Silly question... Why 'Franz' pickups

Maybe I just haven't payed attention reading 'the Bible', but I suddenly realise I have no clue where the name 'Franz' pickups derives from. Where these pickups made for Guild by another company ?

WOW ! I left the forum speechless
FRANZ, WHO ARE YOU ????? :mrgreen:

Well I didn't answer because I didn't know.

However, a Gogle search strongly suggests that the pickups were made by EMT and according to this Wilhelm Franz founded EMT.

So, if there is no money on it I would say they are called Franz PUs because Wilhelm Franz was involved in the design or production. If there is money on it then I would do a little more Googling and more than just skimming the results to identify the exact nature of Mr. Franz's involvement and to verify that the PU he was involved with was sold to Guild as an OEM (as well as Hofner and Gretsch).

caveman said:

Maybe I just haven't payed attention reading 'the Bible', but I suddenly realise I have no clue where the name 'Franz' pickups derives from. Where these pickups made for Guild by another company ?

Click to expand...

The Guild Guitar Book, page 30, 'Early single-coil pickups', 4th line.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
http://www.guitarsgalore.nl

fronobulax said:

Well I didn't answer because I didn't know.

However, a Gogle search strongly suggests that the pickups were made by EMT and according to this Wilhelm Franz founded EMT.

Click to expand...

I believe the pickups they are referring to are, what in the US are called, turntables. I don't think there's a link between EMT and Franz pickups of New York.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl

I found this website about Hofner guitars and their pickups, lots of them are described as 'manufactured by Franz' :

http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/hofnerfs ... s/pup.html

Coincidence ? Guild did use German made hardware...

caveman said:

I found this website about Hofner guitars and their pickups, lots of them are described as 'manufactured by Franz' :
Coincidence ? Guild did use German made hardware...

Click to expand...

Yes, they did but to the best of my knowledge the Franz pickups that were used by Guild (and other New York and New Jersey based guitar makers) were made in New York.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
http://www.guitarsgalore.nl

hansmoust said:

fronobulax said:

Well I didn't answer because I didn't know.

However, a Gogle search strongly suggests that the pickups were made by EMT and according to this Wilhelm Franz founded EMT.

Click to expand...

I believe the pickups they are referring to are, what in the US are called, turntables. I don't think there's a link between EMT and Franz pickups of New York.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
http://www.guitarsgalore.nl

Click to expand...

I realized the EMT page was talking about what I would call a phonograph cartridge - the thing that converted the mechanical movements of a needle into an electrical signal that could be amplified - but figured there could be a link between one kind of transducer and another at a corporate/manufacturing level. I guess I figured wrong :?

However I have served my usual purpose on LTG which seems to be to inject mis-information into non-bass discussions and keep the thread alive until soneone who knows wthat they are talking about comes along.

All that out of the way, is there much known about Franz of New York that isn't in the Guild Book? Now I'm curious.

Thanks, Hans.

fronobulax said:

..... is there much known about Franz of New York that isn't in the Guild Book? Now I'm curious.

Click to expand...

Hello Frono,

When I was doing the research for The Guild Guitar Book I tried to find some information about the company that made these pickups but unfortunately I did find very little. I talked to somebody who worked for Diamond Coils (the company that made some of the parts for the Guild pickups after Guild stopped using the Franz units) and even he could not tell me anything about the 'Franz' company.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl

As much as I love Franz pickups, there's no big mystery to them. In practice, they really are a cheap-ishly made Gibson P90 copy, and very similar to a Gibson P90.


They do sound a little thinner, and read a little less DC resistance on a meter. But they're still a fairly loud, powerful pickup, which probably has everything to do with the twin bar magnets under the coil, again, just like a Gibson P90.

Gibson P90's typically have a higher DC resistance, which probably means they have a larger number of wire turns on the coil - that would also explain why the Franzes sound "thinner", treblier. (the treble content of a pickup diminishes with more wire on the coil, which is why a typical "overwound" pickup has more midrange and bass, and less treble)

But I'm sure if someone who knows his stuff could take his time to see the wire gauge on them, and the magnet type, the sound of a Franz pickup could be fairly easily copied on a Gibson P90 chassis.

