput impedance than a passive pickup. EMGs have a 10k equivalent series resistance. This is necessary to be able to parallel neck and bridge pickups in the mid position (effectively a passive mixer). It also allows the tone control to work as a shelving high-cut filter. The reason you can get away with 25k pots on an active system is that the preamp in the pickup isolates the pickup from the loading effects of the potentiometers. As you pointed out, even quite high resistances can affect the resonant peak of the coils and darken the tone. This is why passive systems have such high-resistance pots - si they don't darken the tone at their highest setting. This 10k equivalent output resistance is around the same region as passive pickups, which tend to be in the 7k to 20k range, so it's not particularly low (though about half that of some high output pickups)

There's more to output and volume than just DCR, and more to highs and clarity than narrowing the sensing field. Part of the reason why Filtertrons have their sound without being weak is because of the low DCR and the HUGE, strong as hell magnet. Try so neodymium in your pups, and keep going to even more of an extreme in regards to the wire thickness. Try to get 40 or even 38awg on there. Also, don't worry about any "tone wire" nonsense. The thing there is that it was heavy formvar, which means a thicker coating. What the coating is made of matters not, but if you so desire, you can get double billed (build?) poly coated wire. The only downside is that in addition to the abnormally thick gauge, it'll make it even MORE difficult to get the desired amount of windings and DCR on there. But if you ask me, high DCR is overrated and you should just throw even more magnet at it, or find another way to fit more coil in there such as larger bobbins or switching to a stacked construction (even still with larger bobbins IE P90 sized), which also has the benefit of narrowing your sensing field even more. Oh, also, you're already kinda doing this BUT use rail pole pieces instead of screws and slugs. A more uniform sensing field is always beneficial to smoothness and keeping that sibilant, shouty, ugly overtone out of the guitar in general. Last tip is to consider ditching the two pickup system and setting this bad boy at the 36th fret location (direct middle if 24 frets). The secret with the middle pickup spot is that as you fret the strings further and further, you shorten them, thereby weakening their maximum potential amplitude and sustain. To counteract this, you want the string center to be directly over the pickup when the strings are at their most disadvantaged state. Hence, the middle pickup position. And if you believe in harmonic nodes, the 36th fret location is conveniently both middle AND on one of the important "octave nodes" so yeah.

The thing I don't understand is why active pickups have the pole/poles hidden within the plastic cover. Is this just an aesthetic that was copied again and again. I assume the coil core can be further from the stings given the high gain, but where are the exposed core actives 'in disguise' haha.

I read somewhere that Cliff Richard got someone to paint Hanks guitar white , then later on Bruce got the guitar off of Cliff, and had it professionally returned to fiesta red , but there has been mentioned over the years it had pink look to it , I have seen a clip of Cliff playing a white Strat !

Your video was exactly what I was looking for - though I had assumed nothing like it would exist. Having recently bought a Vox Bobcat V90, I am now a total P90 convert. I also realised why I had stopped playing my Epiphone Les Paul: it sounds terrible! (though it handles extremely well and looks great). The solution seemed easy - either sell the LP or fit P90s to it. But what a non-easy rabbit-hole ‘fit P90s’ has become…

Excellent explanation, thank you very much. I wonder, roughly, how much is the total output impedance that an amp or pedal sees?

very nice, thanks for sharing.

0:04 Dude looks a bit like the main guy on Drumeo who wears glasses

Hello friend! Great aging of the pickguard, what did you use to make it look like that? Or some material that helps me make the pickguard look like this, other than coffee?

Very instructive video, thanks for sharing! Now I have a question: I have combined a Strat SC (neck) with a P90 (bridge). They are connected RW/RP, and they are indeed humbucking, but in combination, the sound is like out of phase, very thin and significantly less loud. I also swapped the nec PU in a Tele for a Strat PU and combined, the sound is full and humbucking. What could be the reason for this? On the P90/SC guitar, I use 280 Ohm pots, to give the P90 more clarity. Also tried 500 Ohm, same result. Another strange thing: if I dial the volume to less than 8, the tone pot suddenly loses its function, like always full on. Capacitor? Compatibility? Any suggestions are highly appreciated.

I just watched your video. I always see mini humbuckers with the chrome covers like you used here, but is it possible to leave the cover off and just leave the black parts/bobbins showing?

Very hard to make out how you make any kind of living repairing Hofner pick ups. They're totally, totally worthless. My first electric was a Hofner, loved it. Very old, the p/ups were those single coil jobs that look a little like the Rickenbacker "Toasters". No magnet for the second "B" string but the "G" was super-dominant so - why? ...... and the things were "potted" with plaster. If I knew then what I know now..................................... Thanks, nice video.

