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You may very well be right. I like to add, though, that I prefer single coils to humbuckers, because single coils to my ears is more uniform from buttom to top and has better tone separation in the buttom, whereas a humbucker often gets a bit muddy in the bass. Apart from that, the exact sound can be dialled in on the amp or with an external EQ. I'm using a Vintage Vibe HCC in one guitar, a BG P90 in another, and I have a Strat with stock PUs, and all can sound almost the same with appropriate amp/EQ settings. Whatever difference there is, it's more a matter of the rest of the instrument (solid body/hollow body, choice of woods etc.) than the PU.
Originally Posted by Paul J Edwards
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01-01-2011 07:42 AM
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if you have guitar from very good wood instal pick up with good name/Benedetto,Armstrong, Shadow AZ/.
If not it is not so important!!!
quality of guitar is most important !
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It is amazing how rumors get fabricated.Being a longtime friend of Dan and Kent Armstrong I can attest to the fact that Kent NEVER sold the name to/or authorized any knock-off such as "Duncan Designed" has done. Kent Armstrong pickups are made at his factory,by workers that he trained,on machines that he specified,with wire,magnets and all other components selected by Kent.Does anyone believe that Duncans are not made in a factory?Kent does have a line of handwound USA pickups,as well.Kent's son,Aaron is also making some custom wound pickups in the U.K. Originally Posted by Funchal
WD music is the authorized and exclusive USA distributor for the Kent Armstrong factory made pickups,and also carries the hand wound models.
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gtr, Originally Posted by gtr_5155
Is there much difference between the US and Korean Armstrong factory made pickups? I was going to go with a hand-wound slimbucker but I might go with the US factory made ones.
I guess there are 4 kinds of KA's now;
Hand-wound by Kent
Korean factory
US factory
UK factory
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Yes. I tried a Korean one in an Ibanez and it was mud-city. I also used a US-made one in an American Archtop and it is the best floating pickup i've used. You can custom order one by emailing Kent directly. He will build whatever you want for $150. Originally Posted by Stevebol
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I use both handwounds and factory models,and have received high marks for both from my customers. There are only 2 Kent Armstrong pickup lines-both are distruted in the USA and England by WD UK,and WD Music in the USA.There are Kent's handwound models from his USA facility in Vermont,and Kent's factory models from his Korean facility.There is no USA factory. There is no UK factory.The other is Aaron Armstrong,Kent's son,who winds only hand wound pickups and uses WD UK as his outlet.I don't consider Aaron's UK facility as a factory,since he hand winds all his pickups.There was an unscrupulous ebayer selling plain "Armstrong" pickups with no reference to a first name, on ebay,but he had no connection to the real Kent or Aaron Armstrong lines.He has since been stopped from this practice. I hope this helps.
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There are many places that sell Kent's handwound pickups.WD music is the sole USA distributor for the factory models,and sell to many dealers throughout the USA.Handwounds can also be purchased through them,as well. P.S. Kent NEVER sold his name.I am a longtime friend of Kent's,and cann attest to the fact that this is a rumor. See other posts regarding this. Originally Posted by Funchal
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+ 1 again Originally Posted by TieDyedDevil
first make your guitar have a good unplugged tone working on strings, action and the others things written above;
then, work on the electric tone: a pick up alone can not do magic...
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Good advice there, however as we all know it's hard to resist new, shiny things and well get "GAS" from time to time. If you're anything like me you'll have already got it into your head that you're getting new pickups and that's final! Beware though, once you go down that route it'll be all "I want vintage style wiring and NOS capacitors"...That's how it was with me anyway!
I currently play a cheapo Vintage SG copy that isn't finished that well but is constructed "properly" (set neck, mahogony body) and it plays really well and sound great acoustically, with loads of sustain. Cost me £100 on fleabay and then i put these in (Yes, I'm aware they cost double what i paid for the guitar):
Bareknuckle Pickups - Stormy Monday
Totally handmade (in Devon, England) and well worth the money over factory jobs, IMO. They come potted or unpotted according to preference. Really nice blokes to deal with too. (And, no I don't work for them and they're not my mates, I just think it's important to give true craftsmen like this as much free publicity as possible!)
Not saying they're the "best" for jazz, but they sound wonderful for blues, funk, soul, vintage rock and now I'm learning jazz, I find they sound fantastic for it too. Warm, vintage and articulate. Check out their forum for some sound samples. Oh, and if you're replacing pickups it can be worth looking at the wiring and capacitors too
Last edited by Ceejay; 10-21-2011 at 09:58 AM.
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WHAT? Originally Posted by spiral
I can talk to Kent Armstrong? The Kent Armstrong? Moreover, have him build me a pickup, to my specs, for $150 no less? I'm seriously freaking out over here. I love his pickups!
Could I get him to build one to fit in my tele? And I could tell him my tele is alder, and he could compensate for that. Oh God. Is it really true? Can I contact Kent Armstrong, personally?
Seriously, what's the email?Last edited by =DK=; 10-21-2011 at 08:23 PM.
