The ’72 Fender Mustang Bass Pickup may appear to be a budget model but Leo Fender cared about his products and everything was thoroughly thought out.
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A bit of history
I get to repair old pickups as well as make new ones so when I was sent this old Mustang Bass Pickup I thought it was worth taking a few pics and writing about it.
This was the last bass designed by Leo Fender before he sold Fender to CBS in ’65. This pickup shows all the thought and consideration you would expect from the great man. It’s easy to dismiss pickups on ‘budget’ guitars but there’s a lot more to this one than meets the eye.
The later version of this instrument, the Musicmaster Bass had a single coil pickup straight out of a Stratocaster – yes really. Here is more on the Musicmaster bass pickup. I make my own version of the Musicmaster bass pickup in two flavours.
The original Mustang bass pickup that I have here is a split pair, like a precision bass pickup but with a few essential design differences.
What makes the Mustang Bass Pickup great
The obvious thing is that it’s smaller, but there’s a good reason for that.
The Mustang is a short scale bass, 30″. With a shorter scale comes less string tension and a much boomier sound with less percussive highs and a fatter bottom end.
So why didn’t he just use P Bass pickup?
It’s obvious from the design of the Mustang Bass Pickup that the intention was not to just knock out a cheap student model but to make a great instrument only with a shorter scale.
You can see that the magnets are protruding out of the bottom of the base plate – they’re 24mm long alnico 5 magnets. P Bass magnets are around half that length. Bigger magnets means more pull on the string and more punch to the attack of the note.
The distance between top and bottom plates is greater on the Mustang than the P Bass. This gives a much taller pickup. With a taller pickup more of the windings are closer to the magnet. A P Bass’ windings can get a lot further away from that magnetic field by the time you get to the outside turns.
Windings closer to the magnet gives a sharper, more percussive mote than the mellower P Bass.
With roughly the same turn count between P Bass and mustang this means the Mustang’s footprint is smaller.
Both those factors – coil geometry and magnetic pull are specifically designed to offset the lack of definition you can hear in a short scale bass.
This was not the easiest path to take. The magnets would have to have been specially made and the flatwork (top and bottom plates) would have been made specifically for this model. Not least there would have been molds made to injection mold the covers.
It was all about getting the best possible sound from a short scale bass while make the price accessible to more musicians.
It’s a clever design.
Five years later when CBS were running Fender they introduced the same bass but with a Stratocaster (yes, 6 pole) pickup. Now that was taking the easy route. Leo Fender always did things the best way he could, working up to a standard rather than down to a price.
If you’re interested in Leo Fender read Forrest White’s book, he was there.
So back to the Mustang Bass Pickup repair
As you can see from the colour of the windings the wire has plain enamel insulation. The insulation does make a difference. Not all insulation is the same thickness. Thicker insulation means windings are further away from each other. This changes the pickups capacitance and to an extent inductance and dc resistance. Remember, we’re multiplying small differences by how many turns there are, in this case over 10,000.
It appears this coil failed due to corrosion of the magnetic pole
You can see the corrosion in this pic.
In the 70’s Fender pickups were potted in lacquer rather than wax in both earlier and later periods. The lacquer didn’t penetrate all the way to the core of the pickup and this is the result.
Before I re-wound this coil it was rust proofed and insulated – I want this repair to outlive me.
Enjoy this? You may also like…
Musicmaster Bass PickupPrecision BassSassy – traditional P90
The Playmaker humbucker set is a clear sounding guitar pickup set made for genres from classic rock to heavy blues.
Designed for its dynamics, this humbucker set reacts to your playing style and volume settings. They clean up when you back off. They give you the grit you’re looking for when you dig in. The perfect pickup for classic rock or dirty blues. Whether you’re pushing an amp, using pedals or using amp modeling.
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The Playmaker was designed for players who need a guitar pickup with a little more than a PAF. But without being an over the top rock pickup set. They have a little more power and bite than a traditional PAF. The Playmaker’s dynamics and touch sensitivity help you stand out from the mix.
A big part of the testing process involved playing through various classic overdrive pedals as well as amplifiers. Both neck and bridge pickups had to work well with a Tube Screamer, Klon, Blues Driver and fuzz. Not to forget amp modelling, it’s a big part of modern playing.
Here Warren Mendonsa shows the dynamics of the pickups change when he uses the volume controls. The Playmakers respond to his pick attack, that creates huge possibilities for varying your tone and feel. Back off and the Playmaker backs off with you. Dig in and they sing.
Playmaker bridge pickup
The Playmaker bridge pickup was designed with pedals in mind. A part of the testing process was about voicing these pickups to be used with various overdrives. Tube Screamer, Klon and Blues Driver as well as natural amp overdrive were all used as test sounds.
Overdrive stacking is a big part of a lot of player’s sound. The Playmaker set was tested with this in mind.
The bridge pickup is wound asymmetrically and powered by an alnico IV magnet. This gives it better tonal balance than the slightly scooped alnico V magnet. But there’s more power than the alnico II in a PAF. The alnico IV delivers just the right amount of power. It is designed to respond well to variations in pick attack giving the dynamics that blues players need. It maintains its transparency and clarity when using the guitar volume giving you great onboard control.
Playmaker neck pickup
The neck pickup is also wound asymmetrically and uses an alnico 2 magnet to maintain a mid range balance.
The reason for the asymmetry is to give greater mid range clarity and that neck pickup chime. It loves clean funky rhythm lines as well as singing leads. This is a neck pickup that wants to be played, not just an ornament. It’s great for rhythm parts that stand out in a mix. But it’s not shy if you’re having a Gary Moore or Santana moment.
Here’s another example of the bridge and neck pickups.
Here is a short video showing some of my thoughts on the Playmaker and how they sound.
The Development of the Playmaker humbucker set
The idea behind this pickup came originally from Ben Sargent. He’s a well respected guitar repairer in Wellington NZ. He has fitted many sets of my pickups as well as using them himself.
He called me in late 2024 with an idea. He’d been thinking I should make a pickup between my Integrity PAF range and the Cloud Nine rock pickup set. Something that would react to changes in the player’s attack. A humbucker set that would be equally happy played clean or dirty.
It seemed like a great idea. We agreed it needed to be something different, not just an over wound PAF. So that summer the idea was churning around in my head.
Spending time thinking can often be more productive than time spent winding coils.
In February 2025 I got down to work making prototypes. As for all my pickups when I felt I was close I swapped the pickups into different guitars. Testing with various scale lengths and body woods is essential. I need to hear them in different situations.
I tested them with many different amps and overdrive pedals and with the band. At that time the band was auditioning for a new drummer. It was the perfect environment to try the pickups in different situations. The drummer makes a big difference to how the pickup’s low end responds in a mix. Within a month I got to test them with 2 different bass players and a half a dozen drummers. Its important to play next to a drummer and bass player. You just don’t know how a pickup will react until its up loud in a mix.
Playing live is an essential part of my testing. That is when you hear how the bottom end sits in a mix. It is easy to make a pickup too boomy. It is only in a band situation that you really know how it sits. A lot of makers skip this stage. It certainly makes the design process longer but I intend to use this design for the rest of my life. I don’t care how long the prototyping stage takes, it needs to be right.
When I was happy I sent a set down to Ben in Wellington to get his take on them. He’s a very different player to me so his contribution really mattered. He was happy with them – so I was too.
These pickups are happiest with 500k Ohm volume and tone pots and 50’s style wiring in Gibson type guitars. The choice of capacitor is up to you but I like 0.022microfarad. Great with either modern wiring or 50’s wiring though my preference is 50’s.
The bridge pickup is great in HSS Strats alongside either my Kokako or Tui single coils. The neck pickup is ideal as a neck humbucker with my Cruel Mistress or Duchess bridge pickups.
To celebrate NZ Music Month in May ’25 I recorded a riff every day for a month. Every riff was from a New Zealand artist. and they were all recorded using a Playmaker set in a Les Paul. I wanted to show the versatility of this pickup set. Here are all 31 riffs. I think you’ll agree this set of pickups will do just about anything you ask of them.
Cover options
Here are some options for the look of your new pickups.
Don’t forget, if you want your pickups aged you just have to ask. I’ll ask you for some pictures and do my best to match the ageing of your guitar. Here is some more info on guitar pickup ageing.
The Warwolf is a brutal, hard hitting guitar pickup set designed for extreme metal in drop tunings.
Immediate, punchy bass, smooth mids with plenty of character and a present top end give these pickups the ability to cut through the mix no matter how low your tuning. The combination of brutality and clarity make the Warwolf essential both on stage and in the studio.
The bridge humbucker has the bite and grunt to power your riffs and bring them out in the mix. The neck humbucker has a bell like clarity perfect for clean passages or fat lead tones.
There is plenty of power to push the front end of a 5150 but with a frequency response to work with amp modeling.
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The Warwolf doesn’t have the spec you might expect from a powerful pickup but this has been a re-think of the requirements of pickups for metal guitar and a re-working of what is actually needed to produce a crushing tone in both sound and feel.
At the beginning of the process I had assumed I needed coils with high dc resistance but I discovered that was not the case. To get the maximum punch, clarity and dynamics this pickup has a lower powered coil but big magnets. The coils produce clarity and a balanced frequency range. Big magnets give a big punch. It’s all about the immediacy of the note. To achieve that brutal feel the note needs to start and stop instantly, that comes from the magnets.
Warwolf
The Concept
The oversized ceramic magnets in the bridge pickup are asymmetrically mounted to emphasize one coil over another, the idea is to reduce the magnetic window to give the pickup character and focus.
The neck pickup has a more conventional magnetic symmetry.
Although this style of guitar pickup needs a certain amount of power that is not the whole story. Without clarity and punch it’s worthless. Ceramic magnets give a dryer, more immediate attack than alnico. We don’t want a warm smooth, soggy bass – it needs to react instantly, have an immediate kick.
Ceramic can be guilty of sounding scooped but with the coils providing mid range there’s a balance. The treble is present but not harsh. The winding method provides clarity- it’s all about clarity.
Sound Sample
Here is the Warwolf in a mix:
Warwolf in a mix
And the guitar tracks isolated:
Guitar Isolated
The Design
Here is the design concept of both neck and bridge pickups described in my own words:
The Backstory
The design of this pickup set started back in August 2020 when I approached Raj Singarajah from Dynamic Rage Studio to be the ‘test pilot’ for this project. Some musical genres need expert ears and I knew I needed someone with taste and experience to steer my designs.
After about 6 months of prototypes we had what we were after. That time taught me a lot about designing pickups for this extremely demanding style. It was then that I realized that I had to manufacture so many difficult parts for this particular pickup that is just wasn’t going to be practical for me to make in any quantity. The project got put on hold. But I had learnt a lot about what a pickup was required to do to work in this very difficult environment.
Then at the beginning of 2022 I was contacted by New Zealand band Alien Weaponry to make a signature pickup for guitarist Lewis DeJong. I thought this was where I could use my design ideas. But one of the design requirements for Lewis’ pickup was it needed to have a sound similar to their last album so they could tour with it. My ideas about lower impedance weren’t going to work. Lewis’ set up is old school using Marshall heads powering 4×12’s so I took a more traditional approach to his pickup. You can find out more about the signature pickup for Lewis DeJong from Alien Weaponry here.
The idea for my extreme metal pickup was still churning around in my head but I needed help to get it off the ground.
Then in July 2024 I saw a post on Facebook by Richie Simpson. Richie is an award winning artist and producer of New Way Home and City of Souls. He had been a customer of mine when I was repairing guitars. I remembered he had been for ever swapping pickups in his many guitars searching for a tone.
He had experience of all the metal pickups out there, he’s a great player, knows this genre intimately and is a top human being. So I messaged him and he said yes. There followed a long phone conversation to establish what the brief was. It really felt we were on the same page.
A week later I was at his studio with a guitar loaded with the first prototypes. I was quite prepared for these first pickups to be a total failure, I just needed to sound him out. I needed to find out what sound was in his head and the best way to do that was to have an example with me. But I also wanted my idea to work.
