Newark Street Starfire Pickups

JohnW63 · May 26, 2015

So, the quick fix for any of the NS Guilds with the repro HD-1 humbuckers is to buy a neck spec pickup from Guild and take out the stock bridge one and swap them ? Seems quick and easy. So, I might get a vintage sound, on a new or nearly new guitar for a darn good price, but it would say, "Made in Korea" on it.

Walter Broes · May 26, 2015

Default said:
No, the pickups sent to Korea were simply purchased from eBay and unchecked in any manner. When the guys at NH were putting the M-75s together, they couldn't understand why the guitar sounded so bad in the lead position, as they were newly built pups. You want to know why nobody even played through them, ask the guy Fender hired away from Gibson..

I don't think the Gibson/Fender guy was involved with these Steve. Mike Lewis did the NS line.

jcwu · May 27, 2015

JohnW63 said:
So, the quick fix for any of the NS Guilds with the repro HD-1 humbuckers is to buy a neck spec pickup from Guild and take out the stock bridge one and swap them ? Seems quick and easy. So, I might get a vintage sound, on a new or nearly new guitar for a darn good price, but it would say, "Made in Korea" on it.

has anyone tried just swapping the neck and bridge pickups with each other?

Quantum Strummer · May 27, 2015

jcwu said:
has anyone tried just swapping the neck and bridge pickups with each other?

I was wondering this too. It's what I'd probably try first.

I have a pair of Rickenbackers with reissue "toaster" pickups. One I bought new in the mid '90s when Rick was winding 'em hotter like their modern "hi-gain" pickups, while the second guitar is more recent with more vintage-correct p'ups. I really like the hotter wind in the bridge position—it still has chime but balances better volume-wise with the neck p'up—so after I got the second guitar I just swapped its bridge pickup for the first guitar's neck unit. Now both guitars are nicely balanced!

(My Bluesbird's pickups are well-balanced even with identical specs, but Guilds allow for plenty of up/down adjustment whereas Rickies don't.)

-Dave-

Synchro · May 27, 2015

jcwu said:
has anyone tried just swapping the neck and bridge pickups with each other?

Quantum Strummer said:
I was wondering this too. It's what I'd probably try first.

-Dave-

I don't know that I'll get to it in the next few days, but I will give it a try on my Capri.

parker_knoll · May 27, 2015

Quantum Strummer said:
I was wondering this too. It's what I'd probably try first.

I have a pair of Rickenbackers with reissue "toaster" pickups. One I bought new in the mid '90s when Rick was winding 'em hotter like their modern "hi-gain" pickups, while the second guitar is more recent with more vintage-correct p'ups. I really like the hotter wind in the bridge position—it still has chime but balances better volume-wise with the neck p'up—so after I got the second guitar I just swapped its bridge pickup for the first guitar's neck unit. Now both guitars are nicely balanced!

(My Bluesbird's pickups are well-balanced even with identical specs, but Guilds allow for plenty of up/down adjustment whereas Rickies don't.)

-Dave-

yeah, i got my Ric toaster beefed up a bit aftermarket and loved it after that

Synchro · May 29, 2015

Synchro said:
I don't know that I'll get to it in the next few days, but I will give it a try on my Capri.

I decided against doing this. I sat down with the Capri and tested the pickup balance. As it turns out, the balance, on this guitar, would be hard to improve upon. If I swapped the pickups and retained the same pickup heights the bridge would overpower the neck and be too harsh.

B Arbogast · Sep 20, 2015

Just took delivery of a 2014 NS C100-D Capri. From reading the posts here, I was afraid that the pickups would be unbalanced. Not at all. They seem well-calibrated for their positions. FYI, in circuit the neck measures ~7.2k and the bridge ~5k, as advertised.

Synchro · Sep 21, 2015

Arbogast said:
Just took delivery of a 2014 NS C100-D Capri. From reading the posts here, I was afraid that the pickups would be unbalanced. Not at all. They seem well-calibrated for their positions. FYI, in circuit the neck measures ~7.2k and the bridge ~5k, as advertised.

I had the same experience. The Capri seems to work well with these pickups. My Starfire III is marginal and the T-400 was awful.

Default · Sep 21, 2015

It might be the body depth. For whatever reason, it seems like it bonds better with deep-bodied guitars than thin bodies. The difference was stark in the M-75 I had for a week.

Synchro · Sep 21, 2015

Default said:
It might be the body depth. For whatever reason, it seems like it bonds better with deep-bodied guitars than thin bodies. The difference was stark in the M-75 I had for a week.

I think you are right about this. The CE 100 has a very powerful resonance in the lower register; think Duane Eddy sounds. Apparently that really hooks up with the bridge pickup and, at least in my experience, the balance is quite good.

Guild recently sent me a 20% off coupon for accessories and I think I will buy a second neck pickup for the Starfire III. That really did the trick on my T-400.

GAD · Feb 7, 2018

Necro Bump.

