Sonic differences between the '59 and '60 Custom pickups

[erksin]

Curious to know people's thoughts who have compared them directly.

[Bob Shade]

The pickups in the 59 and 60 Customs are identical. We also offer hand wound pickups with your choice of magnets including vintage Mosrite breakaway bar magnets, Mosrite vintage 70's ceramic bar magnets, and our modern Alnico 5 bars and our new ceramic bar mags. We have anything you desire in hand wound pickups.

Having said this most guys agree our standard machine wound pickups sound fantastic. We have included improvements including a brass mounting plate and potting to eliminate microphonic properties associated with vintage Mosrite pickups through a high watt amplifier with gain or club volume.

Thank you for the question,

Bob

[erksin]

Interesting - I don't know why I was under the impression that the '59s were lower output affairs.

I also had no idea you guys do custom winds - thats great to know!

So aside from the potting and brass plate, the recipe is the same as the originals? I have to say these are incredibly quiet for single coils even with fuzzes on.

[Bob Shade]

So aside from the potting and brass plate, the recipe is the same as the originals? I have to say these are incredibly quiet for single coils even with fuzzes on.


Yes they are the same design otherwise. I am glad you noticed the improvements we made!

[erksin]

So Bob (or anybody else whose tried) - I assume these are 250K pots in my C60? Has anyone tried 500Ks or higher and what were the results?

I'd love a little more openness in the top end and a little less roundness in the attack and thought going up in pot value might be a good way of achieving this - any thoughts..?

Thanks!

[raygun85]

Maybe this will help...

Let me say that the Hallmark is a beautiful guitar and I will be using it as a test bed for my pickup experiments. Plays great, holds it's tuning pretty good, and it's got the classy Mosrite look we all love. The pickups are a bit on the side of a hot-Jazzmaster tonality though. A little more "cluck" and a little less "punch" than a Mosrite. The bridge measured over 12K and the neck measured over 11K. I was surprised since it didn't seem to have the mids or warmth of the 60's Mosrite pickups. Pots are 250K, which surprised me even more. It's got Alnico V magnets. So it must be the wire gauge (I'm guessing 42 by the tone, maybe Bob could shed more light on it), size and shape of the coil. The coil is definitely shallower and wider than typical Mosrite pickups. Machine winding makes a difference from scatter winding too.

Honestly, the pickups DO NOT SOUND BAD. In fact, they sound pretty good. Honestly, they don't sound like typical Mosrite pickups, but neither does Fillmores. (Fillmore is far worse since they're wound to 5.5K ohms and use ceramic magnets - the reason we got into the pickup business in the first place.) Again, I don't know if the wooden centerpiece makes a difference in tone. Seymour Duncan believes that bobbin materials affect the tone, though his research isn't conclusive. For me, the verdict is still out. One side of me thinks that if the type of wood the guitar is built out of has a bearing on tone then how about the type of wood/material closest to the source of the signal (i.e. the pickups)...

The Hallmark pickups are not bad. In fact, they're very good. They're in their own class. But not really vintage Mosrite sounding. More like overwound Jazzmaster pickups (which I also like.) We make a pickup that sounds a little bit like these, in fact - the RDE-100's. They have a shallower and wider coil.

[erksin]

Thanks for posting.

So upping the pots to 500K should definitely open up the top end then and give them a little more string definition in your opinion?

[MWaldorf]

That's really interesting to see a Hallmark pickup dissected. One thing I noticed with the Hallmark C60 is that the distance between the pickup and the strings makes a big difference. To my ear, the one I had sounded pretty generic at first, but raising the pickups close to the strings made the guitar come alive. Much more attack, much more chunk, much more to my tastes. So if you're looking for the most Mosrite-y tone out of the Hallmark pickups, get them nice and cozy with the strings.

While in general I'm a fan of 500K or even 1M volume pots, try raising the pickups first.

[erksin]

One thing I noticed with the Hallmark C60 is that the distance between the pickup and the strings makes a big difference. To my ear, the one I had sounded pretty generic at first, but raising the pickups close to the strings made the guitar come alive. Much more attack, much more chunk, much more to my tastes. So if you're looking for the most Mosrite-y tone out of the Hallmark pickups, get them nice and cozy with the strings.

While in general I'm a fan of 500K or even 1M volume pots, try raising the pickups first.

I've actually been going in the opposite direction - lowering them to get some 'air' out of them. I didn't think to try it the other way. Doesn't that rob you of sustain having them jacked up high?

edit: Just tried and it definitely was an improvement! This is so contrary to what has been true for me with almost every other pickup I own save for a vintage Danelectro lipstick - that thing is so low output you have to jack it way up to even think about getting some drive out of it. These Hallamrks are easily 4x as powerful so I figured I'd have to almost slam them down to the deck to get to the air and lessen the rounded attack.

[MWaldorf]

I've actually been going in the opposite direction - lowering them to get some 'air' out of them. I didn't think to try it the other way. Doesn't that rob you of sustain having them jacked up high?

Sustain? What's sustain? Seriously, the attack and quick dropoff is something I like. Jaguars and Jazzmasters have similar qualities. If I want sustain, there's always reverb or fuzz.