When I got to his studio Richie was tracking guitars. We listened to one of his guitars with a ‘boutique’ pickup in the bridge position, then plugged in the Warwolf to A/B. I could tell from his face he was ‘feeling it’.
The neck pickup was right first time and the bridge was close. I’d won round 1 on clarity and punch. It turned out that was his #2 guitar.
So now for the #1.
It was pretty obvious this was no longer just a concept- this was the real thing.
He kept that guitar for a week to get a feel for it and to make sure it was exactly right. It was close but not quite there. We had a chat, I made another.
Then he came to my workshop and I fitted a set into one of his guitars to see how that worked.
A week later we talked. He was completely happy with the neck pickup but the bridge needed more mids. That’s how it proceeded for a few months.
I tweaked the design. Time passed and he wanted that pickup in his number one guitar just to eliminate the difference in the guitar bodies.
Whenever I collaborate with a player I’m very aware that each guitar sounds different. My test guitar for this genre is a very neutral sounding basswood body 25.5 inch scale LTD guitar. It’s got a very even frequency response so ideal for testing.
The plan is to get the pickups sounding good in this guitar and then transfer them to the player’s guitar to compare.
The body wood does make a difference – I find it unbelievable that debate is still going on. I swap a lot of pickups and the guitar they’re going into matters, I wish it didn’t. Just listen to two electric guitars played acoustically, that’s the sound the pickups are hearing.
A Player’s Perspective
Here it is in Richie’s words:
August 2024
The Warwolf is much more than your average over compressed, one dimensional metal pickup. Through a fastidious back and forth phase over the course of 6 months, using multiple guitars and amps, a balance was struck.
The brief: “Classic, punchy nineties heavy tone. Attack, tightness, aggression and detail while retaining balance, bloom, string separation and weight to chords. Ideal for alternative or groove metal, thrash and heavy rock.
If mid nineties Jerry Cantrell, Steph Carpenter and Dimebag Darrell had a baby with Terry Date”
Using more robust rails and larger powerful ceramic magnets has allowed for a more open wind while still maintaining the snap and mid range aggression required for heavy music. Avoiding the brittle harshness often associated with ceramic rails.
The Warwolf punches when it chugs, steering away from clanky single coil-esque pick attack and the upper mid bias cliche of many metal pickups. It’s open, organic and balanced nature gives size to a mix, width and note separation to chords under high gain while retaining excellent tightness, a commanding mid range bark and muscular thump during palm muting.
Response to your playing feels natural, without the sense you are fighting with a loose, low output pickup or conversely like the pickup is doing all the driving for you and hiding nuance or preventing clean up. Just enough compression for a mean high gain rhythm tone while still letting your right hand do the talking (Or yelling).
Leads are clear and liquid. Mid gain and clean tones are full and balanced but if you play aggressively, the Warwolf will tear your face right off and drop it back at your feet.
“This is what I’ve been after for a LONG time”.
When you bend a note on these pickups you don’t get strings dropping out as they pass over different bobbins, or if other strings are ringing out they’re not cutting through the bending string signal and vice versa. That’s the beauty of Glyn’s rail design.
The magnetic field is balanced more evenly across the strings and that opens a lot of doors to ideas that might only translate with this kind of pickup. The Warwolf design does something to the mid range that I really dig too. Like a harmonic overtone smearing that is really pleasing for heavy riffs. With each strings signal being represented in a more evenly powered way you can almost get the feel of a boost pedal or active pickup while retaining the more expressive dynamic range of a passive.
That feel responds well to a boost pedal if you are so inclined and doesn’t squish out or lose definition like a super hot pickup can.
I genuinely love how these things feel and sound. They’re unique and alive, translate well to a mix and most importantly they make me want to play! (Not to mention they look cool as hell) Glyn has absolutely nailed it.”
The Warwolf name
It’s always hard choosing a name but this one comes with a story.
I wanted a name that would represent a heavy crushing force, something fearful and powerful.
The Warwolf was the largest trebuchet ever made. It was built in 1304 for king Edward I of England during the siege of Stirling Castle in Scotland.
It took so long to build that the siege was over by the time it was completed. He used it anyway.
The Blue 90 is a dynamic, clear, balanced P90 pickup set. It has a little less low end push than a traditional P90 but with clearer highs. They’re designed for the player wanting a clean sounding P90 tone but with the ability to push an amp when asked. Ideal for clean tones, jazz, funk and blues.
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Blue 90 Tone
The phrase ‘fat single coil’ is really the essence of this pickup set. They have a full, chiming tone but with the dynamics of a true single coil pickup. They have that distinctive P90 tone but with more clarity. If you ask them they will push your amp into overdrive but less than my Sassy P90 set. They have the magnetic and coil geometry of a P90 but the under wound coil gives a clearer, more dynamic tone.
The Concept
I had been thinking for a while about making another P90 set. Something a little less powerful than the Sassy P90 pickup but with more sparkle than the smooth Cool 90 pickup.
I had experimented a little with under winding the Sassy and really liked the results. I liked the dynamics and how well it worked with modulation effects and delays giving a well balanced platform for these effects to shine. With my prototypes I had reduced the lower mid range ‘clonk’ that traditional P90’s have. It seemed like a pickup with a definite place in then World..
It felt to me like a very useful set of tones and I needed to investigate more. Like with many designs I hadn’t done much about it other than making a prototype, playing around with it, taking it to a gig to hear it next to a drummer and leaving it at that. I always liked this design, I just didn’t get around to putting them up for sale.
The Blue 90 story
Then in September 2024 I received a phone call from guitarist Nick Granville.
Nick has a few of my pickups in various guitars and I have huge admiration for his playing. He knows guitars and he knows tone.
The reason he called was that he had a problem with a P90 loaded guitar (not my P90’s). He wanted a cleaner P90 tone.
Like many pro players he’s very good at describing sound and his requirements. I felt my Sassy P90 set might be a bit grunty for him so after a little think I decided my new P90 idea might suit his needs.
For me this is a great situation where I get to borrow the ears of a top pro player to test out a new pickup. Although I had done a lot of testing myself already I knew that if Nick liked these pickups it would push it over the line and I’d have a new model. I always have prototypes on the go, sometimes it just needs a nudge.
I wound a set, sent them to him and a few days later got a message which read:
“They really do sound good. Have a nice sparkle but still sound like P90’s, and enough push to get it driving enough and vintage in vibe. I like them a lot.”
So that was it, a new pickup set was born. I’m very pleased to welcome this new P90 set to my website.
Available in dogear or Soapbar, black or cream. If you’re ordering Dogear (or even if you aren’t) I’m happy to send you a 3D printing file for height shims.
I was contacted by a customer recently wanting a 2 string pickup. Was it for a 2 string guitar? Maybe some other instrument…
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Why would you want a 2 string guitar pickup?
The idea behind this pickup is for it to be mounted to a conventional electric guitar for it to just ‘hear’ the E and A strings. Then that signal is sent out separately from the main guitar pickups and put through a pedal to lower it an octave. The octave down sound can be amplified separately or combined with the signal from the 6 string pickups. It’s one of those ideas that the more you think about it the more uses you find for it.
I came across this idea before back in 2014. Here is a blog post on 2 string pickups I wrote back then. The ones I made then were a little different. One was for a bouzouki and another for an acoustic guitar. The overall idea was the same. The idea is to only hear one or two strings and to lower the signal by an octave.
Design
I had a lot of questions for the customer. In the end I concluded the pure signal from a single coil pickup was needed. And that pick guard mounted mounting would be best.
So I got on the computer and designed what was essentially a cut down Strat pickup.
2 String CAD drawing
My plan was to design the pickup using a CAD program and then laser cut the top and bottom plates. It is constructed the same way as a Fender.
The advantages of using a laser cutter are simply accuracy and repeatability. The customer wanted 2 pickups and, well, I have been asked before, maybe I will again. Spending time on the CAD drawing means I’ll only have to do this once, next time it will be a lot easier.
Laser cutting
Pickup Construction
The bobbins have a top and bottom plate laser cut from Forbon (like a Fender) and held together with the magnets. I have my magnets specially made for me, these are the two middle magnets from ‘Tui’ pickup. As extra security I always super glue the magnets and flatwork together as well as insulate the magnets from the windings – I want to be sure. I haven’t shown that in this picture.
bobbins
I chose the Tui design and winding count because of its strong clear signal. The bass strings need to have a big clear chime if they’re going to be lowered an octave. I don’t want them to sound mushy or undefined.
Once they were wound I potted them in hot wax to prevent micro-phonic feedback. It’s turning out to be a really cute little 2 String Pickup.
The finished pickup
I did consider designing and 3D printing a cover for this 2 string pickup. I think it will be something I’ll do in future but there isn’t the budget for that this time. To finish the pickup off after wiring it up I taped the coil for protection. It’s ended up looking more like a mini Tele bridge pickup.
And there’s the perfect space on the bottom for one of my stickers.
A few weeks later I received an email from the customer saying – “It’s sounding great – I’m noticing much better string isolation then what I was getting with the cheap cigar box pup”.
He included this picture of his rather cool looking guitar:
2 String Pickup
If you have a project in mind please get in touch. I’m not always going to say yes but sometimes I do.
Pickup Height
The base plate is designed with the intention of a pick guard mounting like in a Strat type guitar. There is always going to be some modifying needed to fit this pickup.
Remember, you’re aiming at a pickup height of 2mm. That’s from the top of the magnet to the underside of the string. That measurement is taken when fretting the last fret.
This diagram should help:
Measuring Pickup Height
That measurement is not super critical but you need to be close. If the pickup is too far away you will not get a strong, clear signal.
Strat Wiring must be the most modded wiring of all. It’s not that the original wiring isn’t great, there are just so many other possibilities. When I worked as a guitar repairer I re-wired a lot of Stratocasters. There are so many options, so many things that can be changed. A lot of players have their favourite versions of wiring up these fantastic guitars.
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What I did find when I as modifying other peoples guitars is they would often come back to something close to standard wiring in the end. After trying multiple switching in every combination, series, parallel, coil tapping, humbuckers … it goes on, they often returned their Strat so something very close to the way Leo Fender originally did it back in 1954. There is a lot to be said in favour of simplicity.
Here I’m simply going to show you the standard way of wiring a Strat and add one simple and useful modification – that cheeky little red wire. I can’t recall ever being asked to remove this modification to a Strat’s wiring, there’s simply no disadvantage.
Here is the diagram using the colour code for my own single coil pickups.
Strat Wiring Diagram
Strat Wiring
How Strat controls work
The heart of Stratocasters is the 5 way switch. Interestingly it wasn’t until 1977 that Fender fitted them as standard. Before that it was a 3 way switch and players had to ‘balance’ it between 2 positions to get that famous in between Strat tone. We’ve got it easy these days. Position 2 or 4 on a 5 way is such an iconic Stratocaster sound – you can spot it anywhere.
Here is a Stratocaster control plate. It looks straightforward but why are there 2 tone controls? Must be treble and bass yeah? Well no, it’s a bit more complicated than that. This is a passive system (no battery) so the tones just cut treble giving your sound less highs, they can’t boost bass. The middle knob marked tone is the control for the neck pickup and the end one for the middle pickup.
With the switch in the position shown the neck pickup is selected and the middle knob acts as a tone. If this 5 way switch was 2 clicks on it would select just the middle pickup and the end tone know would be engaged.So you can pre-set a tone setting for a pickup. I guess it was considered a step up from the Telecaster’s single tone control for the whole guitar.
Strat controls
That’s great but it means with a standard stratocaster there is no tone control for the bridge pickup. If ever there was a pickup that needed a bit less treble its the strat bridge pickup. If you refer back to the wiring diagram you can see a little red wire on the switch connecting 2 legs together. Adding that little wire with mean that the tone control for the middle pickup will also work for the bridge pickup.
It’s the simplest of all Strat Wiring mods but a very useful one and a good place to start if you’re new to experimenting with wiring.
What is SSS, HSS and HSH?
SSS – means 2 single coil pickups so a simply a standard Strat configuration.
