If You Want Cheap But Good Humbuckers

Ddigger

BillDL said:

@Ddigger - yes, Alegree pickups are good, and his "Old Timer" range offer very good value for good pickups just as the Vanson ones do.  If you are talking about the Alegree hand wound pickups, then they are obviously at a very different price level from the Vanson pickups.

I haven't tried custom or expensive Alegree pickups.

I didn't reply earlier as I had some Alegree Old Timer Scoop humbuckers to fit to a guitar.  These as are T-type Alnico V, 4 conductor leads and were £48 for a set (neck and bridge).  They have short legs, which is what the guitar body required.  I was wanting something bright and rowdy and they fit the bill.  They are wired up with push/push pots to allow the coils to be parallel.  First time I've tried HBs in parallel.  Parallel works fine, a drop in output as expected, but no change in "character", so probably not what I am looking for.

I messaged Alegree with some queries before I bought the Scoop HBs and Alex replied quickly.

I also have a set of Alegree Old Timer 1959 HBs.  You can choose from 4 different resistances and 4 different magnet types.  For the price, the choice is unbeatable.

These replaced the rubbish Wilkinson HBs in a Vintage brand LP.  I ordered them with Alnico III magnets as I had never knowingly heard what an Alnico III HB sounded like.  I ordered some loose magnets as well and tried different combinations.

ToneControl

Is there anything that can be done with the HAF-N humbucker - Neck:
https://roswellpickups.com/product/haf-n/
to lose the mids?

BillDL

My understanding is that higher value pots (on the neck pickup side of a 4-knob arrangement) would allow more of the higher frequencies through to the signal and that might balance the mids a bit better, but I don't know how that would then affect the treble side while both pickups are selected because I'm not that clever with electronics.

ToneControl

BillDL said:

My understanding is that higher value pots (on the neck pickup side of a 4-knob arrangement) would allow more of the higher frequencies through to the signal and that might balance the mids a bit better, but I don't know how that would then affect the treble side while both pickups are selected because I'm not that clever with electronics.

nice idea
trouble is the guitar I'm thinking of is a Harley benton clone of a PRS hollowbody, and there's no way i want to replace the pots or pickups on it.

I suppose I could just get the pickup(s) out and cut the wires short on a new one, and just solder it to the remains of the old cable.

BillDL

It wouldn't be too bad with it only having the two pots and they are close enough to the F-hole to see where the pots are and fish through it to push the pots and switch up through the holes, but I suppose it depends how much slack they have allowed on the wiring loom and whether there is a good sized aperture out of one of the pickup cavities to pull the pots and switch through.  I can understand that it's a job that you wouldn't really want to undertake if you aren't well practiced at that kind of thing.

ToneControl

yeah, easier to use EQ!

Littlejonny

Great to hear about these Vansons. I love my Blues Engines but less so the Rolling Mill, which to me sounds a bit nasal. I’ll grab a set of these Vansons at some point for an experiment.

paulphoenix

longjaw said:

I have a set of Vanson AlNiCo 5s single coils in a Strat partscaster and they're great. Had them for at least 5 years.

This is comforting news - I've just ordered a Vanson Classic Pro neck and middle SC, to pair (triplet?) with an Irongear Blues Engine in a Jet JS400 I acquired earlier this month. 

 

Dave_Mc

BillDL said:

It wouldn't be too bad with it only having the two pots and they are close enough to the F-hole to see where the pots are and fish through it to push the pots and switch up through the holes, but I suppose it depends how much slack they have allowed on the wiring loom and whether there is a good sized aperture out of one of the pickup cavities to pull the pots and switch through.  I can understand that it's a job that you wouldn't really want to undertake if you aren't well practiced at that kind of thing.

You'd only need to get at the switch if you're just changing pickups, wouldn't you? It seems very close to the F-hole, if you're lucky you could get it out through the F-hole. I managed to do my Patrick Eggle Vienna semi-hollow entirely through the F-hole, 1 switch and two pots all very close to the F-hole. It was still a bit of a pain, to be clear. But it was doable, even for an eejit like me.

