The quirkiest pickup winder in the UK needs some new designs!

Alegree

Hi folks,
I'm Alex from Alegree, a rather new pickup winder on the scene. 
I've just about got to the point of being happy with the standard 'must-haves' pickup sets in my catalogue now (50s humbuckers, 60s Strat, hotrodded humbucker set (to be released very soon)) and now I want to pursue my real goal - having the most unique pickup designs ever.
For anyone who hasn't stumbled across me yet, and is curious what I have to offer,  have a look at www.alegree.co.uk for my pickup information site, and shop.alegree.co.uk for my entire range of products.

Here's what I already have:
Hot P90 toned Strat bridge
Strat toned Tele neck (all my Strat necks are available like this)
Active toned humbucker set
Hybrid humbucker
Really clean and bright (acoustic like) Strat set

Here's what I have planned:
(Quite hard to describe the tone) a Tele bridge/P90 toned with a humbucker bridge bite humbucker neck. Basically a high output humbucker neck which is cleaner than any humbucker neck I've ever heard before. (prototyping done, to be released shortly)
vintage P90 toned Strat set
High output Strat set utilising flatwork flare for a scooped vintage EQ
Tele bridge toned Strat bridge
Active pickups with passive characteristics and look
Hot minihumbucker bridge (hotrodded bridge characteristics)(prototyping has begun)
Alnico rods and bar magnet + steel screws humbuckers

February has been really rather quiet, so I'm flying through the prototypes at the moment and I'm struggling to think of more designs. I'm sure there's lots of mad scientists on this forum who have crazy ideas that have never been made before, so lets collaborate and build some weird stuff!

Edit:
The general consensus appears to be for Filtertrons and Staple P90s
I'll update with photos and maybe some videos of my progress as these develop. 
the first humbucker sized filtertron prototype! Wrong cover due to supplier screw up, but pretty nevertheless. 4.4k DCR with massive alnico 5 magnet - tone is like a less twangy and lower output P90 - doesn't sound remotely like a stadard Gibson bucker. It has a smoothness and a treble bite that P90s lack - they seem like opposites, so both together is a bit bizarre! 

Winny_Pooh

Full size Goil foil in a humbucker case with a second coil you can switch on in series for more gain and humbucking.  

Alegree

That would be a really interesting project!

Truth be told I'm not very familiar with gold foils, but what little information I've been able to find, they look like they're constructed like a Jazzmaster pickup with a bar magnet rather than rods.

I reckon something along the lines of a  P rails would work- using a single coil sized humbucker bobbin for the secondary coil. Working out how it would all be held together would be a challenge though. 

Alegree

Scratch that. Rubber ferrite magnets. They sound like fun! 
I think I'll have to order in some of this stuff to satisfy my curiosity. 

Sporky

A pickup that instead of magnets uses anger.

ToneControl

A tele horseshoe bridge

and some of those  pickup-through coil designs fender did on their lap steels, that have no pick attack

Gassage

I can't answer your question but the best pup innovation in years is the Joe Naylor Rail Hammer.

It really does work.

WezV

staple top P-90's.   doesn't need all the adjustable gubbins

murraypops

WezV said:

staple top P-90's.   doesn't need all the adjustable gubbins

I'd be interested in this!

Alegree

No shortage of ideas here!

I'd like to get into staples  at some point in the future, but at this point in time I don't think I could. I'd need to have loads of custom parts made for those and I think the investment would be too much for me at present- all my profits are going into upsizing my store at the moment!

Ideally for the moment I'd like designs that I could make out of the standard parts I already have my hands on (my supplier has a pretty decent array of parts so I can still be pretty adventurous)  - but of course with some twists in construction to make them unique.

The_Whisper_Thief

I'd like someone to take the time and design some options for the middle pup on a strat. I feel like the bridge and neck pups get all the love and no one bothers about the poor middle pup!

ThePrettyDamned

The_Whisper_Thief said:

I'd like someone to take the time and design some options for the middle pup on a strat. I feel like the bridge and neck pups get all the love and no one bothers about the poor middle pup!

This confuses me, as it's the best pickup position  

Seriously - Used to be all about the neck, then I went through a snappy bridge phase and now I hang out on the middle. 