Having a 2016 NS S200 Thunderbird in my hands for review, this pickup issue has smacked me in the face and I can tell you that it's still going on. I'm not sure I followed this much when it first happened but now that I've seen it first-hand and read Guild's response, I am quite insulted.

So, I bought one of each - neck and bridge - of the new LB1s and will dissect them to get to the bottom of it all. My gut tells me that they're not using different gauge wires on those pickups. That might be hard to prove, but we'll see. I'm not afraid to buy expensive measuring equipment. :anonymous:

I can tell you that I also have a set of vintage mini-hums from a '60s Starfire that I measured. They're both identical at 6.93k. In fact, I got so worked up about this today that I almost drove down to Guitar Center to buy that 1966 SFIII that's still hanging there so I could compare it, too.

More updates as events warrant.

Synchro · Feb 7, 2018

GAD said:
Necro Bump.

Having a 2016 NS S200 Thunderbird in my hands for review, this pickup issue has smacked me in the face and I can tell you that it's still going on. I'm not sure I followed this much when it first happened but now that I've seen it first-hand and read Guild's response, I am quite insulted.

So, I bought one of each - neck and bridge - of the new LB1s and will dissect them to get to the bottom of it all. My gut tells me that they're not using different gauge wires on those pickups. That might be hard to prove, but we'll see. I'm not afraid to buy expensive measuring equipment. :anonymous:

I can tell you that I also have a set of vintage mini-hums from a '60s Starfire that I measured. They're both identical at 6.93k. In fact, I got so worked up about this today that I almost drove down to Guitar Center to buy that 1966 SFIII that's still hanging there so I could compare it, too.

More updates as events warrant.

My impression is that Cordoba doesn't intend to address this issue. As I understand it, this is vintage accurate, by why replicate an error which could be easily corrected?

GAD · Feb 7, 2018

Synchro said:
My impression is that Cordoba doesn't intend to address this issue. As I understand it, this is vintage accurate, by why replicate an error which could be easily corrected?

I absolutely don't think this is vintage accurate at all. I just measured a pair and they're nothing like the ones in my NS S200.

Synchro · Feb 8, 2018

GAD said:
I absolutely don't think this is vintage accurate at all. I just measured a pair and they're nothing like the ones in my NS S200.

Perhaps there was a running change in the vintage ones. I have heard from several sources that the old Starfires had the same pickup balance problem, but specs have been known to change, and back in those days there was little documentation.

GAD · Feb 8, 2018

I’ve not heard that about old Starfires. I’d love to see some examples.

Zelja · Feb 8, 2018

Synchro said:
As I understand it, this is vintage accurate

According to the minibucker reference thread it doesn't seem to be vintage accurate at all: http://letstalkguild.com/ltg/showthread.php?185150-Minibucker-reference-post

I reckon that they did base it in on a vintage instrument but a sample of one! One that had a faulty bridge humbucker. Just a guess...

fronobulax · Feb 8, 2018

The Newark Street instruments were reverse engineered from vintage instruments but there was never a claim or an intent to reproduce or recreate the vintage model. Thus, at some point, complaining because the vintage specs are not met is a waste of time. Listening to a Newark Street Bisonic should cure anyone of the fantasy that the Newark Street line is an accurate reproduction - pretty close not all the way there.

That said, there is anecdotal evidence that some reverse engineering was done on pickups that differed from other vintage pickups. So there is a probable inconsistency in the vintage/original specs and that sample chosen probably does not represent what people today are looking for.

DThomasC · Feb 8, 2018

Last word that I heard - more correctly read, here on LTG - from someone that was involved at the time that Fender did the reverse engineering, is that the NS bridge pickup is absolutely messed up. There's no question, but then again, there's no changing it.

I believe (without proof) that back in the 60's, Guild did not intend for the neck and bridge pickups to be different. So it seems the simplest option with the NS instruments is to simply buy a neck pickup from guildguitars.com and install it in the bridge position. Or swap neck<->bridge if you don't want to buy a new one. Could be the underwound 'bridge' pickup would sound awesome in the neck position.

The fly in the ointment is that I have a suspicion they made the two different heights with the bridge version being physically taller. This might make swapping difficult.

GAD · Feb 8, 2018

DThomasC said:
Last word that I heard - more correctly read, here on LTG - from someone that was involved at the time that Fender did the reverse engineering, is that the NS bridge pickup is absolutely messed up. There's no question, but then again, there's no changing it.

I believe (without proof) that back in the 60's, Guild did not intend for the neck and bridge pickups to be different. So it seems the simplest option with the NS instruments is to simply buy a neck pickup from guildguitars.com and install it in the bridge position. Or swap neck<->bridge if you don't want to buy a new one. Could be the underwound 'bridge' pickup would sound awesome in the neck position.

The fly in the ointment is that I have a suspicion they made the two different heights with the bridge version being physically taller. This might make swapping difficult.

It would seem to me that there was one pickup and they just pulled them from a bucket (so to speak) and installed them. That would add credence to them being the same in my set (a sample size of one, to be fair).

I can easily check on my NS2000 to see if the bridge/neck are different heights.

Newark Street Starfire Pickups

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