Franz pickups really work on hollowbody Guilds, but I hope people are not going to get into a whole B.S. mystique about them the way Gibson PAF pickups have been over-analyzed and mythologized.

Walter Broes said:

Franz pickups really work on hollowbody Guilds, but I hope people are not going to get into a whole B.S. mystique about them the way Gibson PAF pickups have been over-analyzed and mythologized.

Click to expand...

Naa... Save that for the Hagstrom bi-sonics.

Oh, I don't think Hammond Engineering is "over-mythologizing" anything, they're building a solid reproduction of a great design that was out of production.

hansmoust said:

When I was doing the research for The Guild Guitar Book I tried to find some information about the company that made these pickups but unfortunately I did find very little. I talked to somebody who worked for Diamond Coils (the company that made some of the parts for the Guild pickups after Guild stopped using the Franz units) and even he could not tell me anything about the 'Franz' company.

Click to expand...

Maybe Mr. Greco knows something about them? I bet a former employee of Dearmond in Toledo might know something as well. It's often those in the same industry who know the skinny on the competition.

jp said:

hansmoust said:

When I was doing the research for The Guild Guitar Book I tried to find some information about the company that made these pickups but unfortunately I did find very little. I talked to somebody who worked for Diamond Coils (the company that made some of the parts for the Guild pickups after Guild stopped using the Franz units) and even he could not tell me anything about the 'Franz' company.

Click to expand...

Maybe Mr. Greco knows something about them? I bet a former employee of Dearmond in Toledo might know something as well. It's often those in the same industry who know the skinny on the competition.

Click to expand...

Hello jp,

Carlo didn't know when I asked him 15 years ago but when he started at Guild he didn't have the position he would get later and the Franz pickups were discontinued not too long after his arrival. Also Diamond Coils were the competition and geographically in the same area.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
http://www.guitarsgalore.nl

I think Franz PUPs already have iconic status as Guild guitars with them are usually >2X cost when compared to the similar model with HB's.

However the vast majority of the world are not into Guilds so the Franz PUP reputation is only prized at LTG.

Interesting, my brother who is margionally tone deaf and a very basic chord strummer immediatly recognized the sweet tone of a Franz pup when he was trying out a few of my Guilds a few years back. I was quite suprised he distinguished the Franz tone. (Now he is often bugging me to borrow a Franz PUP guitar! )


M

matsickma said:

However the vast majority of the world are not into Guilds so the Franz PUP reputation is only prized at LTG.

Click to expand...

Yep.

This thread is making me want to pick up a second guitar with Franz pickups. The sound of my older T100 has gotten so essential for me that I'd feel better with some sort of backup or alternate flavor.

I'm sure I remember seeing a picture of a pickup on ebay that had an old sticker on the back that said Fransch Electronics and an address in NY (meaning that "Franz" is a misspelling that has made it enough into the lore to be persistent).

One thing I've been wondering about for a while is whether "Franz" was the maker of the old "Tone Spectrum" pickups that were used on some Epiphones in the late 40s. They look similar to a type of pickups that were used on Premier guitars for a while which have a thin plated metal case and have been identified as being made by Franz (I have a dead bass pickup like that, and I'm pretty sure it is a Franz because the guts are so similar to those in the Guild versions).

Regarding Walter's comments above, while I'm not a pickup guru, I think the magnets must be pretty strong in the Franz pickups since the output is perceived as strong despite the coils having relatively little resistance compared to other pickups. The EQ curve, being brighter due to the low coil resistance and possibly the type of alnico magnet, would also be part of why they seem loud; they cut through real good, which is generally true of low output pickups. As you add wire to a coil, you concentrate the sound toward the mids and away from the highs and lows, and a brighter tone with less mids will always cut through better than a tone with a lot of boxey sounding 400 hz-ish signal. Also, coils wound on an old, kind of chaotic winding machine, such as a converted sewing machine, result in less capacitance than a more evenly wound coil, which is another way to get more highs.


