Double Muds!

[amptech]

The mud comes from the extreme overwinding. There's nothing muddy about the sidewinder design.

I did put that overwound sidewinder concept into a minihumbucker size build, and was blown away by the result. I did this because I was unhappy with the EB3 minihumbucker sound, and overwinding the stock pickup with thinner wire only made it slightly louder and it lost treble. Just an unplesant honk. A stonger magnet helped, but still poor sound (in my ears). And routing for a bigger pickup is out of the question. So I scaled down the mudbucker design and squeezed it into a minihumbucker cover. I aimed at 30K dcr but at just over 28K there wasn't room for more wire. I used two small alnico 5 bars (from mini humbuckers) and the only drawback was a 5mm gap between the base and the cover bottom. But the result was a very high output, high sensitivity pickup with lots of punch. It is the first pickup I have found louder than the mudbucker, although less bassy. It has decent brightness too. I'd say it would be a good business idea, if it didn't take five days to build I am still puzzled by it's relative brightness, it is definitely in the extreme overwound category.

[Alanko]

I've owned and tinkered both Artec and Epiphone mudbuckers. The Epiphone has tighter string spacing, in line with the neck position on the EB-family of basses. The Artec had wider spacing that suited a Fender, although the E string's excursion was still beyond the range of the magnets. The Epiphone was only wound to about 14 k ohms or so, whereas the Artec was around 36 k ohms or so, with the magnets mounted incorrectly and the coils wired incorrectly.

Your mileage may vary, but I don't think they are the same pickups.

[Granny Gremlin]

Yes of coarse, I did not mean to say that Ripper pups are muddy sound-wise, so much as they are the same basic design as the mudbucker, but underwound (by comparisson) and therefore smaller; hence the prefix "Jr."

Having a character adjective also be a pup name can be annoying in this way.

[leftybass]

I thought of this:

[66Atlas]

I like the look of it on the EB2. 

So I guess with the Ripper it was always intended to be a redesigned pickup.  I found the ad I was thinking of, to me it's a shame they never built it this way, I actually prefer the look of the chrome pups and smaller pickguard.





I think the shirt might be even better than the bass though...

[FrankieTbird]

I like the look of it on the EB2. 

So I guess with the Ripper it was always intended to be a redesigned pickup.  I found the ad I was thinking of, to me it's a shame they never built it this way, I actually prefer the look of the chrome pups and smaller pickguard.

I think the shirt might be even better than the bass though...

Holy moly!  Who is that awkward looking fellow?

[Dave W]

I've seen that catalog photo before and assumed it was just a mockup for the photo shoot. A real bassist wouldn't have a bass face like that. He probably got dragged away from his regular job of underwear model for the Monkey Ward catalog.

Jake, I didn't mean to call you out over the mud description, just pointing out to anyone who didn't already know that the design isn't necessarily muddy.

Alanko, I didn't know about the difference in string spacing between the Epi and Artec but they definitely don't sound anything alike. The Epi should read about 2K max. I didn't know about the Artec coils being wired incorrectly but one look at it (uncovered) and you can see the magnets are mounted wrong, they all need to be facing the steel blade the same way.

amptech, you know a lot more about pickup design than I do, no idea where the brightness came from. OTOH I'm sure you know that you can get 26K using thinner wire on a smaller bobbin and it won't sound like a Gibson mudbucker.

Carlo, you're entitled to your opinion, of course, but I don't think Curtis Novak is rewinding Artecs or Epis.

[Alanko]

I'm wondering now if there are different Epiphone mudbuckers. Mine came from a bolt-on EB0; the cheapest Epi on the market. It might be a different pickup in the set-neck EB-3s, or the Elitist (sp?) models?

I would be surprised if Novak is using upcycled Epiphone and Artec parts, simply because he reverse engineered the Bi Sonic pickups and developed all the parts himself. He also makes reproduction WRHBs with threaded magnets, whereas other builders settle for a Generic PAF-type design and simply style the pickup cover to look the part.

I wonder if there is only so many ways to skin a cat, and that most sidewinder replicas are going to look roughly the same? There was nothing on my Artec or Epiphone pickups that identified the manufacturer, and the Artec was topologically correct with the Gibson originals, albeit with the manufacturing errors.

Dave W, 12 k (I think that is what you meant to type?) sounds about right. I measured it a year ago and memories get fuzzy.

[Granny Gremlin]

Jake, I didn't mean to call you out over the mud description, just pointing out to anyone who didn't already know that the design isn't necessarily muddy.

Yeah, fair enough - totally get that.  No worries.

[chromium]

The mud comes from the extreme overwinding. There's nothing muddy about the sidewinder design. The Ripper and Bicentennial Thunderbird pickups aren't the world's clearest pickups but I certainly wouldn't call them muddy.

Following the whole 'choke/filtering demystification' of yore, my EB-2D has the ability to render some very cutting sounds (of course that shrill little bridge pickup helps in that dept.). 

Same goes for the '76 bird.  Wired up in parallel like a modern TBIV (as I received it), this one zings with the best of 'em.

Nothing wrong IMO with any of those stock pickups... but then again, I do like 'em with a little girth.  I feel that the mud connotation had more to do with their implementation(s).

[Dave W]

I'm wondering now if there are different Epiphone mudbuckers. Mine came from a bolt-on EB0; the cheapest Epi on the market. It might be a different pickup in the set-neck EB-3s, or the Elitist (sp?) models? ....

Dave W, 12 k (I think that is what you meant to type?) sounds about right. I measured it a year ago and memories get fuzzy.

I thought the Elitist had US pickups. Should be the same TB Plus version as on the SG Bass.

I meant 2K. Gibson did something with the mudbucker in the late 70s and continued with the Epi reissues. Not sure what, but that's about what they read. They sound quite a bit different from the originals.

Take a look at this guy's meter readings.

[Alanko]

Alright, thanks for setting me straight! If I get a minute tonight I will inspect my Epi pickup.

[dadagoboi]

FWIW, the Novak 'Fatbucker' had the same narrow spacing as the Allparts Epi replacement pup I A-B'd it with.  And the covers were identical.  When I first started following Novak's stuff on his website he typically used components (bobbins, covers, magnets, etc.) that were in the marketplace.  At the time he developed his DS clone that was not an option.

I wasn't aware that the Artec has a wide stance.

[Dave W]

FWIW, the Novak 'Fatbucker' had the same narrow spacing as the Allparts Epi replacement pup I A-B'd it with.  And the covers were identical.  When I first started following Novak's stuff on his website he typically used components (bobbins, covers, magnets, etc.) that were in the marketplace.  At the time he developed his DS clone that was not an option.

He built his first fatbucker for a customer to replace a Gibson original. Naturally it will have the same string spacing, since the Epis follow the Gibson. But it's nothing like a mudbucker in construction anyway.

I wasn't aware that the Artec has a wide stance.

It's the Senator Larry Craig signature model.

[shadowcastaz]

Sooooo I guess the only  referral was to Novak? This kinda ran away from me .