Almost Instant Karma got me!

[Bass VI]

Everyone may ( or may not ) remember mine and Marks' ( Tbird1958 ) experience in transplanting 'bird pickups ( yeah the black plastic covered ones ) into beautiful chomey homes. I batted an awful .000, Mark however was at .500 having only destoyed one of two attempts. The short of this international revolt ( OK this isn't exactly going to be short, and maybe it's just an insurgancy ) against the anti-chrome , was that I sent Mark my "orphan" black pup, which he successfully put in a much prettier "home". As a thank you, Mark sent me a chrome bridge cover ( Thank you again, mein Frau ).
Now the Karmic wheel turns, albeit slowly.
Said bridge cover was an orphan also, as I have four pairs ( bridge and handrests ) for my various projects and players.
Now to the point finally, I went into work today and the guys had gone into the scarey attic of the store yesterday ( my day off ) and found an old box of parts left over from when the store moved from it's old location, that was almost thirty years ago. On top of the pile was a handrest from a.......70s' 'bird, with just the right amount of "patina to match the rest of the bass. So there you have it, I lost a pickup, gained a cover and ended up with a set.
All's well that ends well,

Scott

Now if these guys would just find the rest of that 'bird................

[TBird1958]

 It's Chromey goodness...... The '89 and the Greco went to Mike Lull's today to get set up, I'm very excited to take it to a couple upcoming shows. For anyone that didn't get to see what transplanted pick ups look like. And again, Thank You Scott. Karma is a wonderful thing.

[eb2]

Seeing that pic is fascinating - you can pretty much work anything into one.  Who is the Model G fan here?  They aren't epoxy potted like most DiMarzios, so I bet you could cut one of them open and fit them in the Tbird chrome jimmy hat.

[Basvarken]

I have a little story that involves one of those casings as well.
I already told it a Jules' place, but I figured it goes well with the other stories in this thread.


A while ago a I bought a casing plus mount ring too from Greatdealz on Ebay.
With the BaCHBird project in mind, I thought it might come in handy.

Almost at the same time Krishna (BostonGuitarRepair) told us how the inside of those sixties Thunderbird humbuckers look like. He told us there were MelodyMaker like pickups (with a bar magnet) inside.

So I bought two G3 single coils from the same guy on Ebay. The two G3 pickups will fit in perfectly if I cut off the middle lugs on both.
Haven't done anything final yet, though. I want to wait till the BaCHbird is here.


I did do some hobbying and wired them together as a humbucker.. Simply without any pots, just straight onto the jack plug.

Two single coils taped together with gaffertape.

- two orange wires from the groundplates of the coils to the bridge (ground)

- the white wire from one coil to the orange wire from the other coil.

-black wire to the ground of the jack plug
-red wires to the tip of the jack plug






I mounted this improvised G3 humbucker upside down over  the strings with some gaffertape and original screws as "stalks".
I used my (mahogany) BaCH Telebass for this experiment.
The pickup location; just about 1cm from the end of fretboard.





I must admit I'm not 100% convinced yet.
I miss the low frequencies.
Especially if you compare it to the soundsamples Jules put up on his site...
Although that may be caused by the improvised set up? Or maybe a poor connection to the jack (gaffer taped)?
Maybe I should add that I had to take the input volume down quite a bit on my recorder, because the output of this G3 combination is really very high!

[OldManC]

Hmm... It does have a little bit of that angry piano tone there. I wonder what it would sound like all wired up and in place. 

[Dave W]

Any idea how the specs of the G3 coils compare to the 60s?

Also, the straight-to-jack wiring, with no high end rolled off, could be obscuring low frequencies.

[doombass]

Nice experiment Rob. I've had the idea that the coils on the Bicentennials are the same as the G3's since they look the same but they are wound different (neck and bridge). I also wonder if the gaffa setup makes a difference. It sounds like a Bicentennial pickup (it has a growl to it) but lacks a bit in the lower region.

[the mojo hobo]

The picture in the previous post is missing. Are there 4 wires on each pickup? Do you have them wired in series or parallel?

[Basvarken]

Strange, I do see the drawing.

There's three wires on each pickup.

I think how I wired them is called in series.

[Dave W]

The picture in the previous post is missing. Are there 4 wires on each pickup? Do you have them wired in series or parallel?

I see the pic in the second post just fine. It's a jpeg hosted on photobucket, so there's nothing in the forum software that would block it.

[uwe]

I find that "G-3 humbucker" captures the overdriven tone of the sixties TB pups quite well. Those were never that bass heavy to begin with, a modern TB Plus has more fundamental (but sounds also more dense), the charm of the sixties sound is that hoarseness and how some frequencies stand out more prominently.

[chromium]

Does anyone know if it is safe to assume that these S-1 pickups spec out the same as the G-3 pickups?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Gibson-Parts-NOS-S-1-Style-Single-Coil-Pup-2-Pk_W0QQitemZ260207923355QQihZ016QQcategoryZ33040QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

If not, how do the single coil RD pickups (also available) compare to the G-3s?

Thanks!

[Basvarken]

Those S-1 pickups are the ones I bought.

[OldManC]

Man, I'm tempted to buy a couple pair for future use...

[the mojo hobo]

I see the pic in the second post just fine. It's a jpeg hosted on photobucket, so there's nothing in the forum software that would block it.

It's the picture in the fourth post that is missing, and copying the URL doesn't work either, so I'm sure it is not being blocked by the forum software.

http://www.superfloor.net/G3pickup.jpg