Firebird neck pickup with wide range humbucker bridge pickup?

Lebarque

Anyone tried this combo? Firebird bridge pickups sound a bit ratty on demos. Love the neck though. For a forthcoming partscaster.

Seziertisch

Lebarque said:

Anyone tried this combo? Firebird bridge pickups sound a bit ratty on demos. Love the neck though. For a forthcoming partscaster.

Haven’t tried this specific combo, but I think it should sound good. Probably best to get them wound as a pair so that there is no huge discrepancy in output

octatonic

Love the idea, if it is a real Wideranger (as in CuNiFe magnets).

Consider Gold Foil too though.

Funkfingers

Lebarque said:

Firebird bridge pickups sound a bit ratty

Proper vintage spec ones are. That is why they are so good for slide guitar. Ideally, two Firebird pickups should be governed by individual volume pots for blending.

It might be worth asking the pickup makers on this forum how much hotter/smoother a Firebird pickup could be made without it starting to suck. More turns of wire? A8 bar magnets? A larger cover to accommodate additional bar magnets à la Gibson Tony Iommi signature humbucker?

My suggestions are clones of either a Filter'Tron or a Dyna-Sonic. Hot/overwound version might help.

OilCityPickups

A stock WR is too powerful to pair up nicely with a FB ... I'd recommend a custom wound standard HB sized WR ... built to balance ...

Teacherphil

Modern Gibson firebird mini humbucker style pickups are 21k. In other words, hotter than the sun. They're not actually mini humbuckers, different design. Vintage firebird had fairly low output pickups.

OilCityPickups

My own are 7k or thereabouts ...

Teacherphil

I'd do whatever OilCityPickups says.

earwighoney

OilCityPickups said:

A stock WR is too powerful to pair up nicely with a FB ... I'd recommend a custom wound standard HB sized WR ... built to balance ...

What are 70's Tele Customs like?  I always thought the neck WR would be so much louder than the standard Tele Bridge pickup. 

p90fool

The Kent Armstrong Firebird pickup sounds pretty hot even though it has the correct Firebird construction, in fact I might have one somewhere you can try. 

I'll have a dig later.

Corvus

Know I'm in the minority but I quite like the modern FB pickups. Not as hot as DCR might inply, they're wound with thinner wire and are no louder than average 'buckers. Certainly nowhere near as hot as a 14kish JB for instance. The neck is about 13-14k I think, again on thinner wire. I like that they're fatter that trad FB pickups, they sit somewhere between them and full size 'buckers sound-wise.

Funkfingers

earwighoney said:

What are 70's Tele Customs like?  I always thought the neck WR would be so much louder than the standard Tele Bridge pickup. 

It is louder but not by as much as you might imagine. The solution is to set the WR fairly low on its screws. 

OilCityPickups said:

My own [Winterizer pickups] are 7k or thereabouts ...

As some readers will already know, I have a pair of these. I am, therefore, somewhat biased in their favour.