I don't really think there's anything magical about the Franzes either, it's just that pickups with less wire on the coil have become less common and we notice and like the contrast. In my experience any old single coil that measures between 2 and 7 Kohms DC across the coil sounds good in the same kind of way. Old Teisco pickups are a fairly common and cheap way to get that sound, if you guys have some project guitars. Some old Magnatone pickups and 50s German single coil pickups are like that too, but those can be tough to find and expensive.

I'm thinking that a P90 bobbin with the same type and gauss alnico magnet that you find on Franz, wound to a similar resistance on a crude, old school winding machine, should be right on the money. I probably wouldn't bother trying to match the wire gauge so long as the coil resistance was in the right range; I suspect the winding pattern is much more critical.

I believe all of these are exactly the same differences that account for the distinct tones between a Rickenbacker high gain pickup compared to their reissue scatterwound Toaster. One of those Toasters with a little stronger magnet and somewhat less wire should be very hard to distinguish from a Franz by ear. This theory could be tested by transplanting a Franz magnet to a Toaster and partly unwinding the Toaster, if anybody is into stuff like that and has a dead Franz they don't mind messing with.

teleharmonium said:

I think the magnets must be pretty strong in the Franz pickups since the output is perceived as strong despite the coils having relatively little resistance compared to other pickups.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't be surprised if they're plain old Alnico V magnets - but just like on Gibson P90's - there's two of them! People think of PAF type humbuckers as "medium loud to loud" pickups, and those have only one of them.
It seems to me people get a little too focused on DC readings - and forget that the magnets are part of the story!

I lucked out and got a spare pair of Franz pickups on Ebay some years ago, for something like $160 for the pair, with covers, and I have three guitars that came with them, so I'm pretty much set.
And while I'm contradicting myself a little here, saying "there's nothing magical about them", they ARE my favourite pickup on a hollowbody.

matsickma said:

However the vast majority of the world are not into Guilds so the Franz PUP reputation is only prized at LTG.

Click to expand...

I do think their rep is known in the vintage circles. I've spoken to some vintage gear hounds who know about them, albeit very little. When I've mentioned I like the old Guild archtops, quite a few of them had played them and remembered that they were impressed by the "P90-type single coils," as they're so commonly described.

I like them quite a bit too, but I've usually never been one to tweak gear that much to get the "prized tone" I've imagined in my head. Each type of PUs has its place for some style of music, just like guitars and amps. I really dig the Guild minis HBs too.

The Franz PUP has a synergy of parts that most likely wasn't engineered. I don't think the PAF was engineered for its tone. The combination of parts used at the time resulted in audiable differences that many years later are appreciated. I suspect the origional PAF tone was just another pickup. However when combined with a Les Paul or 335, an English white boy with love of Ameriacan blues and a cranked up amp the synergy of that combination defined a tone.

I remember reading an article about Jim Marshall trying to copy the Fender Bassman for his own amp, which may be called a Bluesbreaker today. He saw a market for amps because the import tariffs for Fenders put them out of reach for most musicians. He tried to copy the Bassman but couldn't get the american parts for similar tariff reasons. He began to substitute parts available in the UK and altered circuits, etc which eventually ended up with the Marshall sound. It fit perfectly with the PAF.

I also remember hearing a interview on NPR where Terry Gross was talking with an early Rock-n-roll or blues musician. He described how he was heading to a gig and knocked his amp over tearing the speaker. There was no back up so he played at the gig with the torn speaker. People started to come up to him asking about the new sound. He speculated the Fuzz box was inspired by that sound which eventually lead to cranked amp distortion and back to distortion pedals.

M

I believe it was Stan Jay at Mando Bras who said that Franz P-90s varied in the amount of coil wrapping, and that the result was that Franz P-90s vary in sound more than most other pups do.