HSS – That’s a Strat but with a humbucker (H) in the bridge position. The reason you might want a humbucker is for a fatter bridge pickup sound. Standard Strat bridge pickups can sound a bit weedy. All the Strat bridge pickups I make have a little bit more power to offset this but a humbucker may well suit you better anyway. This makes for a very versatile guitar but retaining the simplicity of the original design. On stage there is so much going on that complicated switching options can often work against you.
HSH – You’ve guessed it – there’s a humbucker in the neck and bridge positions. This is often used with coil tapping. The idea is to have both Gibson and Fender sounds in one guitar. Usually positions 1 and 5 of the switch will give either bridge or neck humbucker on their own. Positions 2, 3 and 4 will be combinations of the middle single coil pickup and the humbucker with 1 coil switched off (coil tapping) or series/parallel etc. There are so many options and combinations possible and some spectacularly complicated wiring to figure out to make it work.
For some of the more complicated wiring options the conventional 5 way switch just isn’t enough. There is a type of switch commonly called a ‘super switch’ that gives these extra options. It looks the same from the outside and is the same to operate but under the hood there’s a lot more going on. This switch allows you to wire up just about all the options imaginable. Maybe I’ll write more about them some other time.
Do I turn it all up full?
A lot of players do but I feel they’re missing out on a lot of tones. Try backing off the volume and tone to about 8 and setting the amp sound to that. It really is worth trying it. As you turn the volume down your sound looses a little treble. This can really smooth things out and give you an easier tone to work with. With your volume at 8 you also have somewhere to go if you need that bit extra for a big solo.
Now I’m at the end of this blog I realise there are a lot more diagrams to draw and a lot of wiring options to discuss. Not just for Strats, there are modifications that can be done on any guitar.
You often come across the terms HSS in reference to guitar pickups but what does HSS mean? And while we’re at it, What do HSH and SSS mean too?
It’s all about the pickup configuration in a guitar (usually a Strat style guitar).
Put simply it means Humbucker, Single coil, Single coil and refers to the pickup configuration in an electric guitar.
Traditionally Stratocasters had 3 single coil pickups SSS – single, single, single. But there are other options – replacing the bridge pickup for a humbucker – HSS, humbucker, single, single. Or replacing both bridge and neck for humbuckers – HSH, humbucker, single, humbucker. I’m sure you get the point.
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Why would you want a bridge humbucker?
Surely Fender know what they’re doing so why mess with it?
Well, the Stratocaster first went into production in 1954 and has barely changed since. Although the guitar is the same, music certainly isn’t. Changing the bridge pickup for a humbucker can give you way more options.
HSS Strat
What is the difference between humbucker and single coil tone?
Humbuckers are generally more powerful and have a fuller tone. They will push an amplifier into overdrive more easily. The humbucker sound is fatter and less percussive.
This is a great configuration but for rock players the bridge pickup can be a bit thin and weedy sounding.
There is a place for every tone but a lot of players do prefer having a bit more power in the bridge position.
SSS Strat
What’s the solution?
With the advent of replacement pickups players started fitting humbuckers in the bridge position. It can involve some routing (not always) but it really fattens up that bridge position sound. The HSS (humbucker, single, single) Strat was born.
HSS guitars are hugely versatile. You get the best of both worlds. All the lovely clean single coil tones but with a fat lead tone when you need it. It’s like combining a Strat with a Les Paul and can really open up possibilities.
By now you’ve guessed HSH – humbucker, single, humbucker . This is another hugely versatile set up but we’re getting further away from the original Strat tones here. This is really popular with rock players from the. 1980’s on. The neck position humbucker gives those lush thick fat lead tones associated with Gibsons – think ‘Still Got The Blues’.
HSH
With all these extra tonal options come more wiring possibilities. Humbuckers have 2 coils. That gives the option to have those coils wired in series (conventional humbucker) or in parallel- similar to a single coil tone.
There’s also the option of coil tap where one of the 2 coils is turned off.
How those wiring options sounds is going to be the subject of another blog/video.
What is a swimming pool route?
If you have a conventional Strat type guitar it does require a bit of woodworking to fit a humbucker at the bridge position.
Here is what a Strat looks like under the pickguard. As you can see a humbucker won’t fit in that small cavity.
SSS Strat Body
But some Strats have what is known as a swimming pool route. With this type of body any pickup configuration will fit. SSS, HSS, HSH, you just need to change the pickguard. It looks like this:
Swimming Pool Route
There is a school of thought though that this ruins the sound of a Stratocaster. I’m not getting into that discussion here.
So What does HSS mean?
Well, it’s simply an option for pickups on (usually) a Stratocaster type guitar.
There are so many tonal options with a Strat, so many changes you can make. if you are getting into modifying (modding) guitars then a Strat is a perfect platform for experimenting.
Pickup string spacing is something you need to be aware of when you’re buying guitar pickups, particularly humbuckers. Guitar bridges come with different string widths so pickups need to match that. In this blog post I’m going to explain what It’s all about and how to measure it.
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What is a Pole Piece?
Pickups have pole pieces, think of these as magnets mounted in the pickup listening for string movement. Sometimes they are actual magnets, sometimes pieces of steel directing magnetism towards the strings. In this case they are steel screws.
Humbucker Poles
This is what we mean by ‘pole spacing’ its the distance between the outer most poles, centre to centre.
Humbucker pole spacing
What you don’t need to know
Here’s how a pickup works. A the string sitting inside the magnetic field actually becomes a temporary magnet. When the string vibrates it disturbs this magnetic field. This creates an electrical signal in the coil of wire around the magnet.
It’s a tiny signal but enough to get through your guitar’s on board circuit and down a cable. It’s hard to imagine that such a small amount of electricity can produce such a lot of sound. Have a think about it next time you’re at a big gig. What you’re hearing is just that small amount of electricity generated in a coil of wire. It’s really cool stuff and I find it fascinating. But you don’t really need to know all that.
Pickup String spacing – what you need to know
The string needs to align with the magnet to get the best signal. Magnets are, however, not lasers, they generate a magnetic field and not a precise beam. If the string isn’t in perfect alignment it’s fine. If the slightest misalignment made a difference then string bending would cause a drop in volume. Have a look next time you bend a string how far the string moves away from the pole.
String Alignment
As you can see, a little bit out of line makes no difference. Eddie Van Halen used a vintage PAF on Van Halen I with a Fender type bridge. PAF ‘s were 49.2mm (1 15/16″) spacing and Fender bridges are usually 52mm. If there had been a problem he would have noticed. So don’t get too hung up on this stuff. There are many more tiny details involved in guitar playing that you’ll be much better off worrying about.
Please remember that if a humbucker has 49.2mm spacing or 52mm spacing it’s outer dimensions are the same. The overall size of the pickup doesn’t change. So if you take out a 49.2mm humbucker and replace it with a 52mm it will still fit. It’s just the pole alignment to the strings that will be different.
As the poles can be further away the distance the winding wire travels to get around the bobbing is also longer. A 52mm pole spaced pickup will have a slightly higher Ohm reading than a 49.2mm spaces pickup due to this extra length. It is possible to under wind a longer bobbing to compensate for this but the result is a pickup that sounds thinner. Its the number of turns that is important not the Ohm reading. You don’t really need to know that either but it’s an interesting fact.
Guitar bridges come in various sizes giving different string spacing. A Gibson ABR Tune-o-matic your string spacing will be narrower than a Fender Strat bridge, for instance. It can get confusing when dealing with different Tune-o-Matic bridges. The older style ABR has a narrower spacing than the more modern Nashville bridge. Either could be fitted to a Les Paul. If you’re thinking of buying some Mr Glyn’s pickups and you have any doubt just email me. Yoiu can always send a pic and I’ll tell you which bridge you have.
By the time the strings get to the neck pickup the spacings are just about the same. So neck pickups don’t vary in width. We’re just talking about bridge pickups here.
Ideally we want the strings to line up as best as possible with the pickup’s poles. But we’re not getting too hung up on it.
How to measure string spacing
The measurement is the distance from the first to the sixth strings centre to centre at the bridge pickup. This diagram should help:
Strat Bridge
You can simply do this with a ruler, like I have.
As you can see this ’89 Strat bridge has 52mm string spacing. If you wanted to choose a bridge humbucker to make it a HSS Strat then choose the 52mm option.
If you’re buying a Mr Glyns Pickup and have any doubt just send me a pic of your bridge. I will be able to advise you.
What is F spacing?
F spacing simply means a wider spaced bridge humbucker – 52, 52.5 or 53mm. The F stands for either ‘Fender’ or ‘Floyd Rose’. It isn’t clear which and doesn’t really matter.
Why 49.2mm not just 49mm? You may well ask! It’s the metric equivalent of the pole spacing for a Gibson PAF. That is the pickup most humbuckers are based on. The original measurement in imperial is 1 15/16″ – which if you ask me is no less silly a number that 49.2. But we’re stuck with it.
If you have any questions about which pickup is right for you please get in touch.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Please contact me if there are any pickup based subjects you would like me to write a blog about. I’m always looking for new subjects.
I thought it was going to be a straightforward pickup repair but is this pickup actually a Maxon humbucker?
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As part of my work I repair pickups for luthiers. Most guitar repairers don’t wind pickups and even the ones that do often send me pickups to repair, it saves them a lot of time. One such repairer is Auckland’s Ramsay Phillips.
For me repairing pickups is a really interesting part of my job. I enjoy seeing how the basic concept of a magnet and a coil of wire can be made in so many different ways. Back in the 1990’s I first learned about pickups by repairing them and I don’t think that instinct ever leaves. Most of my pickup repair work is very straight forward but occasionally something interesting comes along. This is one of those.
So Ramsay sent me a bridge humbucker from this 1970’s Antoria to repair. I was expecting something like the classic Maxon U-1000 but there was a surprise.
This is not the first Maxon Humbucker I’ve seen I’ve worked on a few old Maxon pickups in my time and they have always deserved their great reputation. So I had a good idea what to expect from this humbucker.
Maxon serial number dating
The number on the base plate of this pickup is a date stamp not a model number though it would be nice to have both.
So to translate the Maxon pickup dating code:
The first number is a production line code
second number is the year, so in this case 1974
third number, the month, so September
and the last 2 are the day, so the 17th
So that tells us its from Sept 17th 1974. I always wonder why manufacturers can’t just write the date plainly instead of a secret code but they all seem to do it.
Something unusual
But there’s something odd here. The pole piece screws don’t extend under the base plate. The 6 holes in the base where I expected to see the poles are blocked by something. Time to get the cover off and see what’s inside.
What’s Inside?
This is exactly what was inside – a single coil disguised as a humbucker! So Maxon humbucker? Well, it’s a Maxon but not a humbucker.
It has the typical floppy nylon bobbin I would expect to see in a Maxon but this one is sitting on top of a large ceramic magnet.
My job here is to fix this pickup so I remove the bobbin and start to carefully remove the sticky old tape.
I remove the hookup wires and try re-soldering them to the winding wire and the pickup comes to life. It was simply a dry joint. This one is showing me 8KOhms on the meter which is in the ballpark of a PAF though it would sound nothing like one.
You can see the metal plate mounted inside the bobbin that connects the short pole screws to the magnet.
So, Maxon humbucker? Well, certainly Maxon but not a humbucker. Beware – not all Maxon pickups are classics.
I’ve had a look on line and can’t find a model number for this pickup. It seems the only distinguishing feature from the outside is the lack of pole screws through the base plate.
If you are interested in vintage humbucker tones check out the Mr Glyn’s ‘Integrity’ humbucker. It comes in 4 flavours or both bridge and neck.
The Duchess Tele set is for the Telecaster player in need of that distinctive smooth Tele twang but with none of the ice pick cut. The neck pickup is warm and balanced with a full clarity and string separation. This a medium powered set that sits nicely in my range between the Silver Lady and Cruel Mistress.
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The Duchess Tele Set
The Duchess Tele pickup set will do just about everything from ‘vintage’ Tele twang to a platform for pedals.
The Duchess’ beginnings
The idea for this pickup started in 2021. I had some work at Roundhead recording studios in Auckland looking after the guitars of an American recording artist. During the process, the producer and engineer (working from the US) decided to send over their favorite ‘magic’ telecaster because they wanted that sound on the record.
