ASL From the maker of … Oil City!

OilCityPickups

Got to wind ultra neatly ... and no sloppiness taping up the 'core' pigtail, cos your work is there for all to see!!!! I actually really like the fact that the customer can see the quality my work.  :-)

WezV

its here  

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/temporary_zpsacef12f5.jpg

ThePrettyDamned

WezV;406395" said:

its here  :)http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/temporary_zpsacef12f5.jpg

Wow! That looks awesome!

I've got a set of ocp blades, though apparently the magnets are normal (if having three magnets in an Alnico 8/ceramic sandwich is normal!).

They look boss and sound the nuts. Hope you like yours as much as I like mine! The white looks fabulous.

Yummy. Which reminds me, I need to order my strat pickups...

OilCityPickups

They are now officially ASL @ThePrettyDamned so you had the first production prototypes! You can proudly claim to have two very rare pickups indeed!

FelineGuitars

Had the soldering iron out in a big way yesterday.

As well as Tom getting a set of Blackbirds into a customers Blackmachine B2, I also got a set of Blackbirds into 20th anniversary Lion #11.

Here is the Blackmachine B2 - quite exotic with a solid snakewood neck

steamabacus

I like the exposed copper coils against that top.
:-bd

ThePrettyDamned

That looks awesome! Clear bobbins might not work with every finish, but that looks classy!

Gorgeous fingerboard, too.

FelineGuitars

Another Blackmachine B2 - this one featuring 5300 year old Bog Oak for the front , fingerboard and headstock veneer.

Another set of ASL Blackbirds too!

FelineGuitars

We just got our first review for the Blackbird pickups.
They went out in this B6 a while back.

Jack who bought the guitar emailed me this..........

Hey man, just to let you know I've had a chance to sit down and play the new BM through my rig and check out the protos in my environment.

I've found that for high gain rhythm they break up in a really nice way, though act like a completely different beast to my BKP guitars. 
Unlike anything I've ever heard!

To my ear they're best rhythmically at mid-gain where they begin to pick up a nice crunch. 

As for leads and cleans though, my god these pickups sing. 

I don't think I'll ever use my Blackhawks for lead or clean playing again. 

Huge amounts of character, hugely musical and my jaw dropped when I pushed it through my lead settings. 

These pickups are really something else, and while they're not what I'd go for for my tight, aggressive rhythms, I can gather that that was not your focus, and what you and Doug have pulled out the bag is the most musical and sweet pickup I've ever used. 

Never heard strings sing quite like this!

Thanks again Jon, always a pleasure, and if you guys want a "demo" of them set up for their official release I'll be happy to throw something together!

Cheers man!

AlexHunter

FelineGuitars said:

While we're playing around ....I fitted a couple of ASLs in a project guitar this week

A couple of Lion Cubs aimed at having a good blues and jazz sound (still rock out though)

The guitar on the right got the ASLs whilst we had a set of BKPs that we tried for compaison in the other guitar.

I used a Beano in the bridge and a riot act in the neck (the alnico 3 lending an amazing clean tone - one that will be great for jazz too)

Some experimenting to do still - although the riot act will stay.

I may even try the Eruption in the bridge as my instincts tell me it will work well in the Korina body.

@FelineGuitars

Jonathan, is guitar A for sale?  If so, can I call dibs and I'll speak to you about it this week?

FelineGuitars

AlexHunter said:

FelineGuitars said:

While we're playing around ....I fitted a couple of ASLs in a project guitar this week

A couple of Lion Cubs aimed at having a good blues and jazz sound (still rock out though)

The guitar on the right got the ASLs whilst we had a set of BKPs that we tried for compaison in the other guitar.

I used a Beano in the bridge and a riot act in the neck (the alnico 3 lending an amazing clean tone - one that will be great for jazz too)

Some experimenting to do still - although the riot act will stay.

I may even try the Eruption in the bridge as my instincts tell me it will work well in the Korina body.

@FelineGuitars

Jonathan, is guitar A for sale?  If so, can I call dibs and I'll speak to you about it this week?

@AlexHunter

Both are available to buy. Hopefully we will have them back from paint and up and running by December/Xmas

OilCityPickups

ThePrettyDamned said:

WezV;406395" said:

its here  http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/temporary_zpsacef12f5.jpg

Wow! That looks awesome!

I've got a set of ocp blades, though apparently the magnets are normal (if having three magnets in an Alnico 8/ceramic sandwich is normal!).