Never use the inbetween positions - I'd be happy with a 3 way. 

Alegree

The_Whisper_Thief said:

I'd like someone to take the time and design some options for the middle pup on a strat. I feel like the bridge and neck pups get all the love and no one bothers about the poor middle pup!

Funny you should say that, I had a customer come to me saying that he hardly ever used the 3rd position but he thought the middle pickup was the best tone after he installed a set of my pickups! It was my Frostbite set - i wind the middle hotter than the neck and that'e already medium hot.

 I think the problem is that it's made to be the same as the neck, and the neck is always designed to be more bright to compensate for being the neck pickup - so you get an overly bright middle to get the nice quack 2 and 4 positions. I reckon you could get a nice middle tone with a tapped single - have the 2 and 4 positions tapped to be the same as the neck, then the 3rd position could be with the additional coil to beef it up a bit. I'm sure there's a switch out there that could automatically do that.

ToneControl

does anyone ever use SHS on a strat?

with the coil split  to get the inbetween sounds

Alegree

ToneControl said:

does anyone ever use SHS on a strat?

with the coil split  to get the inbetween sounds

Can't say I've ever seen it before.

It's my understanding that inbetwen sounds sound quacky because the pickups cancel frequencies when used in parallel - the closer the pickups are in design, the more frequency cancellations, the more quack. I'm sure that's probably a oversimplification, but that's my experience of it.

A split humbucker and a true single are very different in design so there probably wouldn't be a great deal of quack in those 2 and 4 positions. Maybe if the neck and bridge were made to be like split humbuckers by design you'd get decent quack and a P90 like tone in the neck and bridge positions.

ToneControl

Alegree said:

ToneControl said:

does anyone ever use SHS on a strat?

with the coil split  to get the inbetween sounds

Can't say I've ever seen it before.

It's my understanding that inbetwen sounds sound quacky because the pickups cancel frequencies when used in parallel - the closer the pickups are in design, the more frequency cancellations, the more quack. I'm sure that's probably a oversimplification, but that's my experience of it.

A split humbucker and a true single are very different in design so there probably wouldn't be a great deal of quack in those 2 and 4 positions. Maybe if the neck and bridge were made to be like split humbuckers by design you'd get decent quack and a P90 like tone in the neck and bridge positions.

I have some suhr humbuckers that sound very strat like when split

Alegree

ToneControl said:

Alegree said:

ToneControl said:

does anyone ever use SHS on a strat?

with the coil split  to get the inbetween sounds

Can't say I've ever seen it before.

It's my understanding that inbetwen sounds sound quacky because the pickups cancel frequencies when used in parallel - the closer the pickups are in design, the more frequency cancellations, the more quack. I'm sure that's probably a oversimplification, but that's my experience of it.

A split humbucker and a true single are very different in design so there probably wouldn't be a great deal of quack in those 2 and 4 positions. Maybe if the neck and bridge were made to be like split humbuckers by design you'd get decent quack and a P90 like tone in the neck and bridge positions.

I have some suhr humbuckers that sound very strat like when split

For sure there's some great humbucker split tones out there, but the lack of SHS pickguards means that those combinations will never been found! 

If there's enough interest I could poke my supplier and see if I can have some custom guards cut for SHS.  

WezV

the main issue with SHS is it looks ridiculous

JayGee

ToneControl said:

does anyone ever use SHS on a strat?

with the coil split  to get the inbetween sounds

No idea whether it bdoes the coiln split thing, but...

http://i.imgur.com/t6gRE8G.jpg

...Wayne Kramer signature/tribute.

andy1839

P90 soapbar with metal cover but with the two height screws rather than having to have a mini HB mounted in the cream surround. I've wanted humbuckers in a 3xP90 equipped guitar but there's not much by way of choice. 

WezV

JayGee said:

ToneControl said:

does anyone ever use SHS on a strat?

with the coil split  to get the inbetween sounds

No idea whether it bdoes the coiln split thing, but...

http://i.imgur.com/t6gRE8G.jpg

...Wayne Kramer signature/tribute.

I refer you to my previous post