The New Ibanez Pat Metheny PM3C Model

[alpop]

That sounds really good. Sounds like a really good jazz tone to me. Thus far with a sample size of one each, the black one sounds much better than the natural, but its really early.

Gee I wonder what a red one would sound like?? I guess we'll never know..........

[AllanAllen]

Gee I wonder what a red one would sound like?? I guess we'll never know..........

That's easy, red is the best sounding color.

[Bflat233]

Not wanting to spam the forum with my so-so playing, but I posted this video of my recently acquired PM3C in the Jeff Arnold #5 thread.

Posting it here as well in case it can help to give an idea of the guitar's sound to the curious.

I will say the guitar is very comfortable and easy to play.

I used a Behringer knock off of a 906e to mic a Quilter Aviator Cub. Mic plugged into an interface. Interface straight to an iphone with no EQing. I played through an inexpensive analog delay pedal set at 20ms and some amp reverb.

Thank you for posting this demo. It's very helpful to hear this guitar with minimal effects, played through your Quilter (which is a great amp) and recorded with a mic. And nice work with that chord melody arrangement of Stella, too!

[alpop]

That's easy, red is the best sounding color.

You may be right about that but the resale value is shit on those red ones. People just listen with their eyes.

[pingu]

Not wanting to spam the forum with my so-so playing, but I posted this video of my recently acquired PM3C in the Jeff Arnold #5 thread.

Posting it here as well in case it can help to give an idea of the guitar's sound to the curious.

I will say the guitar is very comfortable and easy to play.

I used a Behringer knock off of a 906e to mic a Quilter Aviator Cub. Mic plugged into an interface. Interface straight to an iphone with no EQing. I played through an inexpensive analog delay pedal set at 20ms and some amp reverb.

great demo , thanks ,
really helpful
sounds great to me ….
is that the strings they come with ?

[alpop]

great demo , thanks ,
really helpful
sounds great to me ….
is that the strings they come with ?

Yes they are the factory strings. I wish I knew what they are. Flatwounds with a wound G. I will probably switch to TI Swing Flats 11's down the road, but no rush as I like these strings.

[Sleeko]

How do you like the semi satin finish? I had a 415 Taylor that was satin on the back and sides and didn't care for it for this reason. It was noisy and very slippery and ended up trading it in towards my L4CES. Thanks

[Cunamara]

PM uses D'Addario Chromes, so those might be the OEM strings. 11-50 according to interviews. If the ball ends are colored that would clinch it.

[alpop]

How do you like the semi satin finish? I had a 415 Taylor that was satin on the back and sides and didn't care for it for this reason. It was noisy and very slippery and ended up trading it in towards my L4CES. Thanks

Pros and cons regarding the finish. From an appearance point of view I don't think it looks as nice as a shiny gloss. However on a black guitar shiny gloss really shows finger prints!

As far as being slippery, I love that feature on the back of the neck. I have 2 MIJ Yamaha solid bodies with satin necks and really find it advantageous. I always play with a strap so the body being slippery is not a concern to me. But I could see it being annoying if you don't use a strap when you play sitting down.

As far as noise, I think that could be a problem with a flattop with a piezo or internal mic but have not noticed that to be a problem with this guitar.

I think they refer to the finish as "low gloss" rather than satin, but that could just be marketing speak for the same thing.

[alpop]

PM uses D'Addario Chromes, so those might be the OEM strings. 11-50 according to interviews. If the ball ends are colored that would clinch it.

Yup, confirmed, The ball ends are colored. Thanks for the info!

[olejason]

I like pretty woods as much as anyone but I've always liked black archtops. Looks and sounds great!

[Oscar67]

Really nice! Thanks for sharing!

[arnie65]

I finally received the new replacement pickup from Pete Biltoft, and installed it the same day. (Quite a challenge)
The new pickup has Alnico II magnets, I choose Alnico II after listening to Fred Archtop's clip of the same pickup which he plays using his 53' L5C. Pete also included Alnico V magnets in case I wanted to try those later on. Most pickup makers use Alnico V for the CC pickup. It took a bit of work to balance it out and get the right height, but the new pickup sounds great, and the difference wasn't subtle, it has clarity and note separation without being bright. The notes are full and rounded, with a nice warm girthy feel. Below are pics of both pickups, the Ibanez pickup has the gold metal base. I will try to do a video soon.