Where can you buy them I tried that link but its dead site security threat

I know that I'm way late to this party, but thanks very much. In 12 minutes, I now understand why I've never happy with any humbucker-sized P90 pickup that I've tried and that I never will be. If I want a P90 sound, I need to figure out how to mount real P90s into the guitars I already have or buy guitars that fit them. While I'm a little disappointed because humbucker-sized P90s are fit tons of readily-available guitars, but your explanation makes it really clear why this approach can basically never work.

Isn’t 53K a wire,resistance measurement not a measure of magnetic strength?

If you ever get the chance to take apart either of the 57/66 or either of the 81X/85X sets I'd love to see it, just to see how they differ,

You drowned the sound

38:08 what song?

Astonishing job!! I can't find the kit on your website tho

Great content! I also started building passive pickups a couple of years ago :) Really interesting to see how active ones are made!

Thanks for this. I’ve been chasing my golden retriever around the house with a pair of scissors and this video just saved me some real embarrassment and a soured relationship with my pooch.

All this without hearing the sound of it? Man, that is so wrong.

*UNPOTTED* base + clean 0:48 -- back pup 1:00 ---- both pups 1:09 ---- no base 1:31 --- back pup 1:42 --- base + dist. 2:12 ---- dist. alone 2:55 *POTTED* base + clean 3:54 --- back pup 4:06 --- both pups 4:14 --- no base 4:36 --- back pup 4:47 -- base + dist. 5:18 ----- dist. alone 6:00

Unpotted band mix 0:49 Potted band mix 3:54 Unpotted only guitar 1:31 Potted only guitar 4:36

ceramic magnets are highter pitched than alnico, that cheaper pickup would sound louder if you take away the preamp .. the emg 85 in the neck is purposley to have a deeper tone. youre either purposley lying or dont know... that is why people dont like squier pickups and fender mexican pickups because the ceramic , is too high for them.

I just made this and I found it easier to cut through using a a medium sized hole saw and then using sandpaper or a dremel to round off the edges

AS said below 1959 used with Vox amp but not Vox ac 15 till they asked Vox to build a more in more wattage and of course the tape delay box was added after Hank tried Joe Brown's delay box.

💙Any chance you all could do a Sonic Blue Rivers Cuomo Fender Strat "Cuomocaster" ? Weezer's blue album turns 30 this year! 💙 #weezer #cuomocaster

💙Any chance you all could do a Sonic Blue Rivers Cuomo Fender Strat "Cuomocaster" ? Weezer's blue album turns 30 this year! 💙 =w= #weezer #cuomocaster

Love the video but you did not explain where the body and neck came from, the components are easy to read from the labels. I have rebuilt Gibson 335's using CTS and orange drop components wired to Seymore Duncan pickups also added 5 way switches to Strats. An enjoyable pass time show us more.🎸

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” --Dr. Ian Malcolm

Rubbish. You won't damage a thing. Just use common sense. This is easy af. Done this so many times. 😂

I would not like to pay you for any gtr set ups you sound like a time waster get on get the assembly done so I can watch something else on you tube

Daaaamm... Thank you bro! Thank you SOOOO MUCH!!! I wanted to see that video a 5yrs ago, but finally I can finish work on my own copy of 81/85 EMG's for my 7string guitar. Thank you so much 🙏

I'm trying to design an active pickup on my own and I wanted to know if maybe you have the exact dimensions of the bobbins and magnets of the 85?

OMG, it was painful to watch! Dude, have a drink of water, you seem thirsty as hell. When it comes to information provided, it's so unclear I regret watching this.

I want to order a classic set of p90 replica like 50s LesPauls had. You have so many options for custom pickups so I don’t know what to select.

Very informative - thanks!

Very helpful, thank you!

A lot of work gose into making a guitar

They started as the Drifters first before they changed their name to the shadows .

I have this model, all in tact but, someone made a dreadful mess by painting the scratch plate, neck and backplate in several layers of house paint( orange). It is taking an age to restore.

I have a set of old unpotted GFS KMZ PAFs in an Agile. I definitely like them a lot, but I'm not entirely sure I'd not enjoy them just as much potted. A stock unboosted JCM800 can easily generate enough gain to create microphonic problems, and I tend to use boatloads of gain. The potted sounds in the demo certainly didn't seem to lose much "mojo" - I'd hardly call that ruined, myself. Certainly makes for a more useful instrument, which is why EVH potted his patent number pickup that's in Frankie.

The black saddles are String Saver saddles...not just black metal saddles...already off to a bad start less than a minute in.

Um, active pickups have an amplifier in them hense the need for a battery, duh!!!!!!!!

What bucker is in that ax? Sounds amazing!

All you need is a strat. Every gig I've ever played as been with a strat, either Fender or some other strat including lots of custom builds. They do they job. Sometimes I want single coils, at other times buckers, but always a strat.

I got into fiesta red strats because of Knopfler, but it was Marvin who got Knopfler into the fiesta red strat.