Prototyping the ToneNerd “The Whiskey”

scottosan

scottosan

Well-known member
My first models all focused on tightness and articulation. To be honest, that’s what a lot of people were asking for. For me personally though, I like a little more sag and bottom. Since I put orders on hold for a few weeks, it’s back to prototyping. I wanted a little more sag without a blanket on the top end, more low end, and to shift the resonant peak centered more toward the guitars natural frequencies. In the process of trying on various guitars, I went down the rabbit hole of analyzing the distances of the pickups in contrast to the breaking point of the high E at the bridge. There is so much inconsistency among builders and theirs pickup routing. For example, on my Les Pauls, it’s about 1 and 3/16 inches between the center of the pickup screws row and the string breaking point on the small E at the bridge vs up to 1 and 5/8 on some of my Floyd guitars. As a result, the Les Pauls with the route closer to the bridge sounded brighter. So, I tried to wind to accommodate for the differences. Lower winds for bridges further away and higher winds for closer bridges.

Anyway, I know it’s hard to tell with in room micing on a phone with YouTube, but this particular wind pattern adds quite a bit more low end compared to my original models, but without a blanket on the top end. Single notes on all three of the specs have a complex organic harmonic overtone and rhythm tones have much more body and low end without getting too loose. They all roll down nicely without much loss of top end. I have no treble bleed circuits in any guitars. There is a part with the red single hum buoyant where the humbucker is switched to out the coils in parallel

The first is 6800 winds @ 15.6k 44awg


The second is 7000 winds @16.1k


The last is 7300 winds @16.7k
 
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japetus said:
The original Sunset Strip, I like because it feels like "the blanket taken off"
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Before the Psykes, I was always a little apprehensive of recommending a pickup for guitars that were already bright. I think my original 3 serve a purpose, but there’s a reason there are so many pickups on the market. Everyone has different tastes and different gear. I tend to like a little more bounce in the pickup under the fingers.
 
RedPlated said:
Definitely like the 7300 turn version. Very nice on single note stuff. Rhythm on the 6800 winds is nice and tight.
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That 15.6k is around the sweet spot of the earliest JB’s. It’s hard to describe, but under the fingers it’s feel hotter than the 16.1 and 16.7k, but I think that might be because of the harmonics and overtones laying on top of the notes. It loves Jose based amps.

I have an Aldrich coming this weekend that I am going to do some A/B’ing with. I’ve only played my own pickups for so long, I’ve lost all reference to what some of the more popular pickups sound like. I’m thinking of trying an Afwayu as well
 
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scottosan said:
That 15.6k is around the sweet spot of the earliest JB’s. It’s hard to describe, but under the fingers it’s feel hotter than the 16.1 and 16.7k, but I think that might be because of the harmonics and overtones laying on top of the notes. It loves Jose based amps.

I have an Aldrich coming this weekend that I am going to do some A/B’ing with. I’ve only played my own pickups for so long, I’ve lost all reference to what some of the more popular pickups sound like. I’m thinking of trying an Afwayu as well
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Aldrich pickups are very different. I have one custom made in double cream that is around 17.70k. The one I got from you (my favorite Aldrich pickup) comes in at 17.25. My favorite SSH+ is around 16.22k.
 
psychodave said:
Aldrich pickups are very different. I have one custom made in double cream that is around 17.70k. The one I got from you (my favorite Aldrich pickup) comes in at 17.25. My favorite SSH+ is around 16.22k.
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no spools of wire are exactly the same and the temperature of the pickups when measuring can affect those variances. The never ending rabbit hole
 
scottosan said:
no spools of wire are exactly the same and the temperature of the pickups when measuring can affect those variances. The never ending rabbit hole
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Yep. I just took measurements… all 3 guitars are hanging right next to each other and not having been touched for at least 12 hours. Basically all are the same temp. 👍
 
I totally agree on the distance from saddle to the pickups is a BIG variable in all of this. Just eyeballing it in the videos, it looks like the purple sparkle has the most distance and the LP has the least. And I think I can hear that 'twangy' thing going on (especially A and D strings) with the purple sparkle...just like my Chubtone had and it too had a large-ish distance between saddles and bridge pickup. I think I like the distance to be smaller like a LP.

My original Warmoth was routed SSS but I later routed it for humbuckers but used a WD Music pickguard as the template. The WD Music pickguard places the bridge pickup significantly closer to the bridge than the Warmoth (found out later when I bought a Warmoth HH pickguard that didn't line up). That guitar always sounded really good no matter what pickup were in there and to this day is my favorite sounding Strat. I can't attribute all that to bridge pickup placement but I think it contributes alot.

I liked the LP the most in those clips but there wasn't a ton of rhythm playing in that one.
 
SpiderWars said:
I totally agree on the distance from saddle to the pickups is a BIG variable in all of this. Just eyeballing it in the videos, it looks like the purple sparkle has the most distance and the LP has the least. And I think I can hear that 'twangy' thing going on (especially A and D strings) with the purple sparkle...just like my Chubtone had and it too had a large-ish distance between saddles and bridge pickup. I think I like the distance to be smaller like a LP.

My original Warmoth was routed SSS but I later routed it for humbuckers but used a WD Music pickguard as the template. The WD Music pickguard places the bridge pickup significantly closer to the bridge than the Warmoth (found out later when I bought a Warmoth HH pickguard that didn't line up). That guitar always sounded really good no matter what pickup were in there and to this day is my favorite sounding Strat. I can't attribute all that to bridge pickup placement but I think it contributes alot.

I liked the LP the most in those clips but there wasn't a ton of rhythm playing in that one.
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The purple is the brightest acoustically and has a solid brass bridge and heavy alder and a quarter sawn neck that sounded very forward on every body it's been on. And yes, the most distance between the bridge

The Tokai strat has a super light ash body and acoustically feels and sounds like the most vintage. It's pretty close to then LP in distance.

That Greco LP is also the most slinky of my 2 LPs.

The closer the bridge,;the brighter the tone, thus adding winds for those specific guitars.

Most of my prototyping has been done on Floyd equipt charvels and Les Pauls. Once I got the brighter purple one, I realized while I liked my original 3 designs, articulation may not be the best choice for a bright guitar betting the ash Tokai, I felt the same way.

It's easy to add low end to a pickup. It's easy to retain clarity in a hand wound pickup. Taking a little high end off without adding low-end is were you have a little bigger challenge finding the sweet spot. Machine wound is inherently darker because subsequent laid wires are more perfectly parallel to one another than what can be accomplished by hand.
 
These pickups are thick n growly, while remaining articulate. Zero mud. They don't have the tight attack of like the Sunset, but they're not muted either. Just not as bitey on attack. I dig em.
Really, Scott needs to stop making all these good pups. I don't have anymore guitars to put them in, and I don't want to buy anymore.
Well, maybe just an ES 335.
 
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