The guitar arrived and it was an original ’61 Fender Esquire Custom, sunburst, double bound and just beautiful.
Although it was an Esquire it had a neck pickup that they told me had been added later. After taking the pick guard off it looked more like the neck pickup had been fitted in the factory so maybe it was a custom order. There are often strange anomalies with vintage guitars. We’re so used to models being standardized these days but it wasn’t always this way.
My job was to check over this guitar and set it up for the recording.
I plugged it in and loved the sound immediately, now I understood why they’d shipped it over from the US for this session. So, I got my test meters out to analyze every aspect of the pickup. It was rather unusual for a Fender pickup of that time so maybe it had been re-wound at some stage. That didn’t matter, it sounded great, so I set out to make a Telecaster set in that style but with my own spin.
I made quite a few prototypes and did all the usual testing but didn’t quite get around to releasing the pickup. It often works that way, the last part, the part where I actually put the pickup on the website can take quite a while.
The Duchess Tele is finally born
Then in 2022 I had the idea for my Pandora 3-way pickup. I used the design for The Duchess bridge pickup as the middle position for the Pandora. I knew all along the Pandora was never going to be for everyone but was pleasantly surprised when the idea caught on.
An order for a Pandora came in from an old friend of mine in the UK. He’s called Darren Driver and he’s in a well-established Springsteen tribute band – The Boss and the Beeston Street Band
Darren had been a customer of mine when I had a guitar shop in Leeds in the late 90’s. He was a Telecaster player back then and it seems he still is. It’s always good to re-connect with people.
A couple of months later Darren got in touch saying how the mid position of the Pandora was his ideal Telecaster sound. Well, that was all it took. I got into the workshop and made a matching neck pickup for the Duchess. That week’s band practice I tested the set next to the drummer and was still really happy with it. So, I sent a set off to Yorkshire. I needed to make sure it was exactly what he wanted.
Darren said he was happy to make a demo of the pickups once he had got them into him number one Telecaster. That’s him in the video above.
And so The Duchess Tele set was born.
The Duchess – Tele set is great with either 250KOhm or 500KOhm volume pots. It’s really up to you – 500K will give more high-end Tele twang while the 250K will sound warmer. It really is a great pickup set either way.
The choice of capacitor is up to you. The more traditional 0.047 will roll off more treble with a lower value (0.022 for example) will be more subtle. I often get asked to recommend capacitors but it is a personal choice, there’s no right or wrong here.
The Duchess Telecaster pickup set explained
I have made a couple of short videos to explain my thinking behind these two pickups:
The Kāhu hot Strat Pickups set is for blues/rock players in need of that bit more power. With cleaner neck and middle pickups and a hotter, grittier bridge pickup it’s a set that acts more like a HSS set than a conventional Strat.
Without loosing their distinctively Strat personality the Kāhu are definitely Strat sounding but with an ugly streak. This is a true single coil set so they retain all the dynamics and feel of traditional pickups but with a fatness and power to bring out something different in your Strat.
The heart of the Kāhu hot Strat Pickups set is the bridge pickup, it’s warm and punchy and sustaining with a much greater output than a traditional bridge pickup. The highs are smoother, mids honky and the bass full. They’re designed to push your amp into overdrive rather than for clean sounds.
For the blues player the true single coil nature of these pickups gives the dynamics and feel you expect from a Strat but with the singing sustain from more powerful pickups.
Clean Demo
The bridge pickup is a true single coil but it could be used as an alternative to a HSS set. No need to route out the body and pickguard for a humbucker, this bridge pickup will give you the fat lead tone you need.
The middle and neck pickups were designed to match but with a cleaner vibe, again thinking of using this as almost a HSS set. With less high end and considerably more mids and lows than a traditional Strat set the Kāhu set is for a non-traditional Strat player.
Dirty Demo
With the volume control backed off a tad the Kāhu set cleans up creating huge versatility through a dirty amp.
250k or 500kOhm pots?
Although this set was designed around a 250k volume pot (my preference) they also work well (some might say better) with a 500kOhm volume pot letting through more high end. They work well with a treble bleed if you don’t want treble roll off when using the volume control. If you’re buying a set I’ll send you one.
If you are wanting ‘vintage’ low powered pickups then look at the Bellbird or Kokako sets.
An Explanation
Here is an explanation of this design in my own words:
The Kāhu hot Strat Story
The Kāhu story is the story of the struggles of many of my customers when I was repairing guitars. A lot of people have a hard time with Strat pickups in particular the bridge. Strats have comfort and balance, the controls are fantastic, the 5 way, the volume control in just the right place. It’s a guitar that has everything right but for many players, especially from a humbucker background, the ‘vintage’ voiced pickups just don’t do it.
But Strats can be modified in so many ways to make them your own.
The starting point for this set was my Cruel Mistress Telecaster set. It’s my most popular pickup set and really brings a Telecaster to life. It’s based around the early Fender Broadcaster pickup. I wanted to do similar for the Stratocaster but with it’s own uniquely Stratocaster voice.
The Kāhu was in the development stage for nearly 2 years. A lot of the prototypes were close but were not quite right in some aspect. I don’t know how many gigs I did with these until they were just right.
The Strat should have its own unique voice and that idea was a big part of the design of these pickups. I wanted to retain that Strat character but give it something different as well.
The bridge pickup is designed to be an all purpose crunch rhythm and lead pickup with the middle and neck acting as cleaner, more traditional Strat tones. Think HSS, that’s what I’m going for here.
All my Strat sets are named after New Zealand birds. The Kāhu is a large harrier, an opportunistic predator, I see them from my house every day, patrolling the fields and hedges for prey.
The Kōkako Strat Pickup is is strongly influenced by the Fender Stratocaster pickups of the 60’s but with a little more. It has a full yet clear bottom end , smooth highs and clear mids. It’s aimed at players who love the sounds of Frusciante and Hendrix. I class this as a vintage Stratocaster pickup but with a little more.
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If you take an early 60’s Fender Strat pickup, add a little bottom end, take a wee bit of treble off the top and add a touch more power then you’ve got the Kokako. Sometimes a vintage pickup isn’t quite what you need, there are many situations where you need just that bit more.
The magnets are specially made alnico 5’s with my own stagger to suit modern string gauges and fretboad radiuses. Most Stratocaster pickups have a much flatter radius that the traditional 7.5 inch and my special stagger reflects that.
The Kōkako Strat Pickup Story
The Kokako set was spawned by a few things coming together in November ’22.
For a while I’ve been offering my Bellbird Stratocaster pickup set with various winding options – 5% under, 5% over or 10% over wound. The Bellbird is based on the Stratocaster pickups of the early ’60’s and it’s an equally good pickup with a slightly different wind count. I’ve been playing with a 10% over wound set in one of my own Strats and for me they have ‘that’ vintage Strat tone that’s perfect with a little dirt be it fuzz or overdrive.
I was sent a Strat pickup to re-wind and the customer told me his ideal sound was Hendrix pickups.
I’d just read an article saying how Seymour Duncan had wound some pickups for Hendrix and the spec of those pickups looked very similar to the 10% over wound Bellbirds.
That got me thinking.
The same day a customer contacted me wanting advice about my pickups and which one would be best for a John Frusciante sound.
Well, it’s the Bellbird +10% again.
I thought this was too good to let go.
I could have left the pickup as a version of the Bellbird but decided it needed its own life. Since its release in late 2022 it has become more popular that the Bellbird pickup.
The Design
Here is a short video in which I explain my thinking behind the Kokako pickup design. I talk about what the 10% extra windings do for the eq of the pickup, the unique magnet stagger for modern guitar strings and the difference in the bridge pickup. I hope you find it useful.
Kokako Strat Pickups explained
My Stratocaster pickups are named after native New Zealand birds like the Bellbird and the Tui; I chose the Kokako because its song reflects the tonal characteristics of the pickups. I wanted a bird that has a song fatter and fuller sounding than the Bellbird but not as aggressive as the Tui – so Kōkako Strat Pickup it is.
The Cool 90 is a P90 pickup available in both Dogear and Soapbar. Designed with Jazz and Blues players in mind it produces a clear, full, well balanced tone. Never harsh, always full and musical.
The bridge pickup has an organic sound with a lower mid push ideally suited to dynamic lead lines and tight rhythm playing.
The neck pickup is clear and chiming with enough clarity to always be heard in the mix. It has that lovely woody tone especially in an archtop.
Thanks to Brett Kingman over in Melbourne for this great demo.
Brett has played a few of my pickups and in May ’25 got in touch looking for a dogear P90 for his Tokai Les Paul Junior.
Here is what he said about it:
“I love my little Tokai Junior. It was relic’d by my friends Joel and Colin at Nepean Music and they fitted a Dimarzio Phantom in it.
That’s not a bad pickup but I really wanted a lower output affair – more of what a traditional P90 offers.
I had this conversation with another friend, Glyn Evans of Mr Glyn’s Pickups, who are located in the smaller paddock across the creek (New Zealand) and he said I should give his Cool 90 a shot. I did and I’m really impressed!
He even shipped it with a selection of 3D-printed height spacers so I could nail the nominal pickup height. Nice touch, Glyn! So, here it is – This one’s a keeper.”
Here’s a demo of the Cool 90 sent to me by one of my customers. Go check out his band – The Bull Kelp Surfers
Why Alnico II?
I use rough cast alnico II magnets in my Cool 90 set for its smooth, well balanced tone. My other P 90 pickups use the more conventional alnico V giving them greater attack and power but I didn’t want that with this pickup. Alnico II has a very balanced tonal range, the lows aren’t to boomy, mids are present but not too far forward and the highs are smooth. It is a magnet with less power than the alnico V so suited for less aggressive playing.
The Cool 90 Story
Like many of my pickups the this one started with a repair job. A customer sent be a faulty Gibson P90 out of a 1955 Les Paul Junior. Naturally, I took measurements and completely analyzed every detail of it. Unlike the information in the books (and internet) it had less windings and Alnico II magnets instead of Alnico V.
And what a great sounding pickup it was.
I decided to make my own version of it to compliment the ‘Sassy” P90 pickup I was already making. The Sassy has the classic “full fat” P90 tone, plenty of growl and cut through.
The idea was to make a lower powered version for the cleaner player. Still keeping the classic P90 character but with less grunt.
I experimented and tested and eventually came up with this design.
You may have heard of Series Parallel wiring in guitars, here’s how to do it.
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There are numerous ways to wire a humbucker. The standard way is in series, its the sound we all know, with that pushy lower mid tone.
Some players like to coil tap their humbucker to get the option of a thinner more Fender type tone. That is essentially switching one coil off.
A less well used way to thin the sound is with a series/parallel switch. A humbucker wired in parallel with itself is more single coil like than in standard wiring, there’s less volume drop than coil tapping and it still hum cancels. I much prefer it.
So what is Series/Parallel all about?
The standard way of wiring a humbucker is in series. PAF’s are wired this way and it gives the traditional full sound with plenty of mids and bottom end. Its simply one coil following the other, the end of one coil connected to the beginning of the next.
Wiring a humbucker in parallel is quite a different sound. It’s much more similar to a single coil sound but the pickups is still hum cancelling. There is a drop in volume though not as much as with a coil tap (switching one coil off). And the pickup is still hum cancelling. It’s like taking away the lower mid range push that a series wired humbucker has and being left with more clarity.
This humbucker series parallel diagram shows how to do it with a push/pull switch. With the series parallel switch down and the humbucker is wired in series (normal), pull it up and it’s in parallel. The wiring colour code is for Mr Glyn’s Pickups (I use the same colours as Seymour Duncan).
Series Parallel diagram
Not such a hard diagram to follow is it? I’m not sure why this modification isn’t more popular. Maybe it’s a little harder to understand than coil tapping, maybe it’s because its a little more complicated to wire up. I certainly prefer it in my guitars to give an extra tonal option without taking anything away from the original sound.
