Update on ToneNerd Pickups Japan Relocation

Wound a few sets for the first time in 8 months. It was like I never stopped. While I was using new wire and bobbins, I actually like the new parts better to work with.

I wound a set of Morning Woods @8.6kA2 and 7.8kA2 and put them in the Edward and did an A/B with my Navigator with Set Lovers. The bridge still has that spank similar to the Seth but blooms better, and for high gain, just absolutely kills and the neck pickup is IMO the best neck pickups I’ve made ironically very woody and organic sounding and make the Seth neck sound like mud. I’m probably going to make a batch of these as well. I’m still not going to take orders yet. I want make decent size batches of each model so I can refine and tweak if necessary each model as I do since I’m using some new parts.

I also made a whiskey set. I have tried these out yet, hopefully can get them installed in the morning. I’m 14 hours ahead of middle America it’s getting late.
 
scottosan said:
Wound a few sets for the first time in 8 months. It was like I never stopped. While I was using new wire and bobbins, I actually like the new parts better to work with.

I wound a set of Morning Woods @8.6kA2 and 7.8kA2 and put them in the Edward and did an A/B with my Navigator with Set Lovers. The bridge still has that spank similar to the Seth but blooms better, and for high gain, just absolutely kills and the neck pickup is IMO the best neck pickups I’ve made ironically very woody and organic sounding and make the Seth neck sound like mud. I’m probably going to make a batch of these as well. I’m still not going to take orders yet. I want make decent size batches of each model so I can refine and tweak if necessary each model as I do since I’m using some new parts.

I also made a whiskey set. I have tried these out yet, hopefully can get them installed in the morning. I’m 14 hours ahead of middle America it’s getting late.
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Just dickteasin
 
Ok, been playing the new whiskey set in my Edwards Kellogg’s. Played it a little last night but it was late. The family was out and I got to push some air with both these and the morning woods.

First of, unless I’m convinced otherwise, all of my new pickups will be plain enamel, which is the type of wire from the vintage PAF. It more expensive but for me getting it locally was as a little cheaperd than getting the cheaper poly in the US and pay to import in. There’s a lot of discussions and debate on how wire type affects tone. The coating itself doesn’t affect the tone from a dialectic standpoint, but it does from a thickness standpoint. With pickups, everything affects everything. Plain Enamel has a thinner coating than poly and since each subsequent wire has the protection of laying closer the a previous wind due to the thinner coating, it affects both capacitance and over all resistance since the length of wire needed with be different.

I took me a long time to be completely happy with some bridge PAFs and I can honestly say that I am ecstatic with this set. I know people have their own preferences for PAFs and may like A5s of A2s, but I also trust my own wards and think these are the best balance of clarity, fullness, and feel at all gain levels from clean, medium to high gain. Playing my Edwards with the Morning Woods vs the 5 times more expensive Navigator with the Seth Lovers, I’d keep the Edward’s hands down. I also thing that both the bridge and the neck are better than the clips of the prototype. Both the Whiskey Neck and the Morning wood neck my favorites so far. The only difference between the 2 is A2 vs A4.

Onto the whiskey bridge. Ironically I designed this for my Charvels, but this pickup is incredible in mahogany guitars. The Edwards Kellog came stock with a JB and a 59. The guitar played great, but was just meh, IMHO. The Whiskey set in here set this thin on fire. I couldn’t be happier. As always, pickups are personally and highly subjective to taste, but again, I have to trust my ears.

My first batch to be release will be several Morning Wood Sets and Several Whiskey Sets and a few stand alone Whiskeys. I will be doing long legs and work with my vendor to do some triangle ears. I will have some sets available very very soon. A few are spoken for but again, I want to refrain from taking orders yet and want to stick with the batch model until I work through the tweaks and logistics.
 
I also want to talk about covers. I typically don’t like covers. I’ll do nickel, but wont do chrome covers without some arm twisting. The copper content in chrome and gold covers is tone sucking. I’ll do gold, only because. There has never been a copper free option in gold from and pickup maker. So if you’re replacing a gold cover pickup with one of my gold cover pickups, you have a baseline for expectations. Unless you need a perfect shiner new cover, I will recommend my raw nickel covers. They’re not as bland looking as the raw nickel covers offered by some winders. Pickups simply don’t age how those look. I go in reverse. I get them raw and hand polish them. If these are going into a used or aged guitar, they look natural.

Below is a polished mojo vintage spec PAF cover that goes for $16 raw and $26 new. And that’s my cost with no upcharge. You can get covers for $10 from mojo, but they’re thicker.

Next to it is my locally sourced covers. I can get them quite a bit cheaper and offer them as a $10 upgrade for the hand polished raw nickel. Not the local
One seem to have a sharper radius on the edges. They are just as thin.

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What do you use to polish? I think the only time I did it I used guitar finishing polish. I wonder if you could use some sort of tumbler for polishing covers (like rock polishing)? Just throw it in and let it tumble for a while.
 
The Whiskey is still a “no go” with the new wire. Using PE wire, my protos are sitting between the old Whiskey and Roxy. I just ordered some poly wire, I’m done fighting it. I’m not going to compromise it.

On a positive note, I’m really excited about my PAF prototypes. So far I have the Morning wood A2 and the “OG” Old Growth that a 5000 wind A4 neck and 5500 wind A4 bridge, both unpotted. Similar spec to the Tom Holmes H450 and H455
 
@scottosan Took me too long to hear about your pickups. Hope you get where you want to be with wire and production.

I know you’re not taking orders atm. At some point in the future I’d like to explore rewound pickups, sort of. I have some uncovered PRS pickups, and they have their own shape to the top of the bobbins - rounded rectangle instead of typical racetrack. It’s a factory look I like but I don’t care for a number of their pickups tone. Is winding pickups using existing bobbins something you think you’d ever be open to? Are vintage vs modern wound sets more affected by the bobbin material?
 
I just threw in some A3. I like them much better. Even though A3s are weak, they do high gain really well. The have the sag of A2 in the feel, but have a spankings to them clean. Great clarity without being stiff. First half is clean neck, then gain starts with neck and goes to bridge.

I also think I need to move the SM57 a tad away from center

https://on.soundcloud.com/q61zbYcHjt78VC5a8
 
scottosan said:
I just threw in some A3. I like them much better. Even though A3s are weak, they do high gain really well. The have the sag of A2 in the feel, but have a spankings to them clean. Great clarity without being stiff. First half is clean neck, then gain starts with neck and goes to bridge.

I also think I need to move the SM57 a tad away from center

https://on.soundcloud.com/q61zbYcHjt78VC5a8
Click to expand...

Good Lord! They sound fantastic with the A3's! The bridge pickup comes really close to the sound I'm chasing. Any idea when they will be available?
 
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