Low Z bass pickups

[sniper]

enlightenment:

the bass pickup low z set that Greatdealz sells are original covers but the red bobbins that she sends with the covers are from the guitar low z pups and not the bass bobbins. turns out Les designed and Gibson wound the bass pickups without bobbins and potted them in the covers.

the rest of the parts for the bass are available new with exception of the covers mentioned below.

i am duplicating (actually my girl "Friday" is) the little switch plate that says "rear front" and the phase/tone plate like on a 69 Les Paul bass and i will let you all know how those turn out.







the plates i am going to try to duplicate without the extra holes or the pieces broken off.

[drbassman]

Are you going to use plastic for the plates?

[sniper]

the round plate is plastic but i can take all the original measurements off of it. Sandy might have to get some 1 ply to make them, then she and i can figure out how to get the lettering white as all she has is two ply. the long plate is kind up in the air at the moment and it is three ply. i might have to contract with an engraving service to get it done if i can find the correct material.

david is going to start on his project next week end which is winding some low z pups for a bass. it was on his agenda to do anyways so we hooked up about the right time. he is telling me that the bobbins greatdealz sent with those bass "kits" are the incorrect bobbins for a bass pickup and that he might be winding them in a jig without using bobbins per say. how i have not a clue unless he glues plastic on the magnets like i see in the picture.

Rog at Jeanne pickguards says he can duplicate the control cover. it has a few extra holes in it too!!! thats about as far as i got today. have to mail some stuff out tomorrow.

[Basvarken]

The ring around the toggle switch on my Les Paul Bass is soft rubber without lettering.
I think there where some that had lettering on them, but they all were rubber.

[sniper]

the best picture i could find on the net of it. i wonder if this was unique to guitars and not the basses?



i would guess branded plastic just looking at it. the phase and tone plate looks the same. the shield inside looks different than anything i have ever seen before. i'll see if i can get a good snap of it.

[Basvarken]

Here's a pic of mine

[Basvarken]

Maybe these pics are helpful, with the building of the pickups? They are of my prototype Les Paul Bass:






You can see they did use some sort of bobbin. It's made out of three different components.
The backplate and front plate are white plastic. Handmade obviously when you look at the edges.
The magnet is set in an opaque plastic casing.
And there's two small wooden blocks on the each side to keep the magnet tight in that opaque casing.

[sniper]

think i'll tell Sandy to go ahead and make the ring out of .020 Aluminum and i'll learn to live with it.  i sent David a link to these pics. if he wants to get hold of you i'll hook you two up. he is a pickup maker in New Jersey and is a regular in another electronic music forum.

something good is going to come of this.

[Basvarken]

excellent!

[sniper]

david@sgd-lutherie.com

[Dave W]

I remember David from another forum or two. He seemed willing to try new methods rather than be bound to making things exactly like they were.

[jumbodbassman]

here is a pic of a newer one 72 ish

[SGD Lutherie]

Maybe these pics are helpful, with the building of the pickups? They are of my prototype Les Paul Bass:






You can see they did use some sort of bobbin. It's made out of three different components.
The backplate and front plate are white plastic. Handmade obviously when you look at the edges.
The magnet is set in an opaque plastic casing.
And there's two small wooden blocks on the each side to keep the magnet tight in that opaque casing.

Wow, that's very interesting! Does that have the multiple taps?

Hi everyone, sniper sent me over here.

As he might have mentioned, I'm also building myself a LP Triumph inspired bass. I also got a set of the "pickup kits" from Greatdealz, and one of the 80s unfinished long scale LP necks.

The picture of the bobbinless LP coil was made by Chuck Burge, who worked for Gibson R&D and designed the RD series as well as the Victory Bass and EB2D.  He passed away in 2009 and a lot of his old stuff was being sold off. I think it was on eBay, but I forget now. That's where that photo was from. If I remember correctly, it was a LP recording guitar with an extra set of prototype pickups.

The information I got about the LP bass pickups not having bobbins was from someone over at the Pickup Makers Forum who had a set of the pickups and took some measurements and posted the info. I've never seen a set in person (except on a Triumph bass back in the 70s) so I don't know for sure. Some type of bobbin makes things a lot easier for sure.

He wrote:

The outside of wraps is 1/2" from the magnet surface, and there is no bobbin. There is a transverse wrap of tape around the coil to keep it in.

The red bobbins that come with the pickup "kit" are from the guitar, as they are too narrow and too tall for the bass covers. You can also see them in this photo of Les and the "log".

It wouldn't be too hard to make bobbins though. I do it for most of the pickups I make. It would make winding the coils easier, especially with that heavy wire.

Another difference between the guitar and bass pickups; the guitar pickups used 24AWG wire, while the bass used 32AWG. The LP Signature pickups were very different. Bill Lawrence designed those, and he used 42AWG wire and they are set up like conventional humbuckers. The reissue Jack Casady bass uses 24 gauge wire, like the LP Recording guitar.

David

[Basvarken]

Welcome David!

Yes the prototype Les Paul Bass pickups do have 3 coiltaps. Each pickup has 8 leads coming out. Just like the official Les Paul Bass and the Triumph.

The prototype pickups have green enamel wire. The normal Les Paul Bass pickups have red enamel wire.


I am very interested in this whole project. I've been trying to find a pickup builder that can build these awesome lo-z pickups for quite some time. But so far without any luck.
If I can be of any assistance, please don't hesitate to ask.

Rob

[SGD Lutherie]

Thanks for the welcome Rob! I'm not sure how I missed this forum.

I've wanted a Triumph bass and LP Recording guitar since they were first introduced back in the day. I've always ended up with lots of knobs and switches on my guitars, so I guess that appealed to me! I remember when you couldn't give them away, but now they are getting pricy.

The first pickups I tried winding back in the late 70s were low-Z, as I was trying to get that Alembic tone.  More recently when I decided to go into the pickup making business I was winding low Z pickups very similar to the original LP Signature pickups, but using an external preamp instead of a transformer. My current standard pickups are high Z, but still different from most of the stuff out there. I've been planning on making a new Low Z pickup, using the heavy wire, and a transformer, and in standard soapbar style cases.

As I mentioned earlier I'm planning on building myself a version of a LP Triumph. I have the pickup covers and mounting rings, a long scale LP neck and an inlay set from a 70s LP Custom. I could make a more correct short scale mahogany neck, but I like the fact that I have a real Gibson neck, and I like long scales better. Now I just have to make the body, finish the neck and wind the pickups. I'm probably not going to use the plastic control plate, since they seem to bend and stuff after a while. So it will be a cross being the triumph and original LP bass.

Info on the pickups is hard to come by.  A thread was started over at the Pickup Makers forum back in '07, and that had some interesting tidbits.

http://music-electronics-forum.com/t3737/

That included the photo of the pickup made by Chuck Burge.

So any info is helpful. I've never had a set of the real pickups, so I wont know how close mine are since I have nothing to compare them to. I did get some specs from someone who did resistance measurements of each coil tap, and general info like magnet size. Based on that, and the over all size of the coils, I should be able to wind a pretty faithful replica of the pickups. I plan on making a rubber mold of the covers so I can cast them, since they are hard to come by.

I'm a very small one man operation, and I enjoy doing unusual pickups.