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Anyone have experience with this pickup? They are a C note on the gear slut pages. Are they what they claim? Got a chinese cheapie and the neck pu is muddy sounding compared to a real non vintage LP I heard a while back.

Ron

Living and playing outside the box.

I鈥檝e said this before but I鈥檒l repeat it. The best pickup for jazz is the Lollar HighWind Humbucker. The HightWind name throws people off but this pickup was designed for one of my guitars ago and was specifically designed for jazz although in truth this pickup just sounds great on anything but especially so in a jazz guitar application. It was designed several years ago and was the result of pretty extensive testing against some of the of the best known designs available and this pickup wins hands down in my opinion. I use them on all my archtops, my 137 and on the Telecaster that I sometimes use for jazz or blues.



Brian



From: Ron Becker
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2010 1:27 PM
To: Jazz Guitar
Subject: [jazz_guitar] Gibson Classic Les Paul 57s


Anyone have experience with this pickup? They are a C note on the
gear slut pages. Are they what they claim? Got a chinese cheapie and
the neck pu is muddy sounding compared to a real non vintage LP I
heard a while back.

Ron

Living and playing outside the box.







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Nov 12, 2010, at 12:45 AM, Brian Kelly wrote:

I抳e said this before but I抣l repeat it. The best pickup for jazz
is the Lollar HighWind Humbucker.

High wind? I'm surprised you wouldn't go with the low wind for jazz. I
have a set in one of my Les Pauls. Great for jazz/blues. I'm sure the
high wind is, too, but it is a hotter pickup after all--and would seem
better suited to blues/rock. Not so?

Jeff

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I don't want to go into the proprietary details of the design but the higher windings are only one part of the design. In this case one of the benefits of the higher winding is that it make the pickup sound richer and fuller. Many jazz guitar pickups are highwind style pickups including those by Seymour Duncan, including those he builds for Benedetto. One of the most desirable jazz guitar pickups ever designed were designed by guitarist Attila Zollar and they are extremely high wound pickups.

If you like a lighter more detailed sound that someone like Jim Hall (not entirely the best example maybe) uses the lower wound Lollar Imperials are hard to beat but the Highwinds are richer and more cello like in the style of Wes and Kenny Burrell. It's not a dramatic difference but the differences are all in the right direction and at this point there is no other pickup out there that can equal them at what these pickups do best. I heard these pickups pickups in all the versions (more wind, less win, every magnet imaginable and every wire wrapping technique, all sorts of different gauges of wire and all the other tricks) leading up to the final product and I can't see how you could possibly build a pickup better suited for jazz guitar.





Brian

It's not a dramatic difference but the
differences are all in the right direction and at this point there
is no
other pickup out there that can equal them at what these pickups do
best.

Have you seen what Dave Stephens has been up to in his "Vintage Lab"
series?

Jeff

Have you seen what Dave Stephens has been up to in his "Vintage Lab"
series?

Nope I'll check thanks.

Ron
Living and playing outside the box.




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thanks Brian and Jeff and everyone for the suggestions.

Ron
Living and playing outside the box.




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Jeff,

I am not personally familiar with the SD Silver A2 pickups. I have listened to them online and from that I just don鈥檛 see them as being close to what the Lollars are like but listening online is obviously not the best test of any pickup even though my computer is hooked up to a true powered monitors and not computer speakers.

One of the things that I think makes the Lollars noticeably different is that even though they get purchased by rockers and blues players they were completely designed to be used for mainstream jazz guitar playing and I think that really shows in the end result. A lot of people who like the PAF sound (especially in the aftermarket PAF鈥檚) like them to have a sort of jingly jangly tone to them because that is what is popular. The problem with that is that there were lots of PAF pickups made and no two of them were exactly alike to begin with so in reality there is not a true, definitive PAF sound. The aftermarket has focused on a popular version of the PAF sound but in truth that is not all there ever was to the PAF鈥檚. Some of the current and most popular PAF are designed so that they will still still like a guitar once you get them to distort with amp distortion or pedal distortion (or both) but none of that is necessary if the pickup was designed to sound it鈥檚 best when it is played clean and that accounts for a lot of the differences between the Lollar and almost any other pickup I can think of other than those specifically designed for jazz guitar like the Duncan鈥檚, the Zollar, and the Armstrong鈥檚.