EDIT: I'm not sure about the mids @ToneControl - you can adjust the tone a bit I think with capacitors, but I've no idea if that affects the mids or other frequencies. I think bass maybe? It's often suggested for boomy neck humbuckers. But then you'd still need to solder and fish the stuff out of the f-hole...

ToneControl

Dave_Mc said:

BillDL said:

It wouldn't be too bad with it only having the two pots and they are close enough to the F-hole to see where the pots are and fish through it to push the pots and switch up through the holes, but I suppose it depends how much slack they have allowed on the wiring loom and whether there is a good sized aperture out of one of the pickup cavities to pull the pots and switch through.  I can understand that it's a job that you wouldn't really want to undertake if you aren't well practiced at that kind of thing.

You'd only need to get at the switch if you're just changing pickups, wouldn't you? It seems very close to the F-hole, if you're lucky you could get it out through the F-hole. I managed to do my Patrick Eggle Vienna semi-hollow entirely through the F-hole, 1 switch and two pots all very close to the F-hole. It was still a bit of a pain, to be clear. But it was doable, even for an eejit like me.

EDIT: I'm not sure about the mids @ToneControl - you can adjust the tone a bit I think with capacitors, but I've no idea if that affects the mids or other frequencies. I think bass maybe? It's often suggested for boomy neck humbuckers. But then you'd still need to solder and fish the stuff out of the f-hole...

I can do soldering, but not so keen on keyhole surgery

BillDL

It's fortunate you didn't follow medicine and become a proctologist then.

Dave_Mc

ToneControl said:

Dave_Mc said:

BillDL said:

It wouldn't be too bad with it only having the two pots and they are close enough to the F-hole to see where the pots are and fish through it to push the pots and switch up through the holes, but I suppose it depends how much slack they have allowed on the wiring loom and whether there is a good sized aperture out of one of the pickup cavities to pull the pots and switch through.  I can understand that it's a job that you wouldn't really want to undertake if you aren't well practiced at that kind of thing.

You'd only need to get at the switch if you're just changing pickups, wouldn't you? It seems very close to the F-hole, if you're lucky you could get it out through the F-hole. I managed to do my Patrick Eggle Vienna semi-hollow entirely through the F-hole, 1 switch and two pots all very close to the F-hole. It was still a bit of a pain, to be clear. But it was doable, even for an eejit like me.

EDIT: I'm not sure about the mids @ToneControl - you can adjust the tone a bit I think with capacitors, but I've no idea if that affects the mids or other frequencies. I think bass maybe? It's often suggested for boomy neck humbuckers. But then you'd still need to solder and fish the stuff out of the f-hole...

I can do soldering, but not so keen on keyhole surgery

I don't think you have to do keyhole surgery, I think you can just loosen the switch (and take the switch tip off to make the next bit easier), put your hand underneath it through the f-hole to catch it (careful in case there's something sharp in there) and then push it through from the top of the guitar- and then if you're lucky the wires/cables are long enough to let you push it out of the f-hole with your other hand. You only have to be able to get at the contacts. Then just snip or desolder the old humbucker wires at the switch and solder the new humbucker wires to the switch, and then just push it back in again through the f-hole. A 335 or something like that is a much more difficult proposition (I've never chanced one of those either!), but when you only have one switch as close to the f-hole as that it's not too bad. I managed it on my Eggle, anyway.

ToneControl

Dave_Mc said:

ToneControl said:

Dave_Mc said:

BillDL said:

It wouldn't be too bad with it only having the two pots and they are close enough to the F-hole to see where the pots are and fish through it to push the pots and switch up through the holes, but I suppose it depends how much slack they have allowed on the wiring loom and whether there is a good sized aperture out of one of the pickup cavities to pull the pots and switch through.  I can understand that it's a job that you wouldn't really want to undertake if you aren't well practiced at that kind of thing.