Another example of 2 pickup coils wired in parallel is a Strat on position 2 and 4 of the switch. That sound is often incorrectly referred to as ‘out of phase’ but it actually is the sound of 2 coils wired in parallel with each other. So think of the chimey clarity a humbucker would have wired that way and that will give you an idea what a series parallel switch might do for you.
As with all guitar mods its worth having a play around and see if it suits you. It certainly works for me.
It would be great if you could subscribe to this blog (below) so you don’t miss out on any other pickup related articles.
I’m going to be posting a few more wiring diagrams in the near future. Keep an eye on this blog or my social media:
Mr Glyns Pickups is a small business which means I can communicate with my customers one to one. I’m always happy to discuss your requirements, answer questions and give advice. I want to know about the guitars my pickups are going in, send me pictures, send me recordings.
Larry and the Trons is a short video by Brett Kingman to demonstrate Mr Glyn’s Pickups TheTron pickup set in a Telecaster Cabronita.
I sent him a set of TheTron pickups to make a demo and this is the 4th video he’s made – he must like them.
I designed TheTron pickup set with Gretsch guitars in mind and in particular the lightly overdriven sound of early Malcolm Young. It’s great when a player takes your design and makes you re-think it.
Since Brett fitted his set into a Telecaster Cabronita I’ve changed the spec of these pickups and now offer them in 52mm and 49.2mm spacing to match Fender style bridges. I do try and listen to players whenever I can.
Larry and the Trons
TheTron is the perfect pickup as a Gretsch upgrade, for the modern player wanting something other than Gibson style humbuckers, rockabilly players after that traditional tone, jazz players or, like me, Malcolm Young fans. There’s so much you can to with The Tron.
Take a Squire Affinity, give it to luthier Ramsay Phillips, add some Mr Glyn’s pickups Clear View humbucker set and see what you get? Superb demo from Jason Herbert – all 3 of him.
The Clear View humbucker set is something different. It’s a humbucker for players that don’t like humbuckers.
This pickup set is all about pure clarity. There are no pushy lower mids that make your clean sound a mush. The highs are clean and clear but not harsh, the bottom end is clear but with none of that humbucker woof.
If single coils are too harsh and unforgiving, conventional humbuckers too powerful and muddy then here’s the solution. The “Clear View” humbucker is low powered and balanced, designed for the textural player, great with reverbs and modulation, sits its the mix without getting in the way.
The Tron pickup set is based around the legendary Gretsch Filtertron pickups of the 50’s and 60’s. To say To say it has character is an understatement. It is full and rounded with a well balanced mid range. It has that distinctive ‘Clank’ that separates it from other pickups. The neck pickup is clear and fat and the bridge stands out from the mix without ever sounding harsh.
This is a unique style of pickup and quite distinct from its Gibson cousin the PAF.
Available in standard size with traditional ‘through cover’ mounting. 2 or 3 screw humbucker style mounting. P90 size.
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The Tron demos
Here’s the full demo from Brett:
Who is it for?
The Tron is the perfect Filtertron pickup as a Gretsch upgrade. For the modern player wanting something other than Gibson style humbuckers For the rockabilly player after that traditional tone. For the jazz player or, like me, Malcolm Young fans. There’s so much you can to with The Tron.
Cabronita
As you can see from the demos it’s not just Gretsch guitars, the Tron are great in Telecaster Cabronitas. or any guitar for that matter.
For the modern player with one foot in the past.
Strat Tron
P90 size Tron
The Tron is now available in P90 size. This is the same pickup, same bobbins, same magnet. So if you need some Tron goodness in your P90 guitar this is the set for you.
P90 Size Tron
As the Tron pickup fits inside a P90 cover there are no compromises. This is the true Tron tone for your P90 guitar.
The P90 version has its own base plate. These are designed and made in house. This has an extra earthed shielding layer for that bit extra noise reduction.
Base Plate
The mounting screws are located at each end of the pickup. They come with screws and springs.
They are available in 49.2mm or 52mm spacing and with either cream or black covers.
Tron P90 set
There is a a link to the shop at the top of this page.
Development
Over the years I’ve repaired a fair few old Gretsch Filter-tron pickups. I have noticed the best sounding ones are at the upper range for ohms. I’ve taken that design and tweaked it until I got the fullness I was looking. But paying attention not to loose the essential clarity and clank.
Most of my pickups are made in collaboration with a professional player, but not this one.
I started playing guitar at the age of 16 when I first heard Malcolm Young. That’s the sound of a Filtertron through an almost clean valve amp. I didn’t feel I needed another set of ears for this one, I knew exactly what I wanted.
I needed this pickup set to be crystal clear with a clean amplifier but to come into its own when pushing an amp to clip.
I think that’s what it’s all about with this design – how it makes an amp clip.
The neck pickup needed to be clear, full and chiming in both a big archtop and in the neck position of a Telecaster. The bridge pickup needed to have no shortage of character, a clean almost jangly tone when played gently but with enough go in it to push the front end of a valve amp to clip when you dig in.
The design of The Tron Filtertron pickup
Here are my thoughts on the design of this pickup set. In this video I talk about the differences between Filtertron pickups and Gibson PAF’s.
In summary, the filtertron has a big magnet with low dc resistance. The PAF had a smaller magnet and higher dc resistance. Filtertrons get most of their power from their large magnet giving them a distinctive ‘clank’. They have an immediate feel under your fingers. An instant attack.
The magnet is very important. I get mine specially made for me to my spec. I am very fussy about my magnets.
In comparison, a PAF is smoother and less percussive sounding.
Mounting options
I’ve made this one to fit what you play.
TheTron pickup comes with the standard mounting screws for the ‘soapbar’ style mounting known as the ‘universal mounting’.
If your pickup is mounted on a humbucker style ring, you can fit it using one of my adapter plates.
I’ve developed two adapter plate options: 2-screw to mount to Gibson-style humbucker rings,
or 3-screw to mount to the ring found on some Gretsch guitars.
Adapter plates are $10 each ($20 with a set). Ypou can find the options to order tham at the checkout.
And as for the name “TheTron”? – I think you have to be a Kiwi…
Dimensions
The Tron Filter-tron pickup is a slightly different size to its ‘Gibson’ style humbucker cousins.
It is 71.5mm x 35mm where as a Gibson shape humbucker is 70mm x 38mm. It is possible to get adapter mounting rings to fit a Filter-tron type pickup in a Gibson type humbucker loaded guitar. I don’t sell these.
The P90 Tron is standard P90 size so 35mm x 85.5mm.
The Tron is available with a 52mm pole spacing to fit with Fender style bridge spacing.
The Sassy is a full fat P90 set designed for that traditional P90 tone. Suitable for styles from blues to rock. Full and dynamic, aggressive but controllable. It has a touch sensitivity that makes this set a lot of fun to play with.
Sassy Demo
Description
The Mr Glyn’s “Sassy” P90 is a pickup set influenced by the Gibson P90’s of the late 50’s. The “Sassy” have a distinctive woody aggressive tone, full of character. The highs are smooth yet punchy, there’s a chiming bottom end and a very obvious mid range that pushes through the mix. If you tickle the strings they’re clean and clear but dig in and there’s no shortage of power to drive the front end of your amp.
I’ve grown to love P90’s over the years, it’s the sound of those early Gibson Les Paul Juniors. It’s a guitar pickup that needs no extras, just straight into a good amp. They’re happy to power pedals but there’s a fullness and balance that seems to need nothing else.
I think the Sassy is best served through ’50’s wiring – it really gives you the dynamic, touch sensitive range that made this style of pickup famous.
Philosophy behind the Sassy
Here’s a short video explaining my thinking behind the Sassy P90 pickup set.
The Sassy P90 story
I wanted the Sassy P90 set to live up to its name and have the dynamic range that I love about P90’s. The wide flat coil of a P90 gives a richer, less percussive tone than other single coil pickups and this is where the full tone comes from. I mounted both neck and bridge pickups on top of a pair of Alnico V magnets. This gives the power this pickup needs and helps add that bit of grit when played hard.
I’ve made the neck pickup smooth and fat but with clarity and chime enough for jazz. The bridge pickup has the dynamic, pushy mids and aggressive highs when pushed. But it cleans up when you ask it to in true p90 style.
This is a pickup set that would be happy in almost any situation, blues, rock, punk, reggae… If it’s a full bodied, dynamic P90 you’re after look no further. I have extensively gigged with a Sassy P90 loaded guitar and loved the woody mids and high end clarity. Back the volume off a tad and there’s a single coil chime, crank it and you have full fat lead tones.
The Sassy for lap steel
The Sassy is available in Dogear p90 and Soapbar P90.
I’ve named this set the Sassy”P90 set to reflect these pickup’s attitude, they’re bold, spicy, disrespectful and a bit cheeky.
If you need shims to adjust the height of a Dogear P90 just let me know, I can send you a file for 3d printing.
I also make a humbucker size P90 set – the “Black Sand” if you need some P90 goodness in your humbucker guitar, here’s a link to them:
In this episode of Mr Glyn Meets Your Maker I talk with Trevor Binford, he’s the real deal. As well as a top class guitar maker he runs a school of guitar making in Auckland NZ.
I wanted to find out how he got to where he is and where he learned his craft. Turns out we’re very lucky to have him here in New Zealand.
Hi all,
some of you will know how keen I am on NZ made musical gear. We have world class makers here in Aotearoa and the World needs to know about them. Rather than just having a good moan I’ve been trying to think of ways I can help.
After many conversations with other small manufacturers I’ve come up with an idea. I’m starting a series of YouTube videos where I chat with NZ makers so we can all get to know them a little better. I figure that seeing and hearing the person behind the product, hearing their story, their philosophy, will help promote what they do beyond just their website.
Some of these makers you may not even have heard of.
It’s a very simple format, just recording a Skype conversation. There is some editing mainly cutting out my own waffle but I do try and keep edits to a minimum. I am not a professional presenter I’m just an ordinary bloke working with what I’ve got and this is way out of my comfort zone but I hope you’ll find the content interesting.
In episode 1 I’m talking with Aiden from Archetype Guitars in Palmerston North who very graciously agreed to go first. If these videos go any way towards you considering buying NZ made then I’ve succeeded. Please share, link to, subscribe and spread the word, that’s how you can help.
Thanks to Andy Marra for this “Bellbird” Strat Pickup Demo. It’s a privilege to have him using my pickups.
Strat Pickup Demo
I’ve based my Bellbird Vintage Strat set on the best of the old pickups I’ve had the pleasure of playing through. If I were to give you a year I’d say ’63 Strat. I use AWG42 heavy formvar insulated wire – there’s something about the thickness of that insulation that just works with an old Strat pickup.
The Bellbird set has been designed mainly for clean tones but they’re certainly not afraid to perform with a bit of gain. As part of a HSS set they’re great with one of my ‘Integrity’ humbuckers in the bridge position.
Thanks to Andy Marra for this “Bellbird” Strat Pickup Demo.
Just posted Ep#4 of MrGlyn Meets Your Maker with Big Noise Amplification. It would be great if you could help support Kiwi made musical gear by subscribing or sharing.
Stephan Gilberg makes a huge range of guitar pedals from his workshop in Nelson NZ.
In this episode he talks about pedal design, the inspiration behind his creations and what drives him.
If you’re at all interested in unique guitar sounds, expanding on the traditional palette or just want something funky on the floor then this episode on Big Noise Amplification is for you
Hi all, some of you will know how keen I am on NZ made musical gear.
We have world class makers here in Aotearoa and the World needs to know about them. Rather than just having a good moan I’ve been trying to think of ways I can help.
After many conversations with other small manufacturers I’ve come up with an idea. I’m starting a series of YouTube videos where I chat with NZ makers so we can all get to know them a little better. I figure that seeing and hearing the person behind the product, hearing their story, their philosophy, will help promote what they do beyond just their website.
Some of these makers you may not even have heard of. It’s a very simple format, just recording a Skype conversation. There is some editing mainly cutting out my own waffle but I do try and keep edits to a minimum.
I am not a professional presenter I’m just an ordinary bloke working with what I’ve got and this is way out of my comfort zone but I hope you’ll find the content interesting.
