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| Wondering what your experiences have been with the earliest FET pickups on the Deacons/Breadwinners, and the later 12-hole FET pickups. How would you quantify the differences musically? Thanks much! |
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Location: NJ | pickups or preamps? |
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Posts: 24
| The whole system - as I had the sense that the earliest Deacons/Breadwinners had a wholly different pickup design than the second incarnations |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Apples vs Oranges. Big toroidal single pole pickups vs Humbuckers, just for starters. FET PReamp was used on both. |
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Posts: 24
| How would you describe the musical differences between the two versions? |
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Location: NJ | humbuckers are a sunny day
single coils a dark night |
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Location: south east Michigan | I have the one of the earliest versions so if I have my metaphors straight, I'm having a sunny day.
Great way to describe it Al. |
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Location: Pueblo West, CO | I found a video on YouTube that demonstrates the differences. Humbuckers vs. Single Coil Pickups
Edited by DanSavage 2014-09-19 9:14 AM
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August 2014
Posts: 24
| For clarity, the Ovation designs are based on the 'traditional' Fender/Gibson designs? Hence, the earliest Deacons/Breadwinners (single coils) have a more strident and incisive tone colour, whereas the later pickups are more of the family of a thicker hum-bucking sound? |
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Location: NW Washington State | The early pickups are large, about the size of humbuckers from other manufacturers. They were described as "toroidal". This might mean that they use a doughnut-shaped core? Has anyone taken one of these apart, or have drawings? The set I have aren't in a guitar right now, and I don't remember the sound.
The later 12-pole double-coil pickups are about the size of mini humbuckers. They use 12 individual magnets- another design that's not common.
I think that the preamps are the weakest link at this point. Lots of them have weak switches, noisy pots, and old capacitors that might need to be replaced. Ovation used many custom-made parts in the preamps.
-Steve W.
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August 2014
Posts: 24
| Thanks Steve, that is helpful.
Anyone else? I had tried an 'earliest' Breadwinner at a shop, but it was difficult to quantify the sound as the amp wasn't something I was terribly familiar with, and the place was very large and cacophonous. Then a friend/collector loaned me a Deacan (later) that seems to have a broader tone, but, given that I can't experience them side-by-side, I thought I'd see what others who have (or have had) both experienced. |
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Location: Utah | The single coils are very good single coil. Sort of P90 rather than Strat, but I'm not an expert either. I really like the single coils in my Viper and Deacon! The humbuckers in my my daughter's Preacher Deluxe sound like humbuckers. I would say they are similar to 70's DiMarzio humbuckers rather than like PAFs. Today there are all kinds of humbuckers with all kinds of tweaks and different tonalities, and I have no idea which ones to compare them to.
The active preamp on the Preacher Deluxe is fine. No weird tone or anything unpleasant about it. Others say that the humbuckers without the preamp don't sound as good as with the on-board preamp, so I would go with a guitar with the onboard preamp if you get the humbuckers. The Preacher Deluxe has the ability to split the coils so each pickup could be used as a single coil. There are a ton of options for different tones!
The single coils sound great without an onboard preamp.
Which to choose? It really comes down to what you prefer and what your needs are. If you're in a cover band trying to emulate a lot of different tones you might really like the versatility of the humbuckers with all the switch options. I prefer the single coils in the Ovation solid bodies, but my favorite modern electric is a semi-hollow with humbuckers. The answer really is to try them all out and buy several different ones.
Edited by FlySig 2014-09-20 12:16 PM
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musical differences between pickups