The Pandora 3 way Esquire pickup took its inspiration from me wanting to fix a problem.
I’ve never been happy with the switching options given on the Fender Esquire.
I could have switched in some capacitors or switched out parts of the circuit . But this creates sounds you can make anyway using the tone control.
Instead, I thought it would be better to have a tapped pickup so the player can generate usable, ‘real’ tones. I did this by ‘tapping’ into the winding at different points to get different strength pickups from the one coil.
This essentially gives the player 3 different pickups in one , using the normal 3 way switch to achieve this.
In the middle position it’s an Esquire pickup. One way it’s less than that (I’m calling it ‘Gold Foil’ though it isn’t). The other way it’s more – my Cruel Mistress pickup. This gives 3 distinct tones going from jangly rhythm to fat lead without losing the distinctive Esquire/Telecaster character.
The ‘Cruel Mistress‘ part was easy, it’s my best selling Telecaster pickup set.
The middle position is based on a ’61 Esquire I once had the good fortune of getting to know. I was going for that clear, ringing bridge pickup tone we all know and love. A sound that stands out from a mix. I was so happy with how this pickup turned out that I made a standalone Telecaster set from it . I’ve called it The Duchess.
The third position I’m calling ‘Gold Foil’ but I could have equally called it ‘Lipstick’. It’s a tone in the character of those style of pickups though technically is neither.
So the experiments and trials began; there’s a lot to test with this type of pickup. There were trials to get the 3 sounds to work well together. A lot of those! And then testing with different amps, pedals and most importantly with different drummers and bass players.
Then, of course, I realized that the main use for my Pandora design wouldn’t be in Fender Esquires. It’s ideal in single pickup builds. The single pickup movement is getting bigger. This is the perfect tool to give those guitars extra versatility while still using a single Tele style bridge pickup.
I sat on the design for about a year. I thought that, although I really liked it, the idea might be a bit complicated. I didn’t think people would want a pickup with all those switching options. I had done all the testing, was really happy with the sounds and feel but didn’t do anything about it.
Then on a whim I posted on Instagram about it and received a huge response. It seemed players and builders liked the idea. So here it is, the Pandora 3 way Esquire.
Thanks to Reg Ayers for this demo. Go and check out his YouTube channel – he makes some great pedals.
Pandora 3 way Esquire sounds great with a 500KOhm volume pot or to get the most out of it I recommend this wiring diagram:
Pandora 3 way Esquire suggested wiring diagram
The difference is that 1Meg volume pot (it’s usually 250KOhms) and those resistors. This enables each of the 3 pickup settings to ‘see’ the volume pot as a different value. It just emphasizes the good points of each setting, it’s subtle but it does make a difference.
Here is the wiring colour code for the Pandora tele pickup.
I’ve been repairing a few pickups recently and I thought I’d share this one with you. It’s a Fender Lead I Pickup that was sent to me by guitar repairer Jeff Baker from Oamaru.
The Fender Lead I was one of those obscure models that never really caught on and the pickup reflects that. It’s a little unusual and that’s what makes it interesting.
It even looks different with those square topped bobbins.
Not only is it unusual looking from the top but turn it over and it shows what it’s really all about. Those are 12 big adjustable poles screwed into substantial steel blocks and coupled to a powerful ceramic magnet.
This is clearly not a typical Fender pickup, this was designed to ROCK.
Inside a Fender Lead I Pickup
So what were Fender thinking? Well, this was 1979, the DiMarzio Super Distortion had been around for 5 years and was becoming very successful. Fender had nothing to compete with it. Looking at the spec of the Fender Lead I Pickup it is remarkably similar to the Super Distortion. Fender were making a Superstrat and it wasn’t even the 80’s yet.
Back to the repair – it came to me because it wasn’t working and typical for faulty humbuckers one coil was showing ‘open circuit’ on the test meter. In these cases I can use the good coil as a reference to what the faulty coil should be. It had a dc resistance of 7.61 KOhms. Wiki told me the final dc resistance of the whole pickup is approx. 13KOhms so that gave me a pretty good indication of how I should wind it. That’s a powerful set of coils to go with that magnet.
A bit of maths, plenty of experience and some intuition and I had a plan for winding it. Detailed information just isn’t available for the Fender Lead I Pickup.
I stripped the bobbin and wound the coil.
I potted it very lightly because these bobbins are made of butyrate that has a lower melting point than most modern ABS bobbins – I didn’t want it to deform with the heat, I wasn’t going to be able to get another bobbin.
Here you can see the chunky pole pieces, they’ll guide a fair bit of that ceramic magnet’s strength up to the strings.
If you have a faulty pickup or are interested in my range of handmade pickups have a look at the website.
