Ash at Oil City answers pickup questions:

OilCityPickups

In theory absolutely :-) Switching would be fun mind! 

Funkfingers

That is the sort of trick-wiring-for-its-own-sake exhibited in ye olde Adrian Legg guitar customising book. 

At the time, four-conductor + shield output cable was pretty new. Through DiMarzio distributor Rose-Morris, Legg got to attempt all manner of wiring scheme experiments. He documented them in a book. 

One of the schematic diagrams was for two split coils pickups in a bass guitar. Using a 4P3T on/on/on switch, Legg organised things to arrive at;
Up - bridge pickup coils, in series, in phase.
Down - neck pickup coils, in series, in phase.
Centre - neck pickup EA coil, in series, in phase, with bridge pickup DG coil.

I think that the idea was to create a slap sound without recourse to onboard active EQ or passive frequency filtering.

This last example was close to the Fender Electric XII question. As Ash hints, a pig to wire up and I'm not sure that it would sound particularly good. A blend pot might yield a more musical result - à la Rickenbacker "mystery" fifth control knob.

Kalimna

Not sure if this is within the scope of the thread, but could you explain what the Prescision bass split pickup is? My mate and I were having a discussion and i thought it was just a split single coil, whereas he thought of it as a humbucker. 

Philly_Q

Kalimna said:

Not sure if this is within the scope of the thread, but could you explain what the Prescision bass split pickup is? My mate and I were having a discussion and i thought it was just a split single coil, whereas he thought of it as a humbucker. 

It's kind of both.  But I'll leave that to someone who can explain better.

OilCityPickups

As @Philly_Q said, both descriptions are accurate. For a pickup to be hum cancelling  it needs to have two coils, one south magnetic polarity and one north. These coils must be either wound in opposite directions or in the same direction with both start wires or both finish wires connected together so that one coil is effectively backwards to the other.
It doesn't matter for the hum cancelling if both coils are placed next to each other as in a conventional humbucker, or one is slid across to cover other strings as in a P bass 'humbucker'. What does matter is that with the 'split' design where one coil is moved over, each pickup half is not sensing the same harmonic on the same string in two places, and therefore less of those harmonics are filtered out by the hum cancelling process. 

Kalimna

Thank you for your explanation. Much appreciated

oldfoxy

OilCityPickups said:

If you want scooped you want alnico 5, so in my range that would be the Masterwound Dynamite, the Scrapyard Dog or for a bit more output the Airship Trooper :-)

The trooper is a pick-up I can thoroughly recommend, brilliant in a Lester

OilCityPickups

oldfoxy said:

OilCityPickups said:

If you want scooped you want alnico 5, so in my range that would be the Masterwound Dynamite, the Scrapyard Dog or for a bit more output the Airship Trooper :-)

The trooper is a pick-up I can thoroughly recommend, brilliant in a Lester

I also find them nice in the neck position of a Tele that has a very loud bridge pickup :-)

Elwood

Hey Ash, what's the back story on the ASL Havoc humbuckers? Feline have a couple of sale, but I can't find any info.

Also, you've crossed out the N on the sticker. Does that mean they are neck pickups?

Thanks in advance for the wisdom. 

FelineGuitars

Elwood said:

Hey Ash, what's the back story on the ASL Havoc humbuckers? Feline have a couple of sale, but I can't find any info.

Also, you've crossed out the N on the sticker. Does that mean they are neck pickups?

Thanks in advance for the wisdom. 

Supplying a few bits of info till Ash get here

No - its a bridge pickup

Prior to deciding on the Oil City Masterwound Name, Ash was looking for a name for his premium line of pickups and went with his own name for the signature series, but later realised it was better for brand alignment to use a version of the Oil City name. 

The Havoc was a bit of a take no prisoners kind of pickup - certainly pushing the front end of an amp hard . But being wound with AWG43 rather than AWG44 it was still less compressed sounding in spite of the high (for AWG43) DC resistance.

The combination of the Alnico 8 with flanking ceramic magnets gave it a more "organic" kind of attack rather than the all out sizzle of a fully ceramic mag beast

OilCityPickups

FelineGuitars said:

Elwood said:

Hey Ash, what's the back story on the ASL Havoc humbuckers? Feline have a couple of sale, but I can't find any info.

Also, you've crossed out the N on the sticker. Does that mean they are neck pickups?

Thanks in advance for the wisdom. 

Supplying a few bits of info till Ash get here

No - its a bridge pickup

Prior to deciding on the Oil City Masterwound Name, Ash was looking for a name for his premium line of pickups and went with his own name for the signature series, but later realised it was better for brand alignment to use a version of the Oil City name. 

The Havoc was a bit of a take no prisoners kind of pickup - certainly pushing the front end of an amp hard . But being wound with AWG43 rather than AWG44 it was still less compressed sounding in spite of the high (for AWG43) DC resistance.

The combination of the Alnico 8 with flanking ceramic magnets gave it a more "organic" kind of attack rather than the all out sizzle of a fully ceramic mag beast

Jonathon has it completely correct ... and it splits beautifully 

Elwood

Thank you, to you both! 

TDubs

Hi Ash @OilCityPickups ;

Is a tapped Gibson humbucker a reversible modification? If it is reversed, should the pickup, in theory, sound as it did previously?

Cheers

OilCityPickups

TDubs said:

Hi Ash @OilCityPickups ;;

Is a tapped Gibson humbucker a reversible modification? If it is reversed, should the pickup, in theory, sound as it did previously?

Cheers

Okay I take it that you mean split rather than tapped ... as in general you tap a single coil and split (or coil shunt) a humbucker. 
A coil split only changes the pickup's sound when it's switched in ... when one coil is not shunted to ground it sounds completely like an un split humbucker. So to reverse a coil split ... just don't turn it on :-)

TDubs

OilCityPickups said:

TDubs said:

Hi Ash @OilCityPickups ;;

Is a tapped Gibson humbucker a reversible modification? If it is reversed, should the pickup, in theory, sound as it did previously?

Cheers

Okay I take it that you mean split rather than tapped ... as in general you tap a single coil and split (or coil shunt) a humbucker. 
A coil split only changes the pickup's sound when it's switched in ... when one coil is not shunted to ground it sounds completely like an un split humbucker. So to reverse a coil split ... just don't turn it on :-)

Thanks for your help here and over message Ash

OilCityPickups

TDubs said:

OilCityPickups said:

TDubs said:

Hi Ash @OilCityPickups ;;

Is a tapped Gibson humbucker a reversible modification? If it is reversed, should the pickup, in theory, sound as it did previously?

Cheers

Okay I take it that you mean split rather than tapped ... as in general you tap a single coil and split (or coil shunt) a humbucker. 
A coil split only changes the pickup's sound when it's switched in ... when one coil is not shunted to ground it sounds completely like an un split humbucker. So to reverse a coil split ... just don't turn it on :-)

Thanks for your help here and over message Ash

My pleasure :-)

Funkfingers

There are some people who claim to hear a difference between output cable formats. e.g. Single conductor + braid versus four conductor + foil/drain. Presumably, the extra distance that the electrons have to travel to the series link and back either delays the signal or loads it via capacitance or something?

This phenomenon may be confined to Eric Johnson, Joe Bonamassa and Nigel Tuffnel.