Hidden magic in a 57/57+ set!

[QuietInterlude]

Hello MLP members!

I may have discovered a hidden gem inside my stock LP classic plus, which actually would also lay hidden within any guitar with the 57 classic/57 classic plus set. I have always liked these pickups for their clean and transparent tone, with that squishy, vocal-like definition. They sound great as is, especially through a bright, responsive amp.

The downside is they do sound a little... Blah? They have a very predictable, somewhat compressed sound that can be somewhat uninspiring if you are aspiring to lay down saucy notes that were cut to tape decades ago by trusty, PAF equipped vintage Les Pauls. You know that nuanced, harmonically complex, alive sound? In talking about that sensitive attack, sizzling sustain and shifting decay of endless overtones. Well my need to have this was so great, I took a chance. I decided to make two *new* pickups out of the 57/57+!

It's actually not nearly as bad as it sounds. It involved moving the hotter 57+ screw coil to the neck position and moving the weaker 57 screw coil to the bridge. I also removed all the wax, except from the coil windings. That leaves you with two pickups with similar DC resistance and mismatched coils, that are just ever so slightly microphonic. The 57+ was 8.31k with a 4.13k screw coil and a 4.18k slug coil. The 57 was 7.72k with a 3.89k screw coil and a 3.83k slug coil. The resulting neck pickup is now 7.96k with a 7.8% winding offset, while the bridge pickup is now 8.07k with a 7.5% winding offset.

They sound bloody amazing. In both positions they are less bassy and boomy, much richer mid-range, and way more clarity and note separation. They don't sound as congested, much more airy and dry. Dry and sour almost, like a supercharged telecaster. They have a very interactive voicing, like moving up just one fret gives the note an entire different set of overtones. This makes bending and vibrato almost sexual. Best of all, you can hear the string grinding on the fret when the note dies out. It's almost as loud as the note itself and can easily trigger beautiful feedback.

Be in mind I run my pickups out of phase, with the magnet flipped. That's the best part of this mod imho. The tone is bluesy and honest, and puts a big smile on my face. It has limitless possibilities if you know your way around the volume and tone controls.

Don't worry about the pickups being about the same DC resistance. The opposing dominant coils and the relative position in the guitar, accompanied by the height it's set at makes up for it. Mine are equal in volume when I flip between them. The neck pickup is lower than it would be in a hotter bridge/weaker neck set, which I think increases sustain.

Overall, I'm completely blown away and have no desire to ever change these out of this guitar. It sound out of this world, it pushes my amp with fire. It's just that good!

 

[ReWind James]

You just discovered offset coils. Nice.

The '57 Classics have exactly matched coils, same turn counts, same wire, same coil pattern. The slight differences you noticed in DCR are either from different wire spools or just handling them in your hands in the process, making one a little warmer (which raises DCR). If you were to count the turns, they'd be the same.

Now, imagine if they were wound with spools of slightly different size wire and on different machines that produced different coil patterns and tensions, as well as having slightly different turn counts. ...and if they were wound with unpotted plain enamel wire.

You start thinking like that and you'll find yourself looking at old winding machines on eBay and industrial auction houses.

 

[QuietInterlude]

You mean in the stock pickup, each coil is identically wound? Now the 57+ is definitely wound hotter than the 57, so I guess that's why it had such a pronounced effect.

Would it have sounded different if I put the weaker slug coil in the bridge and the hotter slug coil in the neck with their original screw coils? Basically the opposite of what it did. Is the 7.5% difference that is happening now really enough to change the entire character of the pickup?

I can see how addicting it could get to experiment with even finer details like you mentioned. I particularly found fender-style single coils to be really sensitive to wind tension and pattern, based off of some of my amateur rewinds. If I end up owning a more period correct Les Paul, then I will take it to all the extremes. For now though, it's a fun to play, great sounding working man's guitar that I'm not paranoid about putting some miles on!

 

[ReWind James]

You mean in the stock pickup, each coil is identically wound? Now the 57+ is definitely wound hotter than the 57, so I guess that's why it had such a pronounced effect.

Yes. In each of those stock pickups, the coils are identical. Across both pickup, everything about the coils are still identical, other than turn count (this is actually the case with most modern Gibson pickups).

Would it have sounded different if I put the weaker slug coil in the bridge and the hotter slug coil in the neck with their original screw coils? Basically the opposite of what it did.

Definitely. I would, personally, do it the way that you did though, as it will make the neck a little brighter and put more focus towards the center of the strings and make the bridge a little warmer and move the focus away from the bridge end of the strings, compared to doing it the opposite way.

Is the 7.5% difference that is happening now really enough to change the entire character of the pickup?