You'd only need to get at the switch if you're just changing pickups, wouldn't you? It seems very close to the F-hole, if you're lucky you could get it out through the F-hole. I managed to do my Patrick Eggle Vienna semi-hollow entirely through the F-hole, 1 switch and two pots all very close to the F-hole. It was still a bit of a pain, to be clear. But it was doable, even for an eejit like me.

EDIT: I'm not sure about the mids @ToneControl - you can adjust the tone a bit I think with capacitors, but I've no idea if that affects the mids or other frequencies. I think bass maybe? It's often suggested for boomy neck humbuckers. But then you'd still need to solder and fish the stuff out of the f-hole...

I can do soldering, but not so keen on keyhole surgery

I don't think you have to do keyhole surgery, I think you can just loosen the switch (and take the switch tip off to make the next bit easier), put your hand underneath it through the f-hole to catch it (careful in case there's something sharp in there) and then push it through from the top of the guitar- and then if you're lucky the wires/cables are long enough to let you push it out of the f-hole with your other hand. You only have to be able to get at the contacts. Then just snip or desolder the old humbucker wires at the switch and solder the new humbucker wires to the switch, and then just push it back in again through the f-hole. A 335 or something like that is a much more difficult proposition (I've never chanced one of those either!), but when you only have one switch as close to the f-hole as that it's not too bad. I managed it on my Eggle, anyway.

this guitar has a coil tap switch in the tone control, so that pot would need to come out too

Dave_Mc

ToneControl said:

Dave_Mc said:

ToneControl said:

Dave_Mc said:

BillDL said:

It wouldn't be too bad with it only having the two pots and they are close enough to the F-hole to see where the pots are and fish through it to push the pots and switch up through the holes, but I suppose it depends how much slack they have allowed on the wiring loom and whether there is a good sized aperture out of one of the pickup cavities to pull the pots and switch through.  I can understand that it's a job that you wouldn't really want to undertake if you aren't well practiced at that kind of thing.

You'd only need to get at the switch if you're just changing pickups, wouldn't you? It seems very close to the F-hole, if you're lucky you could get it out through the F-hole. I managed to do my Patrick Eggle Vienna semi-hollow entirely through the F-hole, 1 switch and two pots all very close to the F-hole. It was still a bit of a pain, to be clear. But it was doable, even for an eejit like me.

EDIT: I'm not sure about the mids @ToneControl - you can adjust the tone a bit I think with capacitors, but I've no idea if that affects the mids or other frequencies. I think bass maybe? It's often suggested for boomy neck humbuckers. But then you'd still need to solder and fish the stuff out of the f-hole...

I can do soldering, but not so keen on keyhole surgery

I don't think you have to do keyhole surgery, I think you can just loosen the switch (and take the switch tip off to make the next bit easier), put your hand underneath it through the f-hole to catch it (careful in case there's something sharp in there) and then push it through from the top of the guitar- and then if you're lucky the wires/cables are long enough to let you push it out of the f-hole with your other hand. You only have to be able to get at the contacts. Then just snip or desolder the old humbucker wires at the switch and solder the new humbucker wires to the switch, and then just push it back in again through the f-hole. A 335 or something like that is a much more difficult proposition (I've never chanced one of those either!), but when you only have one switch as close to the f-hole as that it's not too bad. I managed it on my Eggle, anyway.

this guitar has a coil tap switch in the tone control, so that pot would need to come out too

Shoot, I forgot about that It's a bit further away from the F-hole, too. It still might not be impossible as you only have two knobs and a switch, but it does make it a fair bit harder as you rightly said, unfortunately

ToneControl

Dave_Mc said:

ToneControl said:

Dave_Mc said:

ToneControl said:

Dave_Mc said:

BillDL said:

It wouldn't be too bad with it only having the two pots and they are close enough to the F-hole to see where the pots are and fish through it to push the pots and switch up through the holes, but I suppose it depends how much slack they have allowed on the wiring loom and whether there is a good sized aperture out of one of the pickup cavities to pull the pots and switch through.  I can understand that it's a job that you wouldn't really want to undertake if you aren't well practiced at that kind of thing.

