Lo-z pickups Ballurio: experiences, opinions?

[Basvarken]

In my everlasting quest for a pickup builder who can recreate the Gibson Low Impedance stacked humbuckers from the Les Paul Basses, I found Ballurio.

Obviously a luthier with his own ideas on guitar building. And not only his own ideas about guitars; also pickups stay well clear of the generic stuff that is out there.

So I sent him an email in which I told him about my fetish for Gibson Les Paul basses and my quest for similar pickups.
He replied a short message within a day, apologising he was on a road trip and he would get back to me for a full answer in a few days.

And then there's a roaring silence. It's been three weeks. But still no sign of Ballurio.



The pickups and the specs sure look like they could come close to the old Gibson pickups.

S1.DCSA - Dual Coil Stacked Architecture is a medium/high output dual coil stacked architecture humbucking pickup with  well-defined lower and mid ranges, upper range clarity, and  an excellent volume-to-noise ratio.  

The S1.DCSA is available in the following configurations:  

S1.DCSA/A - (AlNiCo), Balanced Bridge & Neck  pickups
S1.DCSA/S - (Samarium Cobalt), Balanced Bridge & Neck  pickups
S1.DCSA/N - (Neodymium), Balanced Bridge & Neck  pickups
S1.DCSA-LI-(A/S/N) (Low Impedance), Available with AlNiCo, Samarian Cobalt or Neodymium Magnets.  We have also developed an In-Line Low Noise High Gain Preamplifier for use with these pickups.

http://www.ballurio.com/BG/BGPickupIndex.shtml



Does any of you guys know him or his work? I can't seem to find any soundclips or YouTube examples of his work...

[amptech]

I haven´t heard about them, but I have done a bit of research on lo imp. pups this summer.
I have collected everything I could find in writing about them, trying to put Les´ideas in perspective.

As mentioned in an earlier thread, I bought four supposed to be bass recording pickups on ebay.
They were guitar pups, bot NOS from an ex gibson employee and two of them was in working order.
I fitted one (above the strings) on an eb-3, directly to the amp with a standard mic to line trafo, and
it sounds really good. Mud for neck, mini for bridge - and lo imp. in between - what a great setup!

Anyway, I started diggin´out the coils of one of the open pups. It´s a mess with the epoxy, but i just have to examine the coils.
I have been working on prototypes for eb-3 mini humbuckers for a while, (I´ll post when something turns out good) both sidewinders and stacked. I have a seriously vast stock of thick magnet wire (inherited from the local speaker factory) so it makes sense to dig into low impedance land. I still need to listen more to the bass pickups, though. I love to experiment, as I have one or two gibson fetishes myself.
Most pickup stuff I do is to repair or rewind single coils for guitar players who wants them extreme hot, and later want to make them sound vintage...

Not sure how many would be interested in low impedance pickups for bass, though. Or mini sidewinders for that matter.
I try to focus on making amps, but enjoy winding a lot.  
Is the ballurio low impedance pup both bass and guitar sizes?

[Basvarken]

Is the ballurio low impedance pup both bass and guitar sizes?

I have no idea. What's on the site is the only thing I know...

Keep us/me posted on your progress.

[Granny Gremlin]

They look pretty damned close, don't they!

The trick will be whether they are the same size as the originals (I would guess guitar size, but wouldn't it be great if they would fit the original mounting rings/routes in case of failure - obviously the screrws won't line up, but since they mount to the body it's no biggie) and whether they have the same  coil taped 3-pups-in-one topology (only 5 pins on the output connector vs 8 wires on the original, but grounds/-ves could be shared per coil vs discrete like the Gibson).

As mentioned in an earlier thread, I bought four supposed to be bass recording pickups on ebay.
They were guitar pups, bot NOS from an ex gibson employee and two of them was in working order.
I fitted one (above the strings) on an eb-3, directly to the amp with a standard mic to line trafo, and
it sounds really good. Mud for neck, mini for bridge - and lo imp. in between - what a great setup!

That pup config (minus the mini) is exactly what I have been thinking of doing with an EB2-esque hollowbody.  That way I'll have all the sounds I really need for gigging in one bass (though, now that you mention it, the mini might be a decent replacement for RD Artist bridge pup, expansion on, distorted heavily for playing bare chord riffs).  Was starting to let myself consider the Bach for this project, but can't commit to it financially yet.  I was keeping an eye out for trashed/project grade EB2s and Rivolis but had long since given up on that.

[Basvarken]

Still no sign of life from Ballurio.
Doesn't reply any of my emails...
Like he fell of the end of the earth 

[Basvarken]

This Ballurio guy never replies to any of my emails. I was really interested in buying the pickups he builds. And if they're as close to the Gibson Les Paul pickups as they look, I'd buy a whole bunch and have BaCH build some nice Les Paul basses.

But it wasn't meant to be apparently.
Wish I knew why he decided not to answer any of my emails.
Is he doing a "Fred Hammon abduction"?

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Did you try contacting him from multiple addresses? A SPAM filter may be inadvertently "screening" your messages.

[Basvarken]

Well, he answered the very first email that I sent him. So I don't figure my emails get stuck in a spam filter.
In that one email he told me he was on the road and that he would get back to me in a few days.
Which he never did. Despite several emails that I sent him from the same address in the past months.

I tried sending email to the other email addresses he mentions on his website.

Guess I could give it one more shot from another email address.

[Granny Gremlin]

The spam filter on my email is random like that - sometimes messages get through, sometimes not. Worth a shot maybe?

[ramone57]

not sure if this is what's happening but sometimes messages sent from an iphone show up as junk mail in my inbox, even after I mark the sender as 'safe'.

[Basvarken]

They weren't sent from an iPhone. They were sent as a reply to his first (and only) email.

I'm going to give it one last shot from another email account.
If that doesn't work I give up.
Unless any of you guys in the USA want to give it a try?