Not the entire voice, but a bit, as you are seeing. Any step away from a perfect match will make some difference. If you want to get wild, pull a few hundred turns of coil wire off of the weaker coils on each pickup, or at least the neck. Careful that you don't break it, though, as they are potted and if the wire breaks in the right way/place, you may not be able to find the end without damaging the coil.

I can see how addicting it could get to experiment with even finer details like you mentioned. I particularly found fender-style single coils to be really sensitive to wind tension and pattern, based off of some of my amateur rewinds. If I end up owning a more period correct Les Paul, then I will take it to all the extremes. For now though, it's a fun to play, great sounding working man's guitar that I'm not paranoid about putting some miles on!

If you really want to experiment, and you already have a winder, try rewinding one of the neck pickup coils by hand and not potting it. You'll get a big change in clarity and detail. It will also step further away from being a big, meaty, thick, vocal, midrangy sounding humbucker.

 

[Antigua]

Fun fact, in series, the hotter coil is louder, but in parallel mode, the less-hot coil is louder.

 

[LtKojak]

I may have discovered a hidden gem inside my stock LP classic plus

People on the Seymour Duncan Forum have been making hybrids since 2004. Their favorite was combining the coils of the '59n/JazzN and '59 set, just as you did.

The Duncan Co. had to wait until 2015 to market the '59/Custom Hybrid due to the patent hold by (who else?) Di Marzio.

 

[Hyote]

I happen to have a spare set of 57 & 57+ 4 wire pickups that I'm dying to put into service in my SG (currently has 490/498s, which I don't love). I took the 57+ apart a while back, so it's time to get to it.

I'm planning on a push-pull for phase, and another for coil splitting. I'll probably do the cap to ground thing with the split; I've heard some interesting demos of assorted Gibsons with "Tuned Coil Taps."

What was your method for removing the wax? I assume you found a good temp that melts wax, but nothing else.

 

[ReWind James]

What was your method for removing the wax? I assume you found a good temp that melts wax, but nothing else.

You can use a hairdryer to melt the wax, then carefully wipe it off. Be careful of the taped end of the coils and the fragile parts of the pickup. Don't attempt to get the wax out of the bobbin windows with a toothpick or any such thing. Just live with it. I rewind more modern pickups because people screwed with the wax in there and destroyed the coils than most other reasons for failure.

HOWEVER - ALL this does is make the pickups look less waxy without a cover on. IT WILL NOT "UNPOT" THE COILS OR CHANGE THE SOUND OF THEM.

Perhaps you knew that, but I have to put that bold disclaimer there like that because lots of folks think you can "squeeze the potting out of the coils" which is completely untrue and any differences in sound are due to illusions of the mind or different pickup setup/lack of covers/new strings/time passing between before and after.

 

[Hyote]

A couple more questions for you helpful folks:

What's the reason for flipping the magnet? One time, I did the whole Peter Green mod, including flipping one magnet, turning the pickup around, etc. It never really sounded that different to me than a standard phase switch, when both pickups were active. Is your experience different?

What magnet changes would you suggest for a project like this? I was considering an Al3 in the bridge, and an Al4 in the neck.

 

[ReWind James]

A magnet flip is not supposed to sound different from a phase switch. They do the same thing. ...but you can flip a magnet without having 4 conductor wiring in a pickup.

 

[Hyote]

A magnet flip is not supposed to sound different from a phase switch. They do the same thing. ...but you can flip a magnet without having 4 conductor wiring in a pickup.

Right. That makes total sense.

 

[QuietInterlude]

I noticed a slight change at higher volumes after removing all the wax from the internals. Seems to slip into feedback more easily, yet it's not uncontrollable. My thoughts are that the the tolerances that would normally be filled up have opened up and make the pickup more susceptible to oscillations. I did not touch the coils at all though.l, as I know removing the wax would be a nightmare, likely flatlining the pickup. My OCD really kicked into overdrive on this one haha, as there is not a trace of wax outside the coils!

I personally think the flipped magnet is more pleasing to listen to than doing it electronically. The volume drop isn't as intense, nor is it as sensitive to where the volume pots are at. Lastly, I truly believe that each individual pickup sounds different when it's done this way. Maybe the magnetic field is altered, affecting the way it responds or how the string vibrates through it.

I highly recommend mixing the 57/57+ together like I did, it sounds amazing. I do use an A3 in the neck and an A4 in the bridge now. They balance up nicely

 

[ReWind James]

Did you also take the cover off when you removed the wax? Taking the cover off will certainly change the sound. Removing the wax won't. You can't unwax the coils to the point where the individual strands begin to oscillate freely, as it only takes a single molecule thick layer of wax to bind the coil strands to their neighbors. The rest of the pickup should be assembled firmly, both before and after, with or without wax, unless there is some problem with it.

Any other differences you are hearing are psycho-acoustic or due to the fact that the setup when you put it back together isn't exactly the same as before.