You'd only need to get at the switch if you're just changing pickups, wouldn't you? It seems very close to the F-hole, if you're lucky you could get it out through the F-hole. I managed to do my Patrick Eggle Vienna semi-hollow entirely through the F-hole, 1 switch and two pots all very close to the F-hole. It was still a bit of a pain, to be clear. But it was doable, even for an eejit like me.

EDIT: I'm not sure about the mids @ToneControl - you can adjust the tone a bit I think with capacitors, but I've no idea if that affects the mids or other frequencies. I think bass maybe? It's often suggested for boomy neck humbuckers. But then you'd still need to solder and fish the stuff out of the f-hole...

I can do soldering, but not so keen on keyhole surgery

I don't think you have to do keyhole surgery, I think you can just loosen the switch (and take the switch tip off to make the next bit easier), put your hand underneath it through the f-hole to catch it (careful in case there's something sharp in there) and then push it through from the top of the guitar- and then if you're lucky the wires/cables are long enough to let you push it out of the f-hole with your other hand. You only have to be able to get at the contacts. Then just snip or desolder the old humbucker wires at the switch and solder the new humbucker wires to the switch, and then just push it back in again through the f-hole. A 335 or something like that is a much more difficult proposition (I've never chanced one of those either!), but when you only have one switch as close to the f-hole as that it's not too bad. I managed it on my Eggle, anyway.

this guitar has a coil tap switch in the tone control, so that pot would need to come out too

Shoot, I forgot about that It's a bit further away from the F-hole, too. It still might not be impossible as you only have two knobs and a switch, but it does make it a fair bit harder as you rightly said, unfortunately

yeah,

It seems like a nice guitar, it was stupidly cheap, but has a character of its own, different to my PRS SE HBs and the USA HB that I sold, so it would be good to have some decent pickups on it.

Basically with all the lockdowns and WFH, I went against my 2010 onwards policy - which was only to buy very good or high end guitars. and bought a few Harley Bentons and cheap Schecters to play with, and to learn the next level of setting up, e.g. nut slot filing, fret work. The Schecters turned out to be well above Mex Fender level, and needed nothing more than repairs and definitely merited installing some pricey pickups. However, I wouldn't want to buy pricey pickups to put in a guitar worth less than £200


As I said I might just get some more Vansons, and chop the wires and solder into the pickup holes, or is that dumb?

Dave_Mc

ToneControl said:

yeah,

It seems like a nice guitar, it was stupidly cheap, but has a character of its own, different to my PRS SE HBs and the USA HB that I sold, so it would be good to have some decent pickups on it.

Basically with all the lockdowns and WFH, I went against my 2010 onwards policy - which was only to buy very good or high end guitars. and bought a few Harley Bentons and cheap Schecters to play with, and to learn the next level of setting up, e.g. nut slot filing, fret work. The Schecters turned out to be well above Mex Fender level, and needed nothing more than repairs and definitely merited installing some pricey pickups. However, I wouldn't want to buy pricey pickups to put in a guitar worth less than £200


As I said I might just get some more Vansons, and chop the wires and solder into the pickup holes, or is that dumb?

I haven't tried that myself, but I've seen several people on here suggest it, and it does seem to work I think (chopping the wires, I mean). Though presumably it'll be fiddlier with the 4-conductor versions needed for the coil-splits.

I haven't tried Vansons, but for cheap pickups the Entwistles I've tried have been pretty decent. Although they can be (a) hard to find in stock and (b) prices are quite a bit higher than they used to be unfortunately.

Maida Vale seems to be back too, and have changed their name to Maydevale so (I think) they could trademark it. They tend to be more modern type designs, though, I'm not sure if they're what you'd want for a semi-hollow.

Or keep an eye on Ebay- the likes of Toltec, Catswhisker and people like that (and also newer winders) often sell pickups for very cheap. Probably not "Vanson cheap" if that's what you're after, but still pretty reasonable considering they're handwound in the UK- under £50 a pickup, type of thing.

