True to form, a while back I ordered some custom pickups from Ben Fletcher. Did I need these? no - not at all, but I seem to be an inveterate guitar pickups tinkerer - ever searching for something I suppose. Anyhow, yet another set to try in my Ibanez AS103 semiacoustic. The neck is a Provenance alnico 2, with the windings unpotted, the bridge is a hot-wound (and wax potted) Elesium alnico 4. The pickups have adjustable poles on both coils - I intend to experiment and raise the polepieces a fair bit, and probably have the body of the pickups set pretty low, which is something the great Ted Greene used to recommend to get a warm but clean/non-muddy tone. Looks like Ben has done his usual great job anyhow.
·
Comments
Should you ever settle on a pair of pickups for your AS103 I guess it would make sense for me to offer to buy your 2nd last set off you but as yet I have never changed pickups so I tweak the amp to get the best sound I can.
The late Seth Lover said there was no need of pole adjustment when he invented the humbucker for Gibson, but the sales people insisted on the 'feature' to give players something to tinker with.
Of course that early development was exclusivly with PAF low wind coils and lots of variations on a theme now exist, plus how much did they think people would care. There was far more interest in making amplifiers more Hi-Fi than anything else. Amp distortion was strictly forbidden in technical terms at that time and getting a lovely clean clear sound reproduction was the goal.
Let us know how you get on with the pole pieces, I'm interested. Also think about setting the PU height to get the 'bloom' effect on the decaying note. Thats said to be one of the attributes of the classic 50s guitars/PU combinations.
This might wet your whistle:
https://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?154644-Adjusting-Pickups-The-quot-Sweet-Spot-quot-with-Soundclips&highlight=pickup+height+for+Bloom
There's plenty on that forum about this minutia of detail and some people can be totally sucked in, luckily not me
Ted Greene talks about the pickup/polepiece height thing in this video - see from 2 minutes in specifically.
I'm not an electric player but those pups have got me salivating.
Nice logo he’s got there, too
Needs must.