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Peter Biltoft Double Charlie Christian Floater! Direct replacement for Handmade Kent Armstrong 12 Pole Peice (which is a great p/up already)
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12-29-2017 05:02 PM
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I'm confused Guitron45. If you so dislike Eastman instruments, why do you keep buying them? Isn't the old expression "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me?"
I have 3 Eastman instruments. I love all 3. They sound great, they look great, they work great. Ok the pickups could use improvement but that is an easy fix. They let me have three distinctly different, excellent instruments at less than the price of a new 17" Gibson. Plus they offer features in an instrument that I can't get in a Gibson regardless of price.
I wish you the best of luck finding an instrument that makes you happier!
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My issues are mostly with the company and their quality control.
"Plus they offer features in an instrument that I can't get in a Gibson regardless of price"
Re your quote above...
If some of those features are tuning pegs that feel poorly made, or notes that sound like they came from a guitar costing thousands less you are right. They don't show up often on the better Gibsons. I came by the Eastman's over a period of 10 years moe and all at used instrument prices or lower. I keep hoping one day they'll send me one that lives up to their hype by mistake.
And I wish you well also.
Ron
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I do fairly well with mine too until I go to tune it or land on a note that has no sustain and doesn't ring like a bell.
My very best to all of you who've taken the time to share your knowledge and insights with me. I'm truly grateful....... but still not dead.
Ron
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I need an instrument with a short scale and a 17" body. The only gibson that does this is the Johnny Smith (Now discontinued...). The best price for a used JS I could found was over $5000 in pretty rough shape. I like the tone of my AR910CE or AR610CE every bit as much as the one JS I played. Cost a whole lot less...
What year(s) were your Eastmans built? Earlier than 2009 is when the trouble stories seem to have originated. Mine are all after 2012 and no hardware or wood working/finishing issues at all...
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My Eastman has standard Gotoh tuners, not in the Waverly price range but good solid tuners. The cause of tuning problems is often the nut, not the tuners. Get the nut slots wide enough for the strings you're using and you will have fewer problems. The other issue is the headstock design. It's designed for looks, not playability, and wide headstocks are more problematic than narrow ones because of the angle of the string coming out of the nut causes binding, regardless of how well the nut is cut. It seems to me to be worse with roundwound strings, and that doesn't surprise me. Overall, Eastman seems to make decent guitars, and I've never heard anyone slag them the way guitron does. But some people do that to Gibson, Benedetto, and every other brand. Some customers will never be satisfied.
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Yunzhi and Wu guitars have the same problem to my ears. Though not quite so bright as Eastman for some reason. I find the 12 pole Armstrong handmade pickup to be the best sounding in these guitars. Especially in a floater. You can get it here at a discount around holidays. Note that you want the handmade 12 pole jazz pickup. There are some confusing variations..
WDMusic.com - Best Online Store for Guitar Parts & Bass Parts
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Hello Guido5, I probably saw that first Eastman in the late 80s or early 90s. As someone who has always loved the smell/feel of and worked with wood, carving it or other wise shaping it, or giving it a luster like turquoise with lapidary equipment those guitars and the classic finish drew me like a magnet. And in 1961 or so I saw my firs archtop in a second story music store with seriously squeaky steps that just enhanced the anticipation [ after my initial visit ] of those amazing shapes and sounds. At the top of the steps were archtops in a glass case like a museum. I hadn't begun playing yet but just looking at them was enough in the begining. When I found out you could hold one I was too shy to try it. Then I met this girl who had a guitar. It was almost too much to contemplate.
Ron
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Hmmm... The Eastman company didn't form until 1994 and didn't start making guitars till years after that...
Originally Posted by guitron45
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Hi Guido5, I've learned not to be too surprised when I find I've been wrong about something to do with the passage of time. We went off grid in 83. that one I'm sure of. With that decision came, no tv, no newspapers, no worries to speak of just a flow of one great day to another. I still never know what day it is but our PV system has and is still growing and we don't lack for information input but it's pick and choose. We would no have internet If I hadn't learned of a guy in Texas with a yard full of como cable who was giving it away for the cost of shipping. Me and three guys humped the spool of six conductor buriiable cable up the steepest side of our mesa and down the other side to a telephone pole on a neighbor's land and bang we made it into the 90's or one of those decades. We've been very happy here. We found land near a town of 25, that is on top of a mesa that looks over the Tularosa Basin. The house my wife and built sets in a valley there and our access road is long enough and rough enough to turn most people around at the top of the first switch back. It's scary the way one decade melts into the other these days.
I'm looking at 73 for my next birthday and I am loosing short term memory faster than I'd like. I also have trouble concentrating so that while playing a tune I know I come to a page that is blank [ if I were sight reading, which I can't do yet but I try to read a little most days. ] it's the best metafore I can come up with. BTW, Grandma's Music and Sound In Albuquerque just closed. It and West LA Music were my go to sources for instruments and recording stuff. W.L.A. has also long since closed.