They look boss and sound the nuts. Hope you like yours as much as I like mine! The white looks fabulous.

Yummy. Which reminds me, I need to order my strat pickups...

For those of a curious disposition ...
the ASLHavoc is the hottest pickup I currently wind, and, I believe has a pretty-well unique set of features:
At 16k it doesn't appear that hot, and indeed clean, it is balanced and comes with a nice range of top harmonics as well as a huge, fast tracking bass.
The Bobbins and magnets are the magic ingredients. At 50% taller than standard humbucker bobbins they allow more wire in the magnetic sweet spot, and their taller coils 'read' top frequencies better. This means a sharpness and clarity far closer to a single coil.

The final part of the picture is the 'engine room': nestling between the low carbon steel blades is a large alnico 8  bar magnet, powerful enough on its own to drive an amp very hard ... however without the grainy,brittle edge ceramics tend to impart. Added to the main alnico 8 magnet are two smaller ceramic 'outrigger magnets, their polarity calculated to act like a P90 and de-focus the field slightly, while adding more power.
What you end up with is a super musical, very wide range and high power pickup. One that splits naturally and has a very usable and powerful single coil tone in that mode.
It Is built for metal and rock .... but I regularly crank out blues on mine :-)

ThePrettyDamned

Yeah, I'd agree with all of that.

It actually does classic metal and hard rock brilliantly, and loves modern high gain, but it's not a super tight focused mid tone, like a JB. which is the ultimate one trick pony! It has a sense of depth that the JB lacks, almost like it's mated with a paf and a p90.

And with extra output on top!

Actually, when I was using them (before I gave up on the tuning stability!) I spent as much time on the coil split as I did hitting out modern high gain. They sound like a cross between a p90 and a strat pickup! Very cool indeed, and they don't have a very harsh top end like most other split coils - bright, but not harsh.

Super pickup. I will be buying more, no doubt. I suspect it'll sound AWESOME on a baritone or heavily down tuned guitar, the bass is very present (unlike my Duncan custom 5, for example) but it's not overpowering and remains tight enough for rawk.

I loves them as soon as my new tuners arrive from schaller, I'll be taking it to feline and setting it up. Once that's done, I'll do some clean and crunchy demos with plugins comparing it to the duncans I have, it'll really show off the improvements.

WezV

Thats got me excited to get it in the guitar   I had not considered adding a coil tap for this, just a single volume in the original plan - but i did route the control cavity quite large for future options so a switch may get added, maybe just a push/pull for now.  I still have to do a bit of a recarve on the neck before i get around to installing this.  I left it quite chunky, but the guitar feels built for speed  and like it needs something slimmer  (plays like butter I tell thee!!!)

 

I wired it up with a gibson 490T just for testing purposes.  It already sounds fantastic and really liveley, like a thin bodied lightweight single pickup guitar should.  It always creates a bit of a dilema when you put a test pickup in a guitar and it happens to sound fantastic, but I can't wait to get the ASL in there!!

ThePrettyDamned

Definitely split it Wez, honestly, I loved the humbucker tones but the split sounds are stellar, too. They don't sound like the usual humbucker split compromise tone, they're bright but still quite fat and very friendly on the ears. I don't need to wind the tone pot down on mine, which I do on the Duncans, or re-eq the amp.

WezV

Now I am quite tempted to go with a series/split/parallel switch  

WezV

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/wff8_zps1993e4d8.jpg

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/wff7_zps94da3dd9.jpg

its in.  First impressions are very good.   I added a push/pull for split tones too, it really does work great with this - give the guitar a Jekyll & Hyde personality

ThePrettyDamned

@wezv that looks amazing! What do you think of fanned frets? Looks incredible. 

WezV

Well its currently tuned in standard tuning with 10's - and its giving piano like clarity and massive sustain  but doesn't feel too tight at all.  It just works as it should.  That's the benefit of fanned frets on a 6 string, the tension feels a lot more natural

It does drop C pretty damn easily with these strings too

ThePrettyDamned

WezV said:

Well its currently tuned in standard tuning with 10's - and its giving piano like clarity and massive sustain  but doesn't feel too tight at all.  It just works as it should.  That's the benefit of fanned frets on a 6 string, the tension feels a lot more natural

It does drop C pretty damn easily with these strings too

*Goddamit I want one*

That's stunning, I love the satin look finish and the sheer simplicity of an instrument that probably took quite a bit of work to get that good.  

And the little shim under the bridge looks very, very tidy indeed.