Anti-Hum pickup questions

[cc_mac]

Is there a pole piece adjustment that is considered optimal for the thinner 1960s Anti-Hum pickups? I suppose its mostly subjective but I thought it would be worth asking. Also, my bridge pickup seems to have less output and sound markedly thinner sounding than the neck pickup. Is that normal? Are different by design?

 

[Default]

There's been a few threads on the disparity in output between the bridge and rhythm pickups. The neck pickup is hotter than the bridge and it's intentional. Don't know why that is, unless Guild figured that most people would be playing with the treble rolled off on the neck. Bassy tones are less noticeable to the ear while treble is more prominent, so maybe that was an attempt to balance jazz-style rhythm with a cutting lead?

 

[Walter Broes]

lower the neck pickup entirely, not just the poles, and crank the lead pickup as high as it will go - worked for me when I had a SF IV with those pups.

 

[cc_mac]

Thanks for those thoughts so far! I am wondering what effect the angle of the pickup has. You can see in the pic below that the the bridge pup is not a parallel plane to the strings. The pup mounting ring seems to be the culprit here. I don't know what can easily be done about that but haven't really tried anything yet. Since the pic was taken I've replaced the mounting screws and adjusting screws. Any idea on how to de-rust and keep the pole pieces clean?

 

[lautmaschine]

Mmmm. The maple bodied SIV with minibuckers. A favourite of mine!

The angle of the pickup is opposite to what it should be. My first reaction is that someone swapped the neck and bridge pickups, but the fact that your neck is louder indicates that all is normal. I assume you've taken the p'up assembly apart and checked to make sure the screws and springs are straight?

I wouldn't worry about the rust on the pole pieces too much, but if you're fussed about it, you could try wiping some wd-40 or something on them. That would clean them up a bit and protect them from further corrosion. don't get any of that stuff on other surfaces though!

 

[cc_mac]

Mmmm. The maple bodied SIV with minibuckers. A favourite of mine!

The angle of the pickup is opposite to what it should be. My first reaction is that someone swapped the neck and bridge pickups, but the fact that your neck is louder indicates that all is normal. I assume you've taken the p'up assembly apart and checked to make sure the screws and springs are straight?

Excellent point and I've considered that as well. It just occurred to me that the PUP ring could be 180 degrees off. I'd thought of that before but discounted it. Now I am thinking that the adjustment screw holes might not be perpendicular to the ring and that could cause it. I'll tear it apart tomorrow and check it out.

We had band practice yesterday and I played the Guild and the Gretsch 5120. The Guild pickups shamed the stock Gretstch. The 5120 might become be getting some TV Jones PUP real soon.

 

[lautmaschine]

Excellent point and I've considered that as well. It just occurred to me that the PUP ring could be 180 degrees off. I'd thought of that before but discounted it. Now I am thinking that the adjustment screw holes might not be perpendicular to the ring and that could cause it. I'll tear it apart tomorrow and check it out.

We had band practice yesterday and I played the Guild and the Gretsch 5120. The Guild pickups shamed the stock Gretstch. The 5120 might become be getting some TV Jones PUP real soon.

For sure, if that guitar has the standard gretschbuckers, then an upgrade will help a lot. In my opinion it's hard to do better than the Guild minibuckers. Someone would do well to clone them. :wink:

 

[gilded]

I wouldn't worry about the rust on the pole pieces too much, but if you're fussed about it, you could try wiping some wd-40 or something on them. That would clean them up a bit and protect them from further corrosion. don't get any of that stuff on other surfaces though!

WD-40:
I wouldn't worry about it either. Also, with no disrespect to lautmaschine, if I were worrying, I sure wouldn't put WD-40 on the the screws. That stuff is a penetrating oil and you don't want it penetrating the pickups, Big Daddy. WD-40 could do bad stuff to the coatings on the pickup wire!

Pickup Screws:
I guess you could take them out and wire brush them off, if it really bothered you. Then, if you wanted to try and keep the rust off, spray the top portion with a thin coat of nitrocellulose lacquer (that's what we used to do to tele and strat bridge parts when the chrome plating wore off, back when the world was young). That 'might work', at least for a while.

Mostly, I'd give them screws a good leavin' alone, as we say in Tejas. You are going to feel really dumb if you break a rusty, weakened ear off of a screw, in the process of trying to pull it out to clean it.

Pickup Mounting Ring:
If your pickup ring isn't switched (reversed), then you can probably bend the pickup feet a little bit and get it to 'straighten up and fly right'. If you're not handy, with tools, I'd let a luthier do it. Personally, I'm sort of handy, but I'd let my luthier do it.

People say that the screw height makes a lot of difference on those pickups. Keep searching for threads here on LTG, I think you'll find a lot of info.

Walter Broes is way smart on pickup height and tone in general. I think whatever he says is a good place to start for most folks.

Good luck. I have those pickups in a guitar or two and I like them a lot.
What kind of amp(s) are you using? What kind of pedals do the pickups seem to like?

Harry aka gilded

 

[cc_mac]

I removed the pick-up along with the mounting ring last night to have another look. The mounting ring top and bottom have a parallel plane so rotating it 180" had no effect. The adjustment screw holes are perpendicular to the plane of the top surface and have very little wiggle room. I turned my attention to the support legs and decided to gently bend them forward and see what happened. The result was positive in that the top of the pickup is now on a parallel plane to the top of the mounting ring. That's not good enough though. I am reluctant to bend the legs further without heating them. That's not really the right solution anyway.

A simple fix would be put a shim between the body and the bottom of the mounting ring side closest to the bridge to "tilt " the ring and pickup forward. This could also be accomplished by putting a washer between the body and mounting ring under the two rear most screws. Either way would accomplish the same thing but leave a space between the body and the pickup which is aesthetically undesirable and would allow crud to easily find it's way under the pickup and into the cavity.

A better solution would be to create a "gasket' or spacer that is wedge shaped and fits between the pickup mounting ring and body. This would need to be about 1/16" on the leading edge and 3/16" on the trailing edge. That would result in having the pickup and mounting ring in a parallel plane to the strings. I have a friend who is and excellent woodworker and believes he can make one that will work perfectly. We are going to try to fab it this weekend and I'll report back.

As for the rusty polepieces

"Mostly, I'd give them screws a good leavin' alone, as we say in Tejas" - Gilded

That's some fine advice and I'm going to go with that for now.

 

[cc_mac]

People say that the screw height makes a lot of difference on those pickups. Keep searching for threads here on LTG, I think you'll find a lot of info.

Walter Broes is way smart on pickup height and tone in general. I think whatever he says is a good place to start for most folks.

Good luck. I have those pickups in a guitar or two and I like them a lot.
What kind of amp(s) are you using? What kind of pedals do the pickups seem to like?

Harry aka gilded

Walter shared some good info and I'd be happy to hear more from anyone. Walter's suggestion of dropping the neck pickup all the way down to balance things out was perfect.

As for the amps. It's been a lot of things over the years. My favorite has become increasingly unreliable which is a Legend A30 that I've had for about 20 years. Good results with a Marshall 3203. Neither of those needed a dist/od pedal as they channel switched. Currently I am using a Fender Blues Jr and it's OK but I need to get a stomp box especially to use with the Gretsch 5120.

Oh, and then there was Swart day at the house. I got to gig with it once and jeez what a great amp

For those of you who don't know what a Legend A30 is