I’ve called the series “MrGlyn Meets Your Maker”.
In episode #1 I’m talking with Aiden from Archetype Guitars in Palmerston North who very graciously agreed to go first. If these videos go any way towards you considering buying NZ made then I’ve succeeded.
Please share, link to, subscribe and spread the word, that’s how you can help. Thanks, Glyn https://mrglynspickups.com/
In Episode #3 of MrGlyn Meets Your Maker I talk to David Benavides of Benavides Guitars in Ahipara. I first played one of his handmade guitars about 5 years ago and immediately gave him a call I was so impressed. If you are an aspiring guitar maker, have an interest in guitar construction or are in the market for “the” acoustic guitar it’s well worth listening to what Dave has to say. Follow the link to find out more about Benavides Guitars.
some of you will know how keen I am on NZ made musical gear. We have world class makers here in Aotearoa and the World needs to know about them.
Rather than just having a good moan I’ve been trying to think of ways I can help. After many conversations with other small manufacturers I’ve come up with an idea.
I’m starting a series of YouTube videos where I chat with NZ makers so we can all get to know them a little better. I figure that seeing and hearing the person behind the product, hearing their story, their philosophy, will help promote what they do beyond just their website. Some of these makers you may not even have heard of.
It’s a very simple format, just recording a Skype conversation. There is some editing mainly cutting out my own waffle but I do try and keep edits to a minimum. I am not a professional presenter I’m just an ordinary bloke working with what I’ve got and this is way out of my comfort zone but I hope you’ll find the content interesting.
I’ve called the series “MrGlyn Meets Your Maker”.
My aim is to promote my fellow makers of musical gear and have a rather nice time into the bargain.
I do hope you enjoy it, I’ve certainly had fun making them
The height of your pickups is crucial to your tone. I find that the better the quality of the pickup the more sensitive they are to changes in height. Pickup Height Adjustment is an essential part of your sound, it’s worth finding out about it.
I give measurements at the end of this post but they are just suggestions. The point of writing this is to help you understand the mechanics of what’s happening. So you can make your own informed choice as to what suits you best. It’s like choosing picks or strings, not everyone likes the same thing and there’s no right or wrong.
Pickup Height Adjustment – what you need to know and some stuff you don’t
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What do I mean by pickup height adjustment? It is setting the distance from the top of the pickup to the bottom of the string. It’s like how close to the microphone you’re singing. But it doesn’t just change how loud your guitar is – there’s a lot more to it.
There is, of course, no correct distance from the string. The measurements I’ll give you are a guide and a great place to start. I recommend you set your MrGlyn’s Pickups to these heights when you install them. But please feel free to tweak them to your own taste after.
In this article I’d like to arm you with a starting point. To give you enough information and the confidence to find your own correct pickup height.
What is the principle of Pickup Height Adjustment? The closer to the strings the pickups are the louder and more dynamic the sound. Further away is more compressed and quieter.
So what does that mean?
Imagine someone whispering in your ear. This is like a pickup close to the strings. It not only sounds loud and clear, you can hear every detail of the sound. You are very sensitive to and variation in volume, its very dynamic. Then imagine if the voice is the other side of a room. The voice is less dynamic, you aren’t as sensitive to slight changes in volume, it’s more compressed. Keep that in mind when setting your pickups.
Shall I set the pickup as high as possible?
But there’s another factor. Pickups work by magnetism, if a pickup is too close to the string the magnet will attract the string. This can cause a strange wobbly sound called a wolf tone. This is much more pronounced with single coil pickups and on the bass strings on the higher frets. These ‘wolf tones’ are sometimes called ‘Stratitis’.
The pickup height is measured from the top of the pickup pole (or cover) to the underside of the string. You must be fretting the highest fret.
Measuring Pickup Height
Are all pickups the same?
This is where it gets really interesting and I’ll introduce you to a new word – ‘Stratitis’
In general humbuckers can be set closer to the strings than single coil pickups. By single coil pickups I’m thinking mainly of Strats.
A Strat pickup has rod magnets running vertically through them. They’re usually South up, North down. This creates a magnetic pull on the string. It actually makes the string into a temporary magnet but lets not over complicate it.
If the magnet is too close to the string it starts to change the way the string vibrates. There are various names for the sound of this but Stratitis is the common one.
To save writing hundreds of words I’m going to make a video.
The aspect of pickup height I didn’t cover in this video is feel. The guitar reacts quite differently and feels like a different instrument with the pickups are set hight. The extra dynamics and sensitivity can steer you in a direction you might not go in with a pickup set low. Try it, it’s worth finding out which you prefer.
Humbuckers have one coil with North polarity and the other with South and to an extent they cancel each other out so as not to pull on the string in quite the same way. Humbuckers are way less susceptible to stratitis than single coils.
Tele neck pickups
Just a sidenote – Telecaster neck pickups are inside a cover. When adjusting the height just remenber you’re thinking of the distance from the magnet to the string and not from cover to string. The reality is you can usually set them as high as possible without the string hitting the cover. It can make a huge difference to how they perform.
Humbucker pole adjustment
With standard humbuckers there is usually a row of six pole screws that can be height adjusted. It isn’t usually necessary to change the height of these. If you do decide there is an inballance between your individual string volumes the first thing to do is put a fresh set of string on. In nearly every case it’s the strings that are at fault. Adjusting individual poles is a fiddly business and best left alone.
Strat pole height
I’ve come across quite a few Strat pickups where the poles have been pushed in because people have wanted to change the vintage stagger profile. Please don’t try this it will kill the pickup. There are a few lower quality Strat type pickups with plastic bobbins that you can do this on but you need to be 100% sure before trying it. I might save this one for another blog.
P90 height adjusting
For Soapbar P90’s just follow the basic idea of height adjusting. Dogears are a little different – to raise them you need shims – check out this blog post for more info:- P90 Pickup Height – it’s a pretty comprehensive look into P90 height. If you need shims I can supply you with free drawings for 3d printing (you don’t have to buy a pickup), just email and I’ll send it to you. P90’s generally like to be close to the strings.
P Bass Pickup height
Precision basses with the split pair of coils making up one pickup are slightly different to adjust. Treat the two coils as seperate pickups. So set the bass sise coil to be an even distance from the E and A strings and the treble side to be an even distance from the D and G strings. You’ll find the 2 coils wont end up looking flat across all of the strings but they will sound even.
Like with most Fender pickup types be aware of Stratitis (see above) when setting them, it isn’t just a Strat thing.
General principle of pickup height adjustment
There are plenty of pickups out there without recommended heights. The general principle of setting them is to get them as high as possible and listen to how they sound. Be aware of what Stratitis is and sounds like. If you hear stratitis lower them. By ear is the best way. Not all magnets are of the same strength, you’ll be able to get a lot closer to an alnico 3 than an alnico 5.
Once you’ve found your height have a good play of the guitar, do a bit of tweaking and fiddling and a lot of listening.
Pretty soon you’ll find the spot that sounds best for you. Then forget it. You can spend more time fiddling with guitars than playing them. If you’re really not sure about any of this stuff take your guitar to an experienced luthier and trust them.
Pickup Balance
It’s worth having a think about pickup balance. By that I mean the relative volume of each pickup.
Instinctively you might think that having pickups with the same volume but with different tone would be the best. That is true for a lot of situations but it’s worth thinking if that’s true for your situation and not just following the norm.
You may want a louder bridge pickup to push through in a band situation, for instance.
There are a lot of factors to consider whith pickup height adjustment. I think the point I’m trying to make is find what’s right for you by experimenting. It’s easy to adjust pickups so have fun mucking about with them.
Pickup height measurements
Here I have some ideas for pickup heights. Remember, these are not set in stone.
Consider them maximum heights and remember that these are measured from the bottom of the string to the top of the magnet or pole piece when holding down the last fret. They may seem a bit close but the istances will be more when playing around the middle of the board.
The wire in guitar pickups is pretty thin. Numbers like 0.063mm diameter are hard to imagine so I thought I’d put it another way – here’s an Amazing Fact About Guitar Pickups…
The Attitude Humbucker is a powerful, well balanced pickup set designed for modern metal or fusion players. Sensitive enough to hear the detail in your legato. A smooth present mid range to push you forward in the mix. Bass that stays tight whatever you throw at it. The Attitude makes a great 6 or 7 string pickup set.
I’m delighted to have Nail Vincent from the band Devilskin using the Attitude pickup both in the studio and live.
Nail Vincent – Devilskin
The story of the Attitude Humbucker
In 2019 I was working on extending my range of humbucker pickups for rock players. The Cloud Nine will do just about anything but I wanted to offer a more specific pickup for modern rock/metal.
I decided to start with a 7 string which is a slightly unorthodox way of going about it but I was concerned with getting the bottom end right. If there was any sogginess in the bottom end a 7 string would show it up more than a 6 string.
7 string pickups are not like others. The low bass string reacts so differently, there’s a lot of string deflection and low harmonics. My mission was to tame this bass and keep it tight but not to sacrifice the sound quality of the treble strings. The treble still needed to be sweet and singing. The mids needed to be balanced and noticeable. I didn’t want this pickup scooped; the mids had to stand out from the mix when needed to.
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Attitude Humbucker development
So in October 2019 I got back in touch with my old mate Graham Young in Yorkshire. He’s an amazing player and really knows his gear.
Back in 1998 I wound a 6 string humbucker for Graham. In those days I had a guitar shop and repair business in Leeds in the North of England and he wanted a bridge pickup to suit his style for a parts caster.
Years passed and he became a 7 string player, so when I decided to develop a 7 string pickup Graham was the person I asked to be test pilot. We’d very loosely kept in touch over the years and it turned out he was still using the 6 string pickup I’d made for him back in the 90’s.
We had a chat via messenger and it turned out he’d tried a lot of pickups but none quite did it for him. So I listened to his thoughts, came up with a design and went away and made a prototype.
The first one wasn’t quite right, so he sent it back and I changed a few things and returned it. I don’t know how many adjustments I made but that pickup accumulated quite a few air miles between NZ and the UK over the next few months.
Every time we got closer, every adjustment less than the one before. When you get that close you know you’ve got a good pickup. I was at the point when I felt we really had something great but I just needed that confirmation.
Then Covid 19 happened, the mail got too unreliable to send stuff overseas with any confidence of it arriving and the process was put on hold.
Attitude Humbucker set is born
At the end of June 2020 I got a call from Gabe Dovaston in Papamoa. He’d done some demos for me with some of my other pickups and was asking if I did a 7 string, just in case, for an Ibanez of his. Well, this seemed like a chance to test my new pickup on fresh ears. I made a copy of the last one I’d sent Graham, the one I was happy with, and got it off in the post. I sat back and waited. It only took a few days and I got a very happy call, he loved it and he’d already made a demo that he’d put on YouTube.
Great news, but what was I going to call it? The pickup was already on YouTube, it wasn’t on my website yet and it didn’t even have a name!
I got on Facebook and asked people to come up with a name; there were so many excellent suggestions but nothing quite did it. In the end this pickup that had taken so much work to develop, traveled so far and refused to go away I called the Attitude Humbucker.
The Attitude Humbucker is available in 6 and 7 string, for neck and bridge positions.
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There are a number of cover options for the 6 string so you can choose how your Attitude looks: uncovered options are black, double white, double cream, and zebra or reverse zebra (in either cream or white) at no additional charge. Or you can add a cover to your purchase in: black, gold, chrome, nickel, sliders, gatsby or open raw nickel.
The 7 string bridge pickup comes in one size (61.2mm). You can have your pickup in uncovered black, double white, double cream, and zebra or reverse zebra (in either cream or white) for no additional cost, or add a nickel or gold cover for $40 for the set.
Pickup Relicing is available, it’s not on the website, just ask me when you’re ordering.
From gentle pickup ageing just to take the glare off to serious steampunk treatment.
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‘Integrity’ light/medium ageing
I am often asked about pickup ageing to match in with an old guitar. A 40 year old Les Paul can just look wrong with shiny new pickups. Giving them a little head start makes a lot of sense.
Sometimes I’m asked to age pickups to match in with a new but reliced guitar.
