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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7211
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Ok folks,
This picks up (pun intended) from another topic concerning pickups (for solids and storms) or transducers (for the acoustics). I wish CWK2 would be a little more clear about his feelings toward the "spoo fed preecher pickups" "preecher thumbsuckers" etc... he seems vague.. But seriously folks.. This topic is to open a dialog about the best, worst and everything in between on the Ovation electronics.
I am an electric guy (that's what they all say... I know).. so of the electrics, I like the original Viper pickups. I like the UKII pickups, but I like the Vipers a little more. I was/am always able to get a wide variety of tone from muddy, to bluesy, to crunch, to shred, and even a pretty good "strat" sound from those pickups in the standard config. I was never a fan of active electronics... they just don't seem to "do it" for me. I wonder how other tastes run, and is there a lot of difference in the outcome of the several Acoustic pickups and pre-amps over the years.
All I have to say about the Preacher Pickups is to take a line from Jay Leno.. "What were you thinking?" |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7211
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | With information from cwk2, and a lot of homework, I post the following with a new found appreciation for the electronics in my solid-body guitars.
I started to do a little research into pickups and what I dug up on the below two amazed me. Most manufactures seem to stick in whatever pickup comes along that sounds good (hopefully) at a good price. For the most part, Fender as example uses the same "design" pickup on most of their guitars (there are exceptions to everything) and just vary the windings or type of wire used for the winding. But the overall concept is the same. Basically in the world of pickups there is the single coil, or the humbucker and other then some differences in winding and wire.. they are the same concept. There is also the lipstick, soapbar, etc.. and those are unique designs for unique tones and in this "additional list" of specially designed pickups should be where Ovation is counted.
Ovation went the extra step, and designed pickups for the guitars, and how they were intended to be played. In hindsight... they should have at least kept them in a standard package or mounting configuration... but after designing what is outlined in the below descriptions... they must have felt... "these can produce damn near any sound you could want... no one would want to swap out these pickups" oops.
If anyone has more acurate info... or has some info on the Breadwinner/Deacon pickups... please help me update this info.
The Vipers used 10,000 winds of #42 guage wire using alnico magnets on both the bridge and neck pickups. These were indeed single coil pickups. The bridge pickup magnets were slanted to keep the high's bright as you got closer to the bridge. I assume this is same theory behind the bridge pickup of a strat being slanted also.
The Viper III pickups were actually much different. (looks can be deceiving). The neck pickup was the same as the regular Viper neck pickup but, the middle pickup had only 5000 winds, and the bridge had 5000 winds of a thicker (maybe #40 guage) wire. Less winds means more frequency response and the idea was that the pickups get progressively brighter as they approached the bridge.
The UKII Pickups used #43 guage wire which is slightly thinner than the #42. The UKII pickups were dual-coil (10,000 winds each) humbuckers with two "bars" or "blades" rather than adjustable poles. This configuration provided a higher output, and a much fuller tone. With the addition of the series/parallel switch, you can get a very hot single-coil sound. The finishing touch in this configuration was the specially tapered tone control that according the UKII brochure "the volume and tone output levels corresponded precisely with the numbers on the knobs." Oh yeah, and the guitar could be played in stereo (one pickup for left, one for right).
whew...
[ February 16, 2002: Message edited by: Mr. Ovation ] |
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Joined:
February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | That whole stereo trip might seem a little strange now, but this was happening way before channel-switching or multi-channel amps. Rather than sending the pickups left & right, a popular trick was to get an amp like a Fender Twin & send the neck pick-up to the "Normal" channel & The bridge to the "vib/rev" channel set a little louder. Instant solo-boost just by switching pickups.....not. Ah, the good old days.
Paul |
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Great Pickup Lines