That's hard to believe but a guy who I used to play with in Ca. told me the live
music scene in L.A. is just about gone. When I heard record companies were paying Doug Weston to have their hot new group play the Troubadour I laughed at first but that didn't last long. I had long since formed the opinion that in things that really matter, the money is always wrong. It was like payola all over again but worse.
So, sorry I got the decade wrong, it probably won't be the last time. I value the input i get here and it wasn't my intent to mislead you. Sorry for the verbosity. too.
I'm caring for my wife 24/7 who is well into dementia after 40 years of diabetes. I can't leave here without her so the net is my only social escape to visit with other musicians. Rural areas have their drawbacks. One of them is the lack of anything but country music and rock oldies. Most of the musicians are playing the same songs they did in the 60s/70s. A lot of very fine music still lives there but I don't seek it out much. Got Jim Hall and his peers on my FiiO X3 file player and they go with me everywhere..... when I get to go.
Ron
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Taking care of sick loved ones is a hard road. May the music support you!
Play in peace my friend!
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I'm glad that ended peacefully! Guitron: if you say unkind things about Eastman you're bound to get some kick-back from those of us that love ours. I've been carefully holding my tongue on the issue...
Back to the quest for warmth. I'd highly recommend this:
kent_armstrong_handwound_paf_resin_cast_12_pole_si de_mount_black_kahw_svinb12_res.html
10 days ago I took delivery of a Lehmann guitar that has it. You'll see it on a large number of luthier-built instruments, like the Elferink currently in the For Sale section. It is a full size floating humbucker. Well.... almost. It's about 1/8 inch smaller fingerboard to bridge wise. I can compare directly as I switched out the stock one on my Eastman Pisano 880 for the hand-made K.Armstrong set pickup about a year ago. It's deff not a mini-humbuck JS type pickup. You would have to modify your pick-guard to accept it.
There's another possible benefit with this one: it can easily balance bronze strings due to all those pole pieces. That's what I'm currently doing and I couldn't be happier with it. I now have a instrument with a proper acoustic as well as electric sound. The full size floater with bronze strings seems very close to the set pickup with nickel round-wound thru the amp. I do have that Pisano pickup set a bit on the lower side, which probably evens things out a bit.
My feelings could be a result of the honeymoon effect, as I'm honestly not playing the Eastman that much at present. I have made the comparison a few times. The 2 just have a little different voice and feel and I like them both very much. I think I'll have a use for each.
Finally, I'd like to say that the Lehmann, (which cost twice what the Pisano did) has given me a new appreciation of what a fine instrument my particular Eastman Pisano is. And that's no knock on the Lehmann.
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Thanks for the kind thoughts Amigo, and yes the music along with lot's of turmeric and piperine are a big help to keep the inflammation in my hips and hands somewhat at bay. The hands are a little more tolerant of the stretchier chords the last few days. I'd quit playing for 5 weeks and it didn't make much difference. `Bout that time I came across the info on piperine and how it inhibits a liver enzyme to keep the turmeric goodies in the blood stream a little longer.
Another way to look at my love/not love affair with Eastman It is bit like a marriage can be sometimes.
Ron
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Hello croft. I need to be careful here, because my short term memory is not the best anymore, but there are two issues here. What Eastman promised and what I got. The guilt less guitar and the Corporation. It is because I love these guitars that I feel comfortable with pointing out their short comings. I play the 880 and 910 daily and feel like I'm cheating on the other one whichever one I play. I have a 12 pole black humbucker on both of them but the 880's is considerably bigger. I am pretty sure the one on the 910 is one of Kent's hand wound ones. I sent him the 910's pick guard at one point to have it installed. If there is a place to post mp3's on the forum I have a recording of the 910 with that pickup. It seems warm enough. it's an older recording and I used an emulation of the famed compressor from Ocean Way studios.... Fairchild 760 or 670 I for get, I'm also terminally dyslexic. Took a while to float that name up from the bottom of the pond.
The son of the Universal Audio guy found a way to digitally clone some of the attributes of that box and many others.Is it the same I don't know but if you drop it across a stereo pair your ears will like it. I use to live a half mile from there but didn't know that compressor was there then.
You mentioned bronze strings, I remember using Thomastik strings for quite a while because they supposedly had less tension in the wound strings. I really like the way the bronze strings from that set looked on the naked finger board. Which bronze ones are you using?
I think I put the flats on the 910 because I was considering putting my Roland Gk something or other on it. It was going to float above the top and be fastened to the under side of the tail piece. I figured the flats would yield fewer glitches while I got used to it again. The idea is currently on hold. But those sexy bronze strings... tell me more please. Again I'm sorry for all the verbiage.