Guitar relicing used to be a really controversial subject but it’s so commonplace now that it’s pretty much universally accepted.
Soapbar ‘Sassy’ P90 aged
Some players feel a guitar should be played for years on end to earn its wear, I get that.
Personally, I like the feel of an aged guitar. A dulled finish, rounded over fretboard edges all make for a more comfortable playing experience.
And then there’s the other factor- fear. I find I’m afraid of a shiny new expensive guitar in mint condition but when there are already a few scratches I can just let go. I play look at a lot better on old or aged instruments.
Black Sand HBSP90 medium Pickup Relicing
I also rather enjoy the process of making a pickup look like it’s the veteran of a World tour. Pickup Relicing is something I openly encourage.
Heavy Relic The Tron
This is a bit more than pickup ageing, its the full steam punk treatment.
The Black Sand Humbucker sized P90 has all the clarity, punch and fullness of a P90 but built to fit humbucker guitars.
Perfect for most styles especially Blues, Classic Rock, Punk and even Extreme Metal.
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Black Sand Description
The humbucker sized P90 (HBSP90) is a great pickup – it sits tonally between a humbucker and and a strat type pickup.
If your neck humbucker is a bit thick and woolly sounding, you want more clarity, or just want a different tone, then this versatile pickup may be the answer.
The physical size of this pickup is identical to that of a “normal” humbucker so it will pop straight in to any humbucker guitar. They’re designed to be used with 500k pots too so you don’t need to change anything.
P90 pickups do have a reputation for being noisy but the Black Sand not only comes with shielded cable but is encased in a metal cover. This cover makes a huge difference in reducing interference from outside sources making this a very quiet pickup.
There really is no musical genre the Black Sand Humbucker size P90 is best suited to, from blues to punk, rock or even funk there is a place for this sound just about everywhere. Have a listen to these demos, you’ll hear how well it adapts to any situation.
I don’t guide demo players in any way, I just ask them to do what they feel the pickup wants. That way we get different interpretations of the pickups and in this case it really shown off the versatility.
And scroll down to the picture at the bottom of this page – there are a lot of funky cover options to look cool in any guitar.
Here is Warren Mendonsa aka blackstratblues. He uses a Black Sand set in his Gibson es335. Go check him out, you can thank me later.
P90’s are different to other single coil pickups. They have a wide, flat coil similar to that of a Jazzmaster but the magnetic field is a very different shape. Fender single coil pickups have the coil wound around the magnet giving a focused, precise percussive sound. A P90 has 2 bar magnets underneath the coil; this broadens the magnetic window allowing the pickup to listen to a bit more string and thickens the sound. I chose Alnico V bar magnets for this model to help give some grit and power characteristic of a P90.
Of course, too much power and the pickup would sound too thick and bass heavy which is not its purpose. Too little power and it just won’t snarl. I have aimed this pickup set at the clearer end of the P90 spectrum.
To give you an idea of this pickup’s versatility here it is in drop E tuning:
Leon Todd visited the workshop in February 2024 after which I sent him a pickup set. It’s a Cloud Nine humbucker in the bridge position and a Black Sand humbucker sized-P90 neck pickup. I think you’ll agree they really give an extra dimension to his Les Paul.
The Black Sand Humbucker sized P90 story
The development of my Black Sand Humbucker sized P90 was a bit backwards.
Usually I make a bridge pickup first and work from there but with this one the neck pickup came first.
I had a customer ask for a neck pickup for an es335 to sound clearer than his existing Gibson humbucker. He was finding the lower mids of the humbucker were getting in his way and needed a clearer sound with more character.
I worked on the Black Sand Humbucker sized P90 neck pickup for a while using my Les Paul as a test guitar. There’s a balance to getting the right neck pickup sound. There needs to be a bit of power but a danger of becoming too boomy. It was a case of tweaking the windings until it was right. I sold a few neck pickups before thinking it would be a good idea to have a set. So I started work on the bridge pickup.
I wanted this bridge pickup to have clarity in the lower mids to stand out from humbuckers while having enough power to grit up nicely. I wanted it to be clean when tickled and to growl at you when you dig in. P90’s are all about dynamics. It had to match the existing neck pickup or work well as a stand alone in a HSS situation.
Of all the pickups in my range the Black Sand Humbucker sized P90 came together the quickest. There were only 4 or 5 prototypes and I was happy. Experience and intuition combined with a notebook where I’ve written down details of every experimental pickup I’ve made since 1995.
The main challenge with this pickup was taming the bass. The bass needed to be clean and ringing without a dominant boom. That’s where testing with a band is so useful. A pickup can sound great at home volumes but when its up loud the bass can be overpowering. If the bass is too far forward it walks all over the bass guitar and can ruin a mix.
There were a load of prototypes in and out of a Les Paul, Tele Delux and PRS, through different amps and in the hands of different players. I never trust just my own ears with my pickups. I like to get opinions and suggestions from a few players before making any final decisions. I listen to what players say and I adjust prototypes accordingly, but at the end of the day the final decision is mine. I’m always aware of the phrase “a camel is a horse designed by committee”.
It took a while to get this one right. A pickup would sound great at workshop volume, then I’d play it in a band situation and it would be too boomy, too much like a humbucker. So I’d have a think and make another. In the end persistence paid off.
The pickups I finally settled on went into my Les Paul and off to a gig for the ultimate test, and that’s where they’re staying.
The neck “Black Sand” is a great match for either my “Integrity” or “Cloud Nine” bridge humbuckers or as a set with its equivalent “Black Sand” bridge humbucker sized P90. It is equally happy with Gibson or Fender scale lengths as you can hear from the demos. Currently I gig a Flying V with a Black Sand neck pickup with a Cloud Nine in the bridge position. With the extra clarity from the Black Sand I find I use the neck position a lot more and it’s so good for playing ‘Sweet Child Of Mine’.
Black Sand design
Here is a short video to explain my thinking behind this HBSP90 design. Initially it was just going to be a neck pickup. The aim was to solve the problem of neck humbuckers sounding too wooly in some situations. Then came the Black Sand bridge pickup to match. Now the set has taken on a life of its own live and has become one of my most popular pickup sets.
Naming pickups is not easy, I agonized over what to call this pickup set.
I wanted a name that would reflect the apparent contradiction in P90’s. From the perspective of a humbucker player they are clear and chiming. From the viewpoint of a single coil player they are powerful and gritty. They’re one thing while looking like another. I wanted a oxymoron to reflect this contradiction, one that might include the unique magnetic structure that gives the P90 its character.
So I went for a run along Muriwai beach to think. And there it was staring me in the face (literally). Muriwai has black volcanic sand due to its iron content and it’s also magnetic. So I’ve called this set the Black Sand Humbucker sized P90.
Jimmy Christmas – D4
I’m very happy with this pickup – hopefully you will be too.
I’ve been working on some new funky cover options. This pickup set finds it way into so many different kinds of guitars I felt it needed to have a lot of looks to match.
Black Sand Humbucker sized P90 cover options: sliders, nickel, black, toaster top, open, chrome; or cover in P90 style soapbar or dogear covers in black or cream.
Please subscribe to the Mr Glyn’s Pickups newsletter (click the link below). There’s a new edition every 6 weeks or so with news of new products and options. There’s a merch giveaway so send in pics of your Mr Glyn’s loaded guitars. I love receiving pics, videos and links to bands using Mr Glyn’s pickups. Send them in, I’ll happily feature you on my social media.
The Bellbird vintage Strat pickups are a vintage voiced strat pickup strongly influenced by the pre-CBS Fenders of the early 60’s. Clear and chiming, low powered and pure. Suitable for a huge range of styles, ideal for that traditional tone.
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Bellbird vintage Strat pickups demos
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The Stratocaster has been around since 1954 and the legend continues. Reading the internet (!?) tells me there have been good and bad years or decades, guitars to avoid and ones worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’ve been repairing guitars since 1995 so I’ve played a lot of old Strats and analyzed a lot of old pickups. Vintage pickups aren’t all great but the good ones are fantastic.
In the 90’s there were a lot of old Fender pickups around and they were cheap back then. I got to work on and repair so many vintage pickups. There was very little available information so I had to figure everything out. Looking back I think it was such a good way to develop an instinct as to how to get a great sound. With all the old spec now available I’ve really enjoyed topping up my knowledge.
I’ve become a huge fan of the L series Strats. Every one I’ve played (particularly ’63’s) have been great guitars. It’s just a shame they’re so expensive now and very few of them get played at gigs.
I’ve based my Bellbird vintage Strat pickups on the best of the old pickups I’ve had the pleasure of playing through and studying. So I use AWG42 heavy formvar insulated wire – there’s something about the thickness of that insulation that just works with an old Strat pickup.
I’ve aimed for that old quacking chime that makes Strats wonderfully percussive but with a singing quality that’s so musical. Warm and clear with beautiful almost reverb-like clean tones – that’s what I want out of an old Strat. The neck pickup sound needs to be fat, round and clear, the middle pickup needs to quack and the bridge a cut through twang without thinness. The all important ‘in between’ sounds in positions 2 and 4 must be balanced and characterful. Nothing says Strat more than these sounds.
Bellbird Neck Pickup
The neck pickup on a Strat is the ‘go to’ setting for a lot of Strat players. In designing this set I realised this is what I had to get right first. In using heavy formvar insulated wire I’ve kept to tradition. I use heavy bevel alnico V magnets with my own custom stagger to suit modern string gauges.
Bellbird Middle Pickup
I love the quack of Strat middle pickups. I’ve worked hard to achieve that distinctive middle tone. There’s something great in that sound. The magnets are so important in achieving just the right percussive snap without harshness. The other factor with middle pickups is how they work alongside the neck and bridge pickups. Those all important in between sounds are the essence of Stratocasters. The Bellbird middle pickup is the ideal partner for both neck and bridge.
Bellbird Bridge Pickup
On the original early 60’s pickups all 3 were wound the same. I’ve chosen to give the bridge pickup a little extra, more like a late 70’s Strat Pickup. I want to reduce the ping of the attack and add a little more bottom end to make the bridge pickup more usable. I feel that makes this pickup set more suited to the modern player.
Under or Over Wound
At the checkout I have given you the option of having your Bellbirds under wound or overwound by 5%, or overwound by 10% as well as the standard wind. I don’t offer this for all pickups but the Bellbird is an equally good pickup in any of the 3 options. The early Fenders often varied within this range.
Standard Wind
The standard wind is the closest to the early 60’s Fenders. This is my personal favourite and all the demos are of the standard wind
Minus 5%
The minus 5% wind is for players wanting a super clean Strat sound. It has very clear treble and a little less bass than the standard wind. Suited to a very clean sound
Plus 5%
The extra 5% of windings gives a little more bass and slightly smoother treble along with that bit of extra power.
The Bellbird vintage Strat pickups has been designed mainly for clean tones but they’re certainly not afraid to perform with a bit of gain or fuzz. As part of a HSS set they’re great with one of my ‘Integrity’ humbuckers in the bridge position.
I agonised for months over names for my Strat pickup sets then during a camping trip to Tauwharanui Regional Park I heard my first Bellbird and realised that was the sound I had been looking for when I was designing this set.
The comparison in tone between the Bellbird and the more common Tui seemed exactly what I had in my head when designing my Strat pickups. Bellbirds don’t just go tweet, there’s a depth and warmth in the tone. It’s so hard to describe sound and the difference between pickups but I think the difference between the Bellbird and the Tui sum up the difference between my vintage and hot Strat pickups. So I called them the Bellbird and the Tui.
The Cloud Nine-hot humbucker is a versatile ROCK pickup with plenty of mids, no shortage of power and with enough clarity to help you stand out in the mix. A great pickup set for the Blues/Rock player but also well suited to heavier sounds , think Randy Rhodes or EVH. It with push the front end of an amp but will also clean up especially with a treble bleed.
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Cloud Nine in a Super Strat
Design
There are many factors determining the performance of a pickup. The Cloud Nine bridge pickup has asymmetrically wound coils. It not only has a different number of winds on each coil but they’re wound with a different number of turns per layer. Each of the two coils has a slightly different mid range response, This gives not only plenty of mids but a real mid range clarity. It means the pickup sits well in a mix.