I more or less had that policy you had too, but then that Harley Benton 25% off sale came around... more accurately the second iteration of it, I held off on the first one... and when I saw how nice they were, I wouldn't exactly say I've changed my mind, I do still like higher-end gear too, but darn, for not much over £100, they're certainly good enough to be enjoyable!

Rabs

Also it's worth noting that there are actually fake Vansons out there as odd as that may seem for cheap pickups. Only buy direct from Vanson cos they are the only ones who sell them on Ebay officially.

BillDL

Dave_Mc said:

..... for cheap pickups the Entwistles I've tried have been pretty decent. Although they can be (a) hard to find in stock and (b) prices are quite a bit higher than they used to be unfortunately.

It's quite unfortunate how the Entwistle marketing and availability has gone since they first appeared.  I bought a set of bass pickups, a set of single coils, and two sets of humbuckers fairly soon after they were released, but the website only listed three dealerships.  The link for one dealership didn't work and one of the others only had a couple of models in stock.  The website went through a revamp but it took ages for it to start showing photos of the pickups and it was riddled with broken links.  Even recently (haven't looked for a month or two) there are missing photos from quite a few of the pickups and a number of models are out of stock.  I would have bought more had the marketing, presentation and availability been better.  As far as the increase in pricing, I think that's just a case of making them more "reassuringly expensive" enough to be taken more seriously than the likes of Artec (some of which are actually really good despite their lower prices).

ToneControl

Dave_Mc said:

ToneControl said:

yeah,

It seems like a nice guitar, it was stupidly cheap, but has a character of its own, different to my PRS SE HBs and the USA HB that I sold, so it would be good to have some decent pickups on it.

Basically with all the lockdowns and WFH, I went against my 2010 onwards policy - which was only to buy very good or high end guitars. and bought a few Harley Bentons and cheap Schecters to play with, and to learn the next level of setting up, e.g. nut slot filing, fret work. The Schecters turned out to be well above Mex Fender level, and needed nothing more than repairs and definitely merited installing some pricey pickups. However, I wouldn't want to buy pricey pickups to put in a guitar worth less than £200


As I said I might just get some more Vansons, and chop the wires and solder into the pickup holes, or is that dumb?

I haven't tried that myself, but I've seen several people on here suggest it, and it does seem to work I think (chopping the wires, I mean). Though presumably it'll be fiddlier with the 4-conductor versions needed for the coil-splits.

I haven't tried Vansons, but for cheap pickups the Entwistles I've tried have been pretty decent. Although they can be (a) hard to find in stock and (b) prices are quite a bit higher than they used to be unfortunately.

Maida Vale seems to be back too, and have changed their name to Maydevale so (I think) they could trademark it. They tend to be more modern type designs, though, I'm not sure if they're what you'd want for a semi-hollow.

Or keep an eye on Ebay- the likes of Toltec, Catswhisker and people like that (and also newer winders) often sell pickups for very cheap. Probably not "Vanson cheap" if that's what you're after, but still pretty reasonable considering they're handwound in the UK- under £50 a pickup, type of thing.

I more or less had that policy you had too, but then that Harley Benton 25% off sale came around... more accurately the second iteration of it, I held off on the first one... and when I saw how nice they were, I wouldn't exactly say I've changed my mind, I do still like higher-end gear too, but darn, for not much over £100, they're certainly good enough to be enjoyable!

From my experiment, my favourites are:

The ST-90SA Swamp Ash DLX. A bit heavy, but plays like a Mex strat (after fettling and smoothing the frets) for little over £100.
I put a Lace sensor set on one

TE70 Rosewood tele, a bit heavy

CST-24 - these are great PRS clones, again need fret fettling, I have tried a few pickups in these
CST-24 HB version. middly neck pickup though

Amarok baritone - needed fret tweaking. Amazing passive-but-active EMG retro actives, but needed new pots, Thomann provided them.
A few flaws, but a very good guitar

SC550 plus with covered EMG retro actives - as good as a USA Gibson to be honest.  Fret polish and normal setup needed.
The pickups not as bright as on the Amarok, I would buy uncovered if I had to replace it.