If the pickup is a 1/4 of the height screws closer or further from the strings, that will make a sonic difference. Flipping the magnet vs reversing phase electronically will not. Now, if the magnet is shifted to the side slightly or has a slight air gap between it and the metal parts or something like that, as a result of it being moved around, that could cause a difference.

 

[Antigua]

I personally think the flipped magnet is more pleasing to listen to than doing it electronically. The volume drop isn't as intense, nor is it as sensitive to where the volume pots are at. Lastly, I truly believe that each individual pickup sounds different when it's done this way. Maybe the magnetic field is altered, affecting the way it responds or how the string vibrates through it.

The only way flipping the magnet could really produce any difference in that way is if one side of the magnet was weaker than the other, and so you shifted the volume balance from one coil to the other, but that seems very unlikely to me. I think it's more likely that the difference is psychological, that changing around something physical is somehow more satisfying than making a purely electrical change. There's something satisfying about working with your hands and interacting with materials, and I think that bleeds through to the subjective experience.

 

[HogmanA]

I too have noticed a very distinct change when melting the wax out of pickups.

In my case it was a set of 480/ 498. I removed the neck cover by de-soldering rather than cutting and as it needed quite a lot of heat a lot of wax poured out. This was to try the PG OOP mod.
I put the cover back, but didn't solder it as it was a tight fit and the sound definitely changed. It became more detailed and took on something of a strat single coil quality.

Not psychological because I wasn't expecting a change and didn't even consider the wax - I was surprised it poured out, didn't know why it was there and didn't care, TBH.
I then did the same thing with the bridge pickup, with the same results.

It didn't need high volumes to be noticeable and yet didn't particularly feedback at high volumes. (I have had terribly microphonic pickups in the past - they were nothing like that.)

The only logical conclusion is that not all wax potting is equal and it is possible to over do it to the detriment of the tone.

Wax is flexible. Like many things in life - the less of it there is, the more flexible it becomes, so maybe this is why. Maybe it was just the covers vibrating.

 

[ReWind James]

Unless you took measurements of the pole pieces to the strings, in thousandths of an inch, before you started and replicated that using the same strings when you reinstalled the pickup, you're almost certainly hearing a difference in pickup position in relation to the strings.

It's also possible that your now unsoldered and mechanically decoupled cover has become microphonic and you are hearing that.

In any case, for certain, just the time passed while doing the work will mess with your perception. You can't do a direct A/B comparison with time lapsed in between because the mind plays tricks on you, anticipated or not.

 

[QuietInterlude]

Haha you make me question my sanity more now, with all that talk of mind perceiving a change in the acoustic quality of the sound. You're probably right though, but a psychological change will surely affect how one plays, so in the end it did have a change on the sound that comes out of my amplifier. I'm sure some of the greats fell victim to this phenomenon, with voodoo and lack of common sense.

You know how when a pickup is mounted firmly, like a strat with the humbucker screwed directly in the wood? It sounds, well, woodier. The same thing may be happening to a different degree within the pickup. Or again this may just be a delusion of grandeur.

Using a strat as an example again.. When you have a rw/rp middle pickup, the in between positions do sound different. Wouldn't the same logic apply to an out of phase LP, even if it was miniscule?

I set my pickups to the same height as before, but Doc it sounds different now I swear. It even told me to do evil things with my axe hehe

Edit: I'll post some sound clips, so those who are familiar with these pickups can decide if they sound different than theirs

 

[QuietInterlude]

Neck wide open:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=354092178390946

Neck tone rolled down:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=354047801728717

Neck volume backed off

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=354083255058505

Bridge wide open:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=354082538391910

 

[Antigua]

You know how when a pickup is mounted firmly, like a strat with the humbucker screwed directly in the wood? It sounds, well, woodier. The same thing may be happening to a different degree within the pickup. Or again this may just be a delusion of grandeur.

Using a strat as an example again.. When you have a rw/rp middle pickup, the in between positions do sound different. Wouldn't the same logic apply to an out of phase LP, even if it was miniscule?

Both of those things are impossible.

 

[HogmanA]

Unless you took measurements of the pole pieces to the strings, in thousandths of an inch, before you started and replicated that using the same strings when you reinstalled the pickup, you're almost certainly hearing a difference in pickup position in relation to the strings.

It's also possible that your now unsoldered and mechanically decoupled cover has become microphonic and you are hearing that.

In any case, for certain, just the time passed while doing the work will mess with your perception. You can't do a direct A/B comparison with time lapsed in between because the mind plays tricks on you, anticipated or not.

The change in sound is not like when the pickups are raised and lowered. This change doesn't sound like that.
They will never sound like they did before.
I agree it could be the covers, as I never directly compared covers on and off. (Though they are mechanically coupled by an interference fit and the soldering join originally is only in 2 places.)