The alnico 5 magnet that powers both neck and bridge are specially made for me to my spec.
The neck pickup is also asymmetrically wound for the same reasons. It’s wound to be fairly hot for neck pickup standards but with the alnico 5 magnet there is still high end clarity. It’s a big fat but clear neck pickup sound. This is a great fat lead tone rather than a funky rhythm pickup.
Cloud Nine bridge , Black Sand neck
Leon Todd visited the workshop in Feb 2024, I subsequently sent him a pickup set I thought might suit him.
Here is the result:
In a PRS SE
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Out of the blue I received an email from a customer in Tasmania who had recently bought a Cloud Nine-hot humbucker bridge pickup. He sent me a link to these clips. In The Final Countdown the rhythm guitars are the Cloud Nine coil tapped.
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In a Les Paul
It’s worth mentioning how many Les Paul players use the Cloud Nine. It may be the scale length or particular dynamics of a Les Paul but these pickups just sing in a LP.
In a mix
Check out Wellington band Curlys Jewels using Cloud Nine’s in a Les Paul.
Description
Here are descriptions of both bridge and neck pickups and my thinking behind the designs.
Cloud Nine-hot humbucker Story
I am at heart a man of ROCK.
Since the advent of the DiMarzio Super Distortion pickup players have been able to get some power out of their pickups, enough to really push an amp.
The neck pickup needed to be clear and present but with enough power for some of those sweet lead lines.
I wanted the bridge pickup to have power to scream with the best of them while retaining enough clarity to have definition. When I play a 7th chord I want to hear it as a 7th and not sound mushy like a John Deere tractor at full throttle.
It’s a real danger with hot pickups that they lose character and tone. I needed a crunchy rhythm with strong mids and an over the top lead sound. I want to get squawking pinched harmonics whenever I please. Not only that but I need it it to clean up nicely and react well to a treble bleed circuit. A humbucker for every situation, for players not afraid of a bit of gain.
Not much to ask, eh!
I got through a lot of wire and magnets experimenting over the years to get this set right. I suppose I worked on it for about 5 years, different magnets, winds, wire thickness, insulation, winds per layer – there are a lot of factors. Whenever I felt I was close I used them at a gig to hear how they sat in the band. Pickups can sound quite different next to a drummer or in a mix. I tweaked and adjusted…
Eventually I was happy with the design and I was lucky enough to have legendary Kiwi band ‘Head Like A Hole’ help out with road testing. I knew if they came back from tour happy then I was on to a winner. They did.
It was a long process getting this pickup design just right but its a process I only have to go through once. When the design is finalized that’s it. Part of my desire to get it perfect is the knowledge that I’ll be using this design for the rest of my life.
When you get it right it feels so good, a sensitive pickup rich in harmonics is so much fun so I called it the “Cloud Nine” which how I felt at the end of it all.
This is the pickup set I gig with myself in my covers band now. I have them in both an Epiphone Sheraton and also in my Flying V. With this set up it works for everything from The Smiths to Metallica and all points in between. I don’t feel the need to swap guitar – these pickups work for everything. I have done literally hundreds of gigs with the Cloud Nine in countless venues, it always performs.
Matt Carson on stage with zebra Cloud Nine’s
The Cloud Nine set comes with 4 conductor wire as standard to give you all the switching options you could ever need. I recommend series/parallel switching with this set. The bridge pickup is available in both 52mm and 49.2 mm spacing. If you need any help deciding which spacing is right for your guitar please get in touch via email, I’m always happy to help.
Here are some of the cover options available for the Cloud Nine humbucker set; I’m happy to age the covers; please just add a comment at the time of your order.
Inspired by the early Gibson PAF pickups the Integrity-vintage humbucker give the classic full balanced tone we all love.
Asymmetric coils give an open sounding mid range and the rough cast Alnico II magnet gives clarity and balance. A rich bottom end, characterful mids and sweet treble make this a pickup set for every situation. Jazz, Blues, Rock, it does it all.
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Every pickup manufacturer makes a “Vintage” humbucker based on the Gibson PAF, of course they do – old Gibsons sound so good.
So how come they all sound so different? Well, the simple answer is that PAF’s were all different. Of any guitar pickups you’ll come across these are possibly the most variable.
I’ve been a full time luthier since 1995, whenever I come across an old humbucker I test the ohms and the gause and have a good listen. They’re all different. My conclusion is that pickup manufacturers have taken the PAF they like and based their own version on that. Old PAF’s vary so much so modern ones do as well.
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Here is Nik Dobbin show off an Integrity set. The guitar is an all mahogany PRS Santana SE II from the early 2000’s.
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Integrity-vintage humbucker requirements
I have designed my own version to be clear sounding, have obvious string separation and definition and to keep clarity no matter how much gain. The mids must be strong and woody, this is not a “scooped” pickup. The clean sound needs to be chimey and clear with no mush; through a valve amp I want clarity. When I tickle it I want clean and vocal sounding when it clips. The bridge pickup needs to be well behaved with high gain and clear with enough cut through so the drummer knows you’re there. The neck smooth, clear and articulate. Warm but with none of the boom you get with a more powerful pickup.
I don’t want much do I.
My “Integrity”-vintage humbucker has a rough cast Alnico II magnet. It uses plain enamel insulated magnet wire with asymmetric coils to open up the mids, just like the originals. Asymmetry in the coils creates a clearer mid range.
The very first pickup I ever made back in 1995 was a PAF style and I’ve been tweaking the recipe ever since.
Studying the intricacies of this pickup design have given me a huge respect for Seth Lover the designer of the original Gibson PAF. My version is not an exact replica of the originals, rather my own take on them. I have worked on countless PAF pickups over the years. I feel I have a good take on what makes them tick.
Its hard to imagine the guitar world without the PAF. Would Gibson be such a popular band without Seth Lover’s contribution? Its hard to say.
Like all my pickups I’ve used a number of test pilot players in its development as well as gigging it myself. Countless hours have gone into the testing stage of this design.A huge thanks to all the players and engineers involved in the development.
These pickups were played in studios and on stages in the hands of numerous players long before I gave them a name or built this website.
I made my first PAF type pickup in around 1995. It wasn’t until 2015 that I finally settles on this particular design. It has been a very long road for the integrity humbucker set. I am delighted to be offering them to you.
Here’s a great little demo of the Integrity’s in a mix. I encourage you to go and subscribe to this YouTube channel.
A Pickup in 4 Flavours
This pickup is available in 4 flavors to cover the various applications of this versatile pickup. You can select your option at the checkout.
The idea behind the 4 flavors is to simplify things for you. Rather than have 4 separate pickups with a similar vibe I’ve put them all under the umbrella of ‘Integrity’.
All 4 flavors fit within the range of the original PAF pickups. If you’re a Jazz or a rock player there’s an Integrity that will suit your style. All the pickups within this range use the same alnico II magnet, it’s just the windings that differ. If you are unsure which will work best for you just get in touch. I’m always happy to discuss your requirements.
The Standard wind –
This is the one I feel is the best balance between output and tone. All the demos are of this version unless otherwise stated. After my years of experimenting this is the version I like the best and use myself.
5% Underwound –
This has 5% less winding than the standard pickup. Less wire means less power but it also reduces the bass and gives a little more high end sparkle. If you want a low powered very clean humbucker this is for you. This one is all about clarity. Especially suited to archtop guitars. Here’s a nice little demo from TheSuperFunAwesomeHappyTimePedalShow.
Alex wanted a vintage vibe from his ’70’s Yamaha. He isn’t a rock player so was more concerned about the clean sound and light break up.
Integrity 5% under wound
A customer sent this little demo of his 5% under wound set. This is a great example showing how they respond to both clean and dirty sounds.
5% Overwound –
More winding mean a little more power but more significantly an increase in bass. Ideal for players wanting a classic rock tone or in HSS Strats.
Here is Nick Granville talking about his 5% over wound Integrity in the bridge position of a Strat.
He went for the Double Cream bobbins to match his single coils. I think you’ll agree it looks great.
10% Overwound –
An increase in power and bass from the standard pickup. Still very much the PAF vibe but with a bit more. This is a great rock pickup with the dynamic range to clean up nicely but with the power to push you amp. Suited to players using dirtier sounds from classic rock to Slash to early Van Halen.
The Integrity comes with 4 conductor wire to give you all the switching options. I very lightly wax pot the Integrity to reduce microphonic feedback but to retain some of the microphonic character of the originals.
The thinking behind the Integrity set
Here are a couple of short videos to explain the thinking behind the Integrity pickup set and its variants.
Integrity Neck Pickup
Integrity Bridge Pickup
In a HSS Strat
Here are a few videos showing the Integrity in different situations.
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The full and honest sound of the Integrity-vintage humbucker along with it’s timeless tone inspired the name “Integrity”. https://mrglynspickups.com/
There are a number of cover options so you can choose how your Integrity looks. Uncovered options are black, double white, double cream, and zebra or reverse zebra (in either cream or white) at no additional charge. Or you can add a cover to your purchase in: black, gold, chrome, nickel, sliders, gatsby or open raw nickel at $20 per pickup ($40 for a set).
Feel free to inquire about variations of these cover options. I can, for instance use gold screws with the black covers.
If you would like your pickup aged don’t hesitate to ask. I can do any degree of ageing from just reducing the glare to the full steam punk treatment. If you are matching your new pickup to an old guitar I will ask for some photos of your guitar. That’s the best way for me to match the degree of ageing to suit you. I always enjoy working with my customers to achieve what they want.
I put the integrity pick ups into my Jim Root Jazzmaster last week. I gigged with the guitar on Sat night and am so happy. They have the versatility that I’m looking for. Thanks
Bought a set of Mr Glyn’s Integrity humbuckers and they are awesome! These pickups do everything from clean to blues rock to screaming distorted rock tones. So great to just roll off the volume, have it clean up but still stay loud and defined. My guitar is now super versatile and sounds great! Thanks
Mr Glyns Cruel Mistress hot Tele Pickups are designed for the Tele player who wants more than the traditional country twang. They have a full bottom end, cut through mids and a top end that is strong but never harsh. They’ll push your amp that bit harder without losing that Telecaster character.
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Brett Kingman demos (I think he likes them)
More Cruel Mistress hot Tele demos
Description
There is nothing like the high end snarl of a good Tele bridge pickup. However, Telecaster Pickups are complicated. It’s a sound that needs to be just right. Too much treble and it can sound grating and obnoxious, too little and it just isn’t a Tele. The treble needs warmth while still cutting through a mix like a zombie banjo.
I wanted to make a pickup with more power to drive an amp harder while keeping the Tele character. My biggest concern was not losing what a Tele is all about.
In my repair work I came across a lot of replacement Telecaster pickups that just don’t sound like Teles. Bridge pickups need grit and the neck a chimey clarity and together they should be full and open and matched well enough to create almost a reverb sound with the switch in the middle position. Good Telecasters have a very distinctive tone and I felt I needed to retain that but at the same time offer more.
The Cruel Mistress hot Tele uses Alnico V magnets to help with the attack and AWG43 wire for the snarl.
A Tele neck pickup needs to be smooth and warm and have a great balance with the bridge pickup so that the middle position rings with an almost reverb-like tone. The difficulty with Telecaster neck pickups is there just isn’t much space under that cover. As a result it can be a hard pickup to get right and there were a lot of experiments and disappointments on the way. Eventually I came on a design that has enough bottom end to sound full but not so much to sound boomy. And the final pickup was a great match to the bridge.
I had help from the ears of a couple of pro players who were generous enough to let me load their guitars with prototype pickups for testing. The whole process takes time and only after many road tests and versions did I fix on a design. As a result, each of my designs have been developed over many years of subtle changes and road tests. Having help like this means my pickups are trialled by different players, through many different amps and playing styles. The neck/bridge balance as well as dynamics/compression need to be tested in as many situations as possible to find a pickup that will work for most players.
So if you need some grit and aggression from your Telecaster Pickups this is the set for you.