All were B-stock, I got discounts for the ones with flaws


Then recently I got the Fusion III HSH in the 25% sale. Not B-stock
It had a basic fault - some frets were completely unfinished.
I asked them to pay for local repair, but they insisted on me returning it for a refund, I insisted on replacement, this one was ok, but needed fettling.
Hence here now replacing pickups. 

Dave_Mc

BillDL said:

Dave_Mc said:

..... for cheap pickups the Entwistles I've tried have been pretty decent. Although they can be (a) hard to find in stock and (b) prices are quite a bit higher than they used to be unfortunately.

It's quite unfortunate how the Entwistle marketing and availability has gone since they first appeared.  I bought a set of bass pickups, a set of single coils, and two sets of humbuckers fairly soon after they were released, but the website only listed three dealerships.  The link for one dealership didn't work and one of the others only had a couple of models in stock.  The website went through a revamp but it took ages for it to start showing photos of the pickups and it was riddled with broken links.  Even recently (haven't looked for a month or two) there are missing photos from quite a few of the pickups and a number of models are out of stock.  I would have bought more had the marketing, presentation and availability been better.  As far as the increase in pricing, I think that's just a case of making them more "reassuringly expensive" enough to be taken more seriously than the likes of Artec (some of which are actually really good despite their lower prices).

Yeah they're definitely not helping themselves!

I think Entwistles have been around for a fair while- I remember around maybe 10-12 years ago (maybe more, maybe less, I forget exactly), before I could solder (not that I can solder terribly well now!), there were some murmurings online from people who had previously really liked boutique handwound pickups that Entwistles were "as good" for silly low money. Not "nearly as good", or "good for the money"- these were people who already owned Bareknuckle pickups (for example), who were changing out and selling their Bareknuckles for Entwistles. That's the kind of review which gets my attention!

(This was when Entwistle had an older website; in fact I think they still had that website when I got mine maybe 3-4 years ago.) At that point in time IIRC the alnico PAF types were about £20-25 (they're now more like £40, unless you find somewhere still with stock bought at older prices, like that findinstruments place on the Entwistle dealer section which still has some of the less popular models in stock at cheaper prices) so you can sort of extrapolate out from that what the rest of the prices were.

When I got mine the PAFs were more like ~£30 I think (I didn't actually get one of those, I'm just using it as an example- I've got the HVX (bridge), AS57 (middle) and XS62N (neck)).

You may be right about the marketing... the problem is for someone like me who's already tried them, upping the price makes them dear enough that I'm more likely to just buy what I really want! I already know how good they are, I'm totally willing to judge something on how good it is rather than how much it costs (I much prefer the Entwistles I have to Duncans and Dimarzios, for example, and although my Duncans and Dimarzios came stock in guitars, if you were to buy them at retail price they'd cost maybe 4-5 times what the Entwistles cost!), and costing more (if that's what they are doing) to persuade someone else that they're a serious contender doesn't seem like it's adding any extra value for me personally- all it's doing is making them cost 50-75% of what I really want (which pushes me towards that) rather than 25% (which would push me towards the Entwistles, at least for cheaper guitars).

I do think the Entwistles I've tried are really good, and almost as good as the boutique handwound stuff, but I think the handwound/scatterwound/handmade stuff still has the edge (only just!), plus the build quality (not the sound) has been slightly suspect in my experience- the XS62N had adjustable polepieces, but they didn't seem to be catching the thread on mine, and you couldn't actually adjust them! You could take the pickup out and push them roughly into place just with your finger without screwing or unscrewing them, but obviously that's hardly ideal, and doesn't let you adjust them on the fly. I also sort of deformed the legs of the XS62N when fitting it- I think it has a plastic bobbin, but I might be misremembering. It may be that it was a bit of a tight fit (originally body-mount rail-style pickups in a MusicYo Kramer Striker), and I'm a bit clumsy so I can't rule out that I was just a bit careless, but I'm not sure I've deformed any other Strat-style mounting legs by my clumsiness either... even in that same guitar.

(Wow that wasn't supposed to be as long, sorry!)