The Guitar Weasel

I generally rewind anything up to 20 Rick bass pickups a year, from sixties to early to 2000s ... and my Rick inspired prototypes have taken elements from a mixture of eras, for example: the screw adjustable pole pieces combined with the more modern wind. The harder higher carbon steel screw poles give a different and more toppy character.

Having rewound a lot of Rick pickups I've found (by actually measuring the wire diameter) that contrary to what Rickenbacker have maintained, the 8k ones were wound with 43awg wire which roughly gives you 8000 turns. They now use finer 44awg wire ... and because of the higher resistance per foot of the finer gauge, the 8000 turns gives you 13.5k. Exactly the same power, because it's turns that equal volume, not resistance. The 44awg wire just gives you more mid punch.

I've always had a love/hate relationship with Ricks: I'm primarily a guitar player ... so I've never had to live with one on a day to day basis for playing. My experience comes from playing one occasionally, and in spending 40 years repairing instruments and six years rewinding numerous Rick pickups. I adore the look, and the mid range growl and clang, but ergonomically as a player I couldn't use one all the time. The Issue I see over and over again are dead Rick pickups, ones that have mysteriously just stopped working. When I rewound my first Rick bass pickup I discovered the design fault that leads to failure. Dead centre of the image is a sawn off brass screw that is driven through the bobbin and .... The super delicate 44awg wire is soldered directly to that screw ... no insolation, no strain relief. If the screw gets loose ... which the original soldering can make it ... it twists and breaks the wire. The simple fix is a short insulated 'pig tail' that has the core wire soldered to that ... a kink is put in the wire to allow for a bit of movement ... and the whole shooting mach is taped before winding. Problem solved ... but why oh why can't Rickenbacker do something about it themselves?

That looks really cool.

Jason (Lollar) made a replacement 'horseshoe' pickup ... which Rickenbacker no longer make, and the patent had expired on ... yet he got busted. You can see why us pickup makers treat the company like a handgrenade with the pin out!

Yes but if a pickup maker like me says it (probably three times) mirror or no ... then the lawyers from the 'Company Which Must Not Be Named' come and jump all over him with hobnail boots.

That's on my 'to do' list 🙂

Then it's done exactly what I wanted it to do ... No doubt with a bit of creative EQ you could tip it either way, which makes for a good take on versatility. On a solid bass you might have more clang than thump, but considering there is no other body or neck design element in common with a ... er Californian bass, or a an equal pickup positioning ... I think I nailed the design brief 🙂

Yep, blues harmonica player here too 🙂

If you are at the Birmingham guitar show in February Bridgehouse ... bring it to our stand and demo it 🙂

Mudbucker covers are pretty much impossible to get ... I'd do a version if I could get those. Perhaps a custom made ebony cover or similar would do the job. I'm an engineer not a woodworker mind ...

Sadly no ... I started to be more of a guitar player than a bass player, so I sold it to the bass player of my band at the time ... he used it for years. It's still out there somewhere. It's easily recognisable: a fretless Thunderbird bass with a ebony board and a Model 1 DiMarzio Mudbucker in the neck position and a split P Bass in the bridge. Pretty unique.

looks bloody gorgeous! The all black hardware, and slightly brutal looking pickup, contrasts brilliantly with the wood grain and antique look. Me like ... lots!

Careful putting in the screws, the bobbin is pretty full so watch the driver on the tape covering the coil.

I built my first bass back in 1978(it was a set neck Thunderbird copy) out of an old mahogany hardware shop counter! I love the idea of recycling wood.

Should have said about foam ... I have loads here ... If you are short I'll post you some.

Glad the pickup came 🙂 And thought I'd better come and say hi ... after all, I've been bass player in a few bands too, have owned everything from a 63 Precision to a BC Rich Mockingbird bass, and build and repair nearly as many bass pickups as guitar ones. Plus my business partner's a bass player, and is always trying to get me to design and wind more bass stuff ... he'll be flipping his fingers in delight. 🙂

Well hello chaps, I thought I'd better say hello and explain Bridgehouse's pickup as I'm the person who designed and wound it :-) My business involves a hell of a lot of pickup rewinds (as well as building new pickups), and the most common bass pickup to need my ministrations is that 'certain classic California-made' bass we are discussing. It's always had me thinking that it's kinda an object lesson in how to break the mould in bass pickup design ... because it's actually built pretty much the opposite way to the way you'd expect to produce bass tones. It's thin bobbin and super fine wire combined with relatively low output is really poles apart from the tall bobbin, thicker wired P Bass and J Bass. There are plenty of guitar pickups that use the squat bobbin approach: the P90 and the Jazzmaster are two notable ones, and they instantly sound different to taller bobbin pickups like Strat ones. My instant thought was to replicate the tones Bridgehouse was looking for (without tons of extra EQ) a 51 P Bass bobbin was too tall and would accentuate too much treble over mids. So I fired up the laser cutter and produced a custom bobbin of exactly the same winding area as the ... um ... Californian bass, and sat it atop a ceramic magnet ... filling it to 14k with 44awg wire. As a finishing touch I added adjustable dome head steel poles. Now does it sound exactly like the original? I popped it briefly into my bass pickup test guitar (a P Bass partscaster with a dirty big central rout) and gave it a little go ... I ended up with a big smile. Not an exact ringer, but a lot closer than I've ever got with a Precision and no EQ. I'll leave it to Bridgehouse to do some sound samples ... but I'm pleased I proved a bit of a concept, at least to myself.