Modern Wide Range Humbucker Set
In 1972 Fender introduced their take on the humbucker, a singularly unique design from Seth Lover, the inventor of the original "humbucking" pickup. Known for their clarity and top-end sparkle, they went out of production in 1979, until Fender reissued them in 1983 with a different design to the originals. These modern versions are a standard humbucker in a larger case, and don't display any of the characteristics that made the originals so unique and sought after.
Unlike my "Vintage" Wide Range Humbuckers, with these I've taken the basic design and made some tweaks to produce my own modern take on it.
I use custom-made larger bobbins just like the originals, which allows me to use the correct 42awg wire, and a custom-made ferrous reflector plate to increase the inductance of the pickup and shape the tone like the originals.
CuNiFe rod magnets currently aren't available outside of Fender, so I offer the choice of individual AlNiCo rod magnets, or threaded FeCrCo magents if you want the original "screw" look for each pole piece, rather than the bar magnet and steel pole-pieces of the reissues - AlNiCo/FeCrCo 2 in the bridge position and AlNiCo/FeCrCo 5 in the neck.
The reason for using FeCrCo for the threaded pole-piece option is that AlNiCo is too brittle to be threaded, so is impossible to machine into a threaded pole format, and as FeCrCo has extremely similar properties to AlNiCo it is an excellent alternative. Tonally, FeCrCo in the threaded rod format has just a touch more high-mid focus than AlNiCo, which does take away from the top-end sparkle a little.
Unlike the originals where the bridge and neck were used a 54mm pole spacing and wound the same, I use 54mm bridge and 52mm neck spacing so the pole-pieces better line up with the strings in each position and wind the bridge to 11.2k and the neck to 10.5k neck to provide a better balance when switching between positions.
Available with chrome covers with two options: "spaghetti-style" signature logo, or plain covers.
DCR | Neck: 10.5k, Bridge: 11.2k |
Inductance | Neck: 6.3H, Bridge: 7.4H |
Wire | 42awg SPN |
Magnets | AlNiCo 2/5 or FeCrCo 2/5 |
As with the originals, 1Meg pots are recommended to really bring out the best of these pickups, and I am able to provide a suitable set of pots and caps.