I've really had a tough time getting something in the bridge position of my double neck that sounds "right" to me. I've been through several commercial-wound pickups in this quest, starting with a Thro-Bak SLE-101, Wildwood Spec Burstbucker Pro, Duncan 59 and even Artec's Classic Standard and GFS Professional Series. Some were better than others, but I still wasnt 100% satisfied.
Since my bridge pickup' centerline is situated between where a bridge and middle pickup in a "Black Beauty" would be, it's hard to get a good balance of bright, high gain tone and a full, yet "uncluded" clean tone.
I gried making a couple of higher output pickups, thinking they should be brighter. Using parts from junk pickups, I built a pair of 500T clones with triple magnets. The first, at a whopping 17k, was too hot. @Mitch Pearrow SJMP has that one now.
The second one I de-wound to 9.45k and it was better, but still lacked articulation and there was a noted harshness to it. That one is still on the bench and may become a parts donor.
Finally, I decided to step back a bit and try a little milder approach.
The most recent pickup from "The Junk Box" is built from a recycled nickel silver, Gibson baseplate. It features the slug coil from a discarded Gibson Burstbucker 2, the screw coil from an Artec Classic Standard, maple spacers, a machined screw spacer from a DiMarzio Super II and a polished Alnico 4 magnet from E-Bay.
is a hybrid I built from parts on hand.
Since my bridge pickup' centerline is situated between where a bridge and middle pickup in a "Black Beauty" would be, it's hard to get a good balance of bright, high gain tone and a full, yet "uncluded" clean tone.
I gried making a couple of higher output pickups, thinking they should be brighter. Using parts from junk pickups, I built a pair of 500T clones with triple magnets. The first, at a whopping 17k, was too hot. @Mitch Pearrow SJMP has that one now.
The second one I de-wound to 9.45k and it was better, but still lacked articulation and there was a noted harshness to it. That one is still on the bench and may become a parts donor.
Finally, I decided to step back a bit and try a little milder approach.
The most recent pickup from "The Junk Box" is built from a recycled nickel silver, Gibson baseplate. It features the slug coil from a discarded Gibson Burstbucker 2, the screw coil from an Artec Classic Standard, maple spacers, a machined screw spacer from a DiMarzio Super II and a polished Alnico 4 magnet from E-Bay.
is a hybrid I built from parts on hand.