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[email protected] 802-843-1065
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I have these in my guitar:
Bare Knuckle Pickups, UK - Hand Wound Guitar and Bass Pickups
Jens
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Replaced seth lovers with bare knuckles stormy mondays , ( heritage 535)
Well worth the cost and highly recommended
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If you like the guitar, and the neck feels nice, and it stays in tune and speaks to you when you play it then keep the guitar. You do not have to spend thousands to get a great sound. Having said that, Dot pickups are a shot in the dark imho and most Epi Dots wind up with an HN6 at the neck and an HBHOTB at the bridge which fairs well in Epi Les Pauls that will serve as metal guitars. Want a clean, articulate sound? These pickups aren't the ticket. A suggestion (and there are many-pickup choices are very subjective and manufacturers like it that way. Originally Posted by Civil Guy
) the Seymour Duncan favs set which includes an SH-2 JazzN for the neck and an SH-4 JB at the bridge. This combo goes from syrupy jazz textures to anything in between. The package sells for about $150.00 (but I got mine from GC during the holidays for $99,95) Are pickups easy to put in? Can you unscrew 8 screws? What about soldering to the pots? Epi Dots use full size 500k cans and they are decent. I'm partial to Sprague Orange Tone Caps which really do open up your sound but you don't have to change those to notice a significant tonal change. If you are afraid of soldering wires to pots, you can have great success by simply pulling the originals out of the mounts, cutting the leads and reattaching the wires (check the color code/polarity which is included in the kit) to the remaining length of wires that you clip. Solder the wires together right there, wrap with some electrical tape, bolt everything back up and your done in less than an hour.
Trust me, even for a novice, it's stupid easy and the results are more than worth it. Why heck, you can probably find that pair of pickups on evil bay for about $60.00 bucks.
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Put Bare Knuckles. Best gear purchase you will ever do - much better than SD.
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+1 Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
Put Bare Knuckle Manhattan (single coil in HB form) in my Epi Joe Pass. Couldn't be more pleased, has transformed the guitar's sound. The sound was so different to the stock pup it actually distracted me when playing it at first!!
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Yes - and I am not one of those boutique lovers that only handmade ultra rare stuff sounds great and regular amps and pedals are all bad sounding. But BK is really something else and imo not expensive at all... its a really great product, I doubt anyone regrets putting them! (even knowing how subjective tone preferences are...)
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I have an old DP 150 Dimarzio Double Whammy. I read it is good for metal music but is it good at bridge position in a hollow body for playing jazzy music?
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Seymour Duncan '59. The Seymour Duncan SH-55 is good, too. These aren't cheap, but they sound great.
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Speak of the devil - I finally got the pickups out of my 5630 and they are some sort of Seymore Duncan 59. They might be from the 80's...they don't have the brand name on the front like the modern ones. All it says on the bottom is 59N (also no branding underneath). Google is not helping - any idea when this was made and if, in fact, it is a Seymour Duncan 59 something or other? Or any other info? Since I am just getting used to the guitar I'm still not even sure what the pickup is supposed to be like sonically.
Also how would a neck pickup of one of these compare to a Burstbucker 2? I am having string balance issues with the SD59, remedied as much as I could with the pole pieces and I am still playing with height, but string two is very prominent. String 6 is also boomy. It is also really bright, but since this is my first jump into 335-style guitars perhaps that is more the guitar? I have only heard my Burstbucker when I had it in the neck of my Telecaster and it was very smooth. Dark (250k pots so it is hard to compare) but articulate, and great tone. Really tough to compare though being the difference in guitars and electronics.Last edited by rio; 06-03-2015 at 07:38 PM.
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59N means neck pickup, model 59--which was Seymour Duncan's version of the PAF for year 1959, as opposed to his "let's really get things absolutely right" PAF, the SH-55--which is a balls on accurate copy of the Seth Lover 1955 PAF.
The 59 is an excellent pickup. It, and the SH-1, are quite good PAF copies that SD has been selling for a long time. It has a resistance of between 5-6K, which doesn't mean much except that it is an indicator of how overwound or underwound the pickup is. The 59, SH-1 and SH-55 are all _not_ overwound pickups. 25 years ago, or so, everyone was overwinding the heck out of after-market pickups to make them "hot." Folks, principally the younger set who were out to pulverize audiences with mind-numbing amounts of overdrive were replacing stock pickups with the "hottest" pickups available. Pickups with miles of wire routinely tested at around 16-18K ohms on the multimeter. These pickups hit the front end of a guitar amplifier so hard that they often drove phase inverter stages of amps into blocking distortion. This sounds like...well, farting. It is an unmusical sound that occurs when the tube ceases to amplify--it is blocked. Hotter isn't always better. Vintage amplifiers were designed to see weaker signals.
Using a Seymour Duncan non-overwound pickup (that mimics the stock PAF design of the 50s) gets the best tone for jazz, IMO.\
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pickups aren't rocket science. It's 1940s technology. No need to buy expensive, hand-wound pickups. They're just trendy. Duncan and dimarzio pickups are great. The main thing for an archtop is to get non potted pickups if you want the acoustic sound of the instrument to come through. I remember a few years ago folks on TGP were buying $500 holmes pickups. Just laughable IMO...
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I agree with jzucker. Non-potted SD pickups are great. The SH55 is an example.
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It is my understanding that pickup makers started to wax pot pickups in the 70's (Gibson included) to keep customers happy. The reason most pickups are potted to this day is that no pickup manufacturer/guitar builder wants to get a call from some dickhead who has squeal problems because he is standing in front of his triple rectifier with everything dimed on both the amp and his Les Paul.
Personally, I find the warmer tone of potted pickups (like 57 Classics) just fine for jazz, but I have non potted Patent Sticker buckers in my 63 175 and will admit that there is a bit more "acoustic tone" in those. Changing strings, pickups, pots, caps, speakers and tubes (if your amp uses them) are a somewhat inexpensive way to try different tones, especially compared to owning a hundred guitars and fifty amps!
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they definitely were *NOT* potting the pickups in the '70s because my '70s les paul squeals like a baby pig. Also, my '89 175 squeals and the pickups are microphonic so I don't think they were doing it then either.
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