Cheers,
Arnie..

[ThatRhythmMan]

I finally received the new replacement pickup from Pete Biltoft, and installed the same day. (Quite a challenge)
The new pickup has Alnico II magnets, I choose Alnico II after listening to Fred Archtop's clip of the same pickup which he plays using his 53' L5C. Pete also included Alnico V magnets in case I wanted to try those later on. Most pickup makers use Alnico V for the CC pickup. It took a bit of work to balance it out and get the right height, but the new pickup sounds great, and the difference wasn't subtle, it has clarity and note separation without being bright. The notes are full and rounded, with a nice warm girthy feel. Below are pics of both pickups, the Ibanez pickup has the gold metal base. I will try to do a video soon.





Cheers,
Arnie..

Thanks for posting the pic of the original. I wasn’t expecting that sheet metal mounting plate. That’s different.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Cunamara]

Pete makes great pickups. I've got one of his CC floaters and a floating PAF, both outstanding tone.

[JFranck]

Thanks Arnie , just the photo I was wating for.
So the the Ibanez pickup is not a real repro of the Gibson, the tripod mounting is just cosmetic, no longitudinal magnet blades .


Anyway the Biltoft PU is a good choice . I have had one with satisfaction on my Tele since 2008 ! At the moment you could have a straight blade but no notch option, and Pete offered me a choice of 2 sets of transversal magnets. If my memory is good it came with alnico II and V spares that I’ve not changed for.

[arnie65]

Thanks Arnie , just the photo I was wating for.
So the the Ibanez pickup is not a real repro of the Gibson, the tripod mounting is just cosmetic, no longitudinal magnet blades .


Anyway the Biltoft PU is a good choice . I have had one with satisfaction on my Tele since 2008 ! At the moment you could have a straight blade but no notch option, and Pete offered me a choice of 2 sets of transversal magnets. If my memory is good it came with alnico II and V spares that I’ve not changed for.

The notch is not needed, from what I can tell, there's a good balance with the straight blade, although I had to lower the bass side a bit. If I was a betting man, I'd bet the stock pickup was definitely made in China, they tend to use ceramic in most of their pickups, like the pickup on the PM2AA, and many other models.



Cheers,
Arnie..

[pingu]

great info and picture
thanks Arnie

I’m wondering if changing the magnets
in the Ibanez CC pickup to Alnico 2 or 5
would also be worth trying

It would be a bit cheaper than replacing the whole pickup ….

Did you happen to notice the pot values
while you were in there ?

[arnie65]

great info and picture
thanks Arnie

I’m wondering if changing the magnets
in the Ibanez CC pickup to Alnico 2 or 5
would also be worth trying

It would be a bit cheaper than replacing the whole pickup ….

Did you happen to notice the pot values
while you were in there ?

I would advice getting the pickup rewired, along with changing the ceramic magnet to Alnico, pu makers like Kent Armstrong, Pete Biltoft, and many others will do this work for you for a fraction of what a new pickup cost. Didn't noticed what the pot values were, but did noticed they were cheaply made pots, I'll be replacing those sometime in the near future.



Cheers,
Arnie..

[Cavalier]

I can't understand the point of the plate and 3 bolt holes if there are no horizontal magnets. Could such magnets be installed in that pickup and Ibanez is doing the prep for us by pre drilling the top?
Does Pat know there is nothing under the hood?

[Cunamara]

Pat is notoriously detail oriented and even controlling when his name is on the product- to the extent of specifying the brand of drumheads and tuning of the drums in the Pat Metheny Group and supplying the bass that Mark Egan used to play in the early days of the quartet. I suspect he knew exactly what is in the production guitar and approved it. Bear in mind that on his own guitars, from his description, he keeps the tone knob rolled almost completely off. He might actually like an inherently brighter pickup to avoid getting muddy. And he probably understands things like economies of scale and the realities of doing business for a profit- ceramic magnets are generally very inexpensive, alnico magnets are much more expensive.

From Arnie's description, the resonant frequency of the replacement pickup from Pete is possibly quite a bit different than the stock pickup. I have noted that I prefer the tone of pickups using an A2 magnet, but I don't really understand why an A2 magnet would sound different from an A5 magnet in the same pickup given how the circuit works (all the magnet does is magnetize the string as it vibrates above the coil). There's some piece of knowledge about magnetic circuits that I am missing.

