Ellio Martina
From:
Netherlands
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Posted 28 Apr 2011 6:18 pm |
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Hi fellow steelers,
Since I started to manufacture my own pickups for my bass guitars, I finally replaced the original single coil on my MSA S12-D.
With the original pickup the highest strings, especially the G# (string 3) always had a lower output then the rest of the strings. To my opinion this is due to the frequency roll off caused by the capacitance of the coil.
Don't know the number of turns MSA used for the pickup, but calculating from the dimension of the coil, the wire gauge and the DC resistance, I estimated somewhere between 10K to 12K turns.
I prefer to apply less for such wide coils. You will get a bit less output, but there will be a better balanced frequency range.
You can see the pickup on my website:
http://www.em-guitars.com/em-private/pedalsteel/em-msa-pu12s.html
I made several taps in the coils. The reason for this is that I wanted to be able to switch between both single coils, as well as series and paralel options, without having great differences in the output volume.
I first made the rosewood cover and then the bobbins to fit in.
I used circuit board on a wooden core, leaving the copper side on the outside to be used for shielding.
After winding the coils and connecting the wire taps to the soldering tags, I joined both pickups and moulded them with resin into the cover.
Then I carefully drilled the holes through the top of the cover, pressed the alnico V magnets into the holes, attached the lead wires and placed the pickup into the cavity on the instrument.
I used a 6x4 rotary switch to combine the desired coil configurations. Coil taps are at m=4K8, n=7K8 and h=8K9 turns. For series humbucking mode both m-taps are used. For paralel and single coil mode, taps n or h,
The pickup has a well balanced respons on each string and sound warm and nice, while the rosewood cover matches nicely with the color of my MSA.
With regards from the Netherlands,
Ellio Martina 
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MSA 12 string Universal - "The Universal supersustain II" - with custom made dual single coil pickup
Peavey Session 500 - TC Electronics M350 effect/reverb.
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