Anyhow, that鈥檚 what I know and if you know you me you know that if I鈥檝e checked into anything I鈥檝e ever looked into very deeply. I鈥檝e also been fooling with winding pickups for forty years and started out with Seymour Duncan when we were both up and coming young guitarist and close personal friends back in Cincinnati years and years ago.

Lollar I鈥檝e known for years as well. Long before he was the 鈥淧ickup Yoda鈥� as Juan Vega loves to call him. I spent a weekend in New York with Kent Armstrong about ten years ago and we talked pickups all weekend since he is also a good friend of Seymour鈥檚. I like Kent鈥檚 pickups as well. His mini-bucker is about the nicest mini I have heard so far.




Brian Kelly


From: Jeff Shirkey
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2010 1:52 AM
To: jazz_guitar@...
Subject: Re: [jazz_guitar] Gibson Classic Les Paul 57s

It's not a dramatic difference but the
differences are all in the right direction and at this point there
is no
other pickup out there that can equal them at what these pickups do
best.

Have you seen what Dave Stephens has been up to in his "Vintage Lab"
series?

Jeff

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I am not personally familiar with the SD Silver A2 pickups.

Not those. Find his Vintage Lab sets (VL2, VL3, '58, and '59 Jimmy
Page sets). I don't know if he even makes those other sets anymore.

I didn't realize Jason designed his Imperial humbuckers for jazzers.
Interesting...thanks for sharing those details.

Jeff

Jeff,

It was originally designed for me personally and I did a lot of the initial work on it and we tested each version between us but as it neared completion Jason took over completely and finished it up. I am pretty familiar with winding pickups myself having fooled with it on and off for forty years but Jason has got his own recipes with his own seasoning and in my opinion he can鈥檛 be touched. I know some of the detail he goes into but I a not saying anything but his research into pickup designs and materials is extensive and I am not talking about just imitating vintage pickup designs. Jason is very wise to the design particulars on all pickups. He originally started out rebuilding vintage steel guitar pickups and for that reason he has a little different take on pickups in general since the steel guitar pickups can often be very intimidating technically speaking. As far as I know Jason is the worlds number one authority on steel guitar pickups to this day.





Brian



From: Jeff Shirkey
Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2010 9:39 AM
To: jazz_guitar@...
Subject: Re: [jazz_guitar] Gibson Classic Les Paul 57s

I am not personally familiar with the SD Silver A2 pickups.

Not those. Find his Vintage Lab sets (VL2, VL3, '58, and '59 Jimmy
Page sets). I don't know if he even makes those other sets anymore.

I didn't realize Jason designed his Imperial humbuckers for jazzers.
Interesting...thanks for sharing those details.

Jeff

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Brian,

If/when you have a chance, check out the research Dave Stephens has done on PAFs. (YouTube is a good start) I don't think anyone can take things any further than he has in terms of research.

That said, I think Jason makes great pickups, and I have several of his sets in my guitars--low wind Humbuckers, '50s winds P-90s, regular winds P-90s, and two different sets of Strat pickups--a blackface set and a mixed set of tweeds/blondes.


Jeff

Oh...and I'm currently having his '52 Tele set installed in a guitar, too. Almost forgot.

Jeff,

I love the Lollar P-90鈥檚. They are not particularly suited to anything I play but they are wonderful. They are not true P-90 though. Jason redesigned the pickup and put his own pickup under the hood of the P-90 cover.

Wow,you are using a lot of Lollars pickups but honestly you owe it to yourself to try the HighWind Humbuckers.