Ron
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Ron - the one Kent installed for you could be his mini humbucker, which is different than the one I linked too. That would be the same size as the stock one that came on the 910 and would've been a direct swap. The one I linked to is bigger. It has just under 2" between the pole pieces... IE the string span. Not sure what the distance is on this one, but I know it's less:
* WD Music Products - KENT ARMSTRONG® HANDWOUND MINI HUM 12 POLE - SIDE MOUNT GOLD
Note that he makes this same one in black and nickel. This could be what's on your 910 now.
It's confusing for sure, but they are different. He calls one a 'mini hum bucker' and the other 'floating paf'. The paf is resin cast and has hex socket pole pieces. The mini hum has standard slotted poles and I guess it's a metal cover. I think the cast resin is sort of a 'potted' treatment. His set PAF like on our 880's is the same.
I'm afraid I can't comment on the mini VS PAF sound as I've never owned a floating mini, AKA Johnny Smith. I can say that my Lehmann with floating PAF is similar in character to my 880 with set PAF, as I hear them through my amp. I guess I'll have to set up some sort of recording rig one day...
I just put some D'Addario Phosphor 12 to 53 round-wound on there to try it. I'm pretty new to the floating pickup, not to mention the bronze strings. They've only been on for a few days. Main reason for the change was the acoustic sound, with the nice surprise that the electric sound didn't suffer once the poles where adjusted. It just may be that the electric sound is a little mellower than it was with nickel round-wound. I like to think it is, but I'm not good at remembering sound qualities like this so can't really say for sure.
'Omphalopsychos' has posted sound samples around here somewhere of his 910 with bronze strings through a DeArmond pickup. That's what gave me the idea to try it. AFAIK that guitar is still for sale on the board. (wondering if I got the spelling right on his handle....)
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Well I for sure have the slotted pole pieces and the span is 2" outside to outside. The 160.00 part is familiar.
Straighten me out on Patent Applied For, Are they single or double coil? I was listening to some of the comparisons on utubeyesterday and was surprised to find the a PAF had the best low end in one of the demos. There was very little difference in most of the pickups with the same riff repeated for each pickup.
Ever use Thomastik strings? I kind of liked those but they are a bit pricey. Especially if I have to throw away the top three strings for the hybrid setup I like to use. I haven't had them on in about a year or so. But they seemed to be right between round wounds and flats in the way they sounded on the 910. I might have to try those again. I'm not unhappy with the sound I'm getting now on either of these fatties. But wonder if there's more.....
Ron
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these things are piles of maple. maple on maple with a side of maple. and the occasional bit or spruce, or some ebony. thing is, those are bright woods. so, of course, the guitars are going to be bright. gibsons are bright, too. it depends on how you use it, and how you set your knobs, and the rest of the signal chain.
which brings me to this: what about the other electronics in the chain? pots and caps? your amp? what kind of bridge do you have? i ask as a guy who always tinkers with that. all that makes a fair amount of different, and can be cheaper and easier than a pup swap. or just as vital.
as pickups go, i do like the mojo tone 59 clones. you can pick your magnet, and specify a high or low wind, to tailor the pickup to your needs. all handwound in the usa. not sure if they still run sales but i didn't find the pricing unreasonable. about a week turn around for a hand make pickup wound to spec. not a bad deal, and they can make it as bright or warm as you ask them to. they are helpful with their advice, as well.
i tend to do pickups last. i like to swap out all the crappy parts, usually the bridge and electronics, meet my guitar for the first time, see exactly what i'm dealing with and make a decision from there. though i still end up swapping the pickups most of the time. but i have a better idea of what to get, instead of having to try out several different pickups, which is more cost and labor intensive.
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It's double. It's a lowish output humbucker along the lines of the early PAF labelled Gibsons. It's almost identical to Kent's handmade set PAF that I put in my Pisano 880. Main diff is it's pick guard mounted. Originally Posted by guitron45
I got mixed up with dimensions earlier. The 'Floating PAF' is a full sized floating humbucker. The poles on any given string are about 3/4 inches apart, in the direction from nut to bridge.
The mini-humbucker will be a fair bit smaller along this same dimension. They're probably both about the same size across the strings from low E to high.
It sounds like you have a hand-made KA mini-hum. By all accounts this is a great pickup. Not sure in what way it sounds different than his full size floating PAF. You might try asking Kent directly if you don't get there with the strings, and you're interested in spending the $$.
Best of luck in the Tone Quest!
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Thanks again ccroft, I'm going to order one of those when the season's hoopla is over. I'll try tomorrow. IIRC the full sized floating PAF has hex screws for balancing the strings.
I'm intrigued but the motherbucker buzz. MY very first El Rey II had a really hot pu in the bridge position. I sent it back because of the developing crack in the cutaway. None of the later three or four had a bridge pickup any where near that hot.
Ron
PS anybody here like Thomastiks on their fatties?
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