With all this talk about pickups I would like to dispel some myths.
The Rhythm Chief is a DeArmond pickup from the 60s, which goes for ?300+
nowadays on Ebay. I have one of these and also have repaired several
others. DeArmond pickups are simply two coils in a housing; the smaller
coil is underneath the top 2 strings and the larger under the bottom 4. The
reason it sounds good is that it is balanced for heavy gauge strings with a
wound third -simple, no magic magnets, no magic wire.
The reason a Charlie Christian pickup sounds good is that it has a huge
chunk removed from the magnet so that it is balanced for heavy strings.
Now, here we have the crux of the matter - other pickups made in 1959 were
not rocket science and the ones now marketed as `59 models are no
different. They are two coils mounted on a flat magnet wired inantiphase to
cancel hum that’s all.
What IS different is that people in 1959 used substantially heavier
strings, which had a thicker fuller tone - that is all there is to it.
If you want a better tone from your guitar fit 11 or 12 gauge strings with
a wound third and with ?10 out of the ?200 you have saved on pickups buy a
copy of Mickey Baker’s jazz guitar course and become a better player. You
can use the other ?190 to buy flowers for your wife and toys for the kids.
Will