Are you using any of the Dave Stephens humbuckers? What鈥檚 the story. Let me know which one and I will look up whatever specs he is publishing.

What else is new.







Brian



From: Jeff Shirkey
Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2010 3:22 PM
To: jazz_guitar@...
Subject: Re: [jazz_guitar] Gibson Classic Les Paul 57s


Brian,

If/when you have a chance, check out the research Dave Stephens has
done on PAFs. (YouTube is a good start) I don't think anyone can take
things any further than he has in terms of research.

That said, I think Jason makes great pickups, and I have several of
his sets in my guitars--low wind Humbuckers, '50s winds P-90s, regular
winds P-90s, and two different sets of Strat pickups--a blackface set
and a mixed set of tweeds/blondes.

Jeff




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Brian,

>They are not true P-90 though. Jason redesigned the pickup and put
his own pickup under the hood of the P-90 cover.

I had heard that, but I don't know enough about pickup design to know
what keeps them from being true P-90s. I believe they are potted,
while authentic P-90s are not. Other than that, though, I'm stumped. I
do know that both sets sound great.

Wow,you are using a lot of Lollars pickups but honestly you owe it
to yourself to try the HighWind Humbuckers.

I will...just need to find a guitar to put them in.

Are you using any of the Dave Stephens humbuckers? What抯 the story.

I have his original Vintage Lab set. I just had a set of VL2s put in a
Les Paul. I have his '58 and '59 JP sets on order. I have a set of his
Strat pickups also (I believe they are the '64 Mojo vintage models).

The short version of Dave's story is that he has taken the scientific
approach to recreating PAF pickups. He's done all kinds of metallurgic
analysis of old pickups. He studied tons of originals that he's been
able to rewind. He makes his own parts using high quality components
that most manufacturers don't (or can't) use (or get). I think a lot
of this info. is summarized on his YouTube page. He often includes
lengthy text before his videos that sum up a lot of the research he's
done. He also has a video that shows a tour of his "lab" (for lack of
a better word). Anyway, the bottom line is that his pickups also sound
great. He's definitely a maniac when it comes to researching PAFs.

Jeff

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

This is peripheral to the main discussion, but I've always been curious about this.

How do you compare pickups? You can't go back and forth like you do at the stereo store with speakers -- it takes too long to swap them out.

Do you use multiple guitars of the same model?

Recordings?

Just try to remember what they sound like?

How do you do it?

How do you compare pickups? You can't go back and forth like you do
at the stereo store with speakers -- it takes too long to swap them
out.

Lots of places have clips. People will often do YouTube videos, too.
Basically I have a pretty good idea of what it is I'm looking for,
then I narrow down my options (based on reputation, word of mouth,
clips, videos, etc.) then I take the plunge. Most times you can't go
wrong. It's not as if Jason Lollar makes a bad pickup, in other words.
He doesn't.

Do you use multiple guitars of the same model?

Yes, but after the fact. I try to do my part to help people make
informed decisions since I have a lot of guitar with a bunch of
different pickups in them.

Jeff

I have a Pat Metheny 100 we could try one in. Just pop it in a box
I'll reimburse shipping.

Ron
Living and playing outside the box.

Jeff,

At least one of the things he's done is to design his own bobbin to fit under the P-90 cover. Jason always felt like the stock P-90 didn't have enough power to generate an adequate magnetic field to really make it a worthwhile pickup and it didn't matter what you did to hot rod the stock pickup it still needed work and so he just redesigned the whole pickup. As a result his P-90 is in a class by itself.

The thing that really impresses me about Jason is that I think he knows what he's looking for in the way of results long before he starts rewinding something and all of his work is in the direction of getting that result. If he can get it with known techniques and materials then he'll do it that way. If not he'll start all over and redesign the basic pickup.




Brian

I've read so much about Jason's pickups now (on here)

I just have to get a set in my Epi Broadway



All the advertising has paid off J





"and, but for the sky, there are no fences facing"

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