[Cunamara]

I can't understand the point of the plate and 3 bolt holes if there are no horizontal magnets. Could such magnets be installed in that pickup and Ibanez is doing the prep for us by pre drilling the top?
Does Pat know there is nothing under the hood?

The PM3C is based on a guitar made by Daniel Slaman (please forgive me if I'm telling you something you already know), which in turn was inspired seemingly by the Gibson ES-250, which Charlie Christian used at least for a brief period. Slaman used, I think, a replica Charlie Christian pickup with long magnets, although I could certainly be wrong about that. Probably the choice to use the mounting arrangement on the PM3C was aesthetic in nature.

I don't know if the long cobalt steel magnets could be installed in the Ibanez pickup, it certainly would take quite a bit of surgery. But one can buy faithful reproductions of the original pickup and probably install them, assuming the screw holes line up, or one could buy Pete Biltoft's version which uses standard bar magnets and flatwork to mount it in the original holes. From my experience, Pete's Charlie Christian style pickups sound very, very good and close enough to the originals that it would fall within the range of normal variation. We do have to bear in mind that the original magnets aren't very good at holding their magnetic field strength and sometimes even need to be re-magnetized. I have read that Barney Kessel had this done with his pickup over the course of his career.

[Fred Archtop]

Slaman used, I think, a replica Charlie Christian pickup with long magnets, although I could certainly be wrong about that.

True! Daniel Slaman uses replicas made upon his request by CC PU UK, a small company specialized in CC PU.

Probably the choice to use the mounting arrangement on the PM3C was aesthetic in nature.

Indeed, purely aesthetic

I don't know if the long cobalt steel magnets could be installed in the Ibanez pickup, it certainly would take quite a bit of surgery.

Yes, they could have done that. A thing to consider is the weight of a real CC replica but in general it's not a problem to install onto a laminated tabletop.

From my experience, Pete's Charlie Christian style pickups sound very, very good and close enough to the originals that it would fall within the range of normal variation.

They sound very good but it's not a real genuine CC sound, by far.

We do have to bear in mind that the original magnets aren't very good at holding their magnetic field strength and sometimes even need to be re-magnetized.

My 1938 ES-150 still has its original CC PU and it blows up any amp. But it's true that they lose strength over the years. When you're ordering a CC PU to CC PU UK, you can ask for a full magnetic charge, as if your PU was released off the factory, or for a demagnetized version, as if your PU had aged over 80+ years.

Cheers.

[Herbie]

I can't understand the point of the plate and 3 bolt holes if there are no horizontal magnets. Could such magnets be installed in that pickup and Ibanez is doing the prep for us by pre drilling the top?
Does Pat know there is nothing under the hood?

Seem like the whole design of the pickup is quite different from the original. The place and even the size and the shape of the magnet needed might be totally different, so I am not sure this can be modded to the "original" way.

I wrote "original" because according Adrian Ingram (in his ES-175 -book) their specs were all around:

"Recreating the original Charlie Christian pickup presented something of a problem in that the specifications of earlier units differed with each production run.

The magnets were initially cast in Cobalt but went on to use an amalgamation which differed as significantly as 17% cobalt, 83% nickel to 36% cobalt, 64% nickel.

Furthermore, the range of windings varied greatly, as can be seen from the following specifications: variant 1, 4,000 turns of number 38 wire; variant 2, 2,500 turns of number 40 wire; variant 3, 3,600 turns of 40 wire; variant 4, 10,000 turns of number 42 wire."

[Nohhyuk]

I finally received the new replacement pickup from Pete Biltoft, and installed it the same day. (Quite a challenge)
The new pickup has Alnico II magnets, I choose Alnico II after listening to Fred Archtop's clip of the same pickup which he plays using his 53' L5C. Pete also included Alnico V magnets in case I wanted to try those later on. Most pickup makers use Alnico V for the CC pickup. It took a bit of work to balance it out and get the right height, but the new pickup sounds great, and the difference wasn't subtle, it has clarity and note separation without being bright. The notes are full and rounded, with a nice warm girthy feel. Below are pics of both pickups, the Ibanez pickup has the gold metal base. I will try to do a video soon.





Cheers,
Arnie..

I don’t know anything about CC pickups. Where do the magnets go that can be interchanged for the Biltoft?