New Neck Electric PUP for Godin A6 Ultra

[jonfields45]

The stock pickup is pretty bass heavy which sounds great for jazz but my Stratocaster trained ear wanted something more like a single coil tone.

The stock Godin GAHN1 PUP is marked G&B on the back. A short Internet search found a Korean manufacturer of G&B PUPs. Comparing the color coding with Seymour Duncan's documentation seemed to indicate it was Gibson compatible with HOT wired to ground, but I found for the correct phase with the UST I needed to wire HOT (red) to the input and green to ground (opposite of how the Godin PUP was wired). I used this assumption with the two PUPs I tried and it was correct. The PUP is mounted in a route that is separate from the main chamber presumably to give it a steadier mount that is more feedback resistant.

My first pass was a DiMarzio Area-58 Strat PUP with a single coil to humbucker conversion ring. It looked terrible and the ungrounded strings caused the Area-58 to hum. I added a brass "Platemate" and tested grounding the strings with it. That works fine, but I could not get past the plasticy look of the Strat PUP in a giant plastic conversion ring and I took it out. I left the Platemate in place since it is reputed to improve tuning stability (who doesn't want more of that?) but did not install a permanent string ground since it was not needed for the next PUP.

I then tried an F-spaced, nickel covered, DiMarzio "Humbucker From Hell". The name is in reference to how it is as bright as a single coil PUP. I installed it and am quite happy with the tone. I still need to cut the bass to keep the low E from booming, but the treble now sits at 12 o'clock and the tone is very pleasing to my Fender infused hearing.

Here are some pics.

Original Godin GAHN1 wiring:



DiMarzio wiring adding a ground lug for mechanical stability:



F-spaced, nickel covered "Humbucker From Hell". I also painted tiny white dots on the magnetic tone controls so that they are visible to me without reading glasses.



Platemate:



I have a gig tomorrow night and will report back how I make out with the new PUP.

Jon

[jonfields45]

Well the gig was not fun... I also put lighter strings (D'Addario EXL110) on the guitar and did not realize that the high e was fretting out (not a big fan of 5-string guitar :~). I have the action set pretty low at 5/64 and 3/64", low/high e, 12th fret. Loosening the truss rod the next day did not fix it completely and I shimmed the bridge with a 1/100" slice of plastic coated paper (I have calipers and have selected various old membership cards for thickness, and have collected 1/100, 2/100, and 3/100" stock). Now the high e plays fine and the neck relief is on the low side even with the truss rod essentially unengaged (it is a 2-way so I could push it). I am debating going further with the truss rod and removing the shim, or making a new saddle, but right now I plan to do neither.

I played the new "Humbucker from Hell" at rehearsal yesterday with the high e fully functioning. I don't think it sounds like a single coil, but it is much brighter and I've got better balance between the wound and unwound strings while leaving the on-board EQ closer to neutral (12 o'clock for treble and 9 o'clock for bass). I've got the PUP set much closer to the high e than the low e, similar to how I had adjusted the original.

Overall the guitar still performs well with 10s and the acoustic sound is still impressive. Something about this guitar is inherently bass heavy with the wound strings being louder than the unwound; in particular the high e is a bit weak, for both the mag and UST. With the new PUP and its height adjusted as described, it is now balanced.

Jon

[Tony Done]

Thanks for the info. I'm a slightly nutty pickup tinkerer, and I have also been recommended that pickup. Before I read the body of your post I was thinking "hum sized P90".

Since it has 12 screw poles, and if I was interested in single coil sounds, I would try removing six of the poles to make a Z-coil or single coil plus dummy. I haven't got a pic, but I recently did one with the three bass strings in one coil and the three trebles in the other. I think it works very well. I might go to extremes and put separate tone and volume controls on the two coils.....

[jtw131]

I had a similar experience as OP, the stock pickup is very bass heavy. I replaced with a SD Jazz humbucker (bright for a humbucker) but still too muddy and just did not sound "right". I decided to take the humbucker off of the preamp and install a separate volume/tone control. I lose the ability to blend the piezo and mag pickups internally but that is OK, I never run that way. I cannot begin to tell you what a big difference it made in the tone of the mag pickup!

I am having some noise issues with the mag pickup, I am going to try to install a platemate as you did in order to ground the strings and see if that helps. Do you have a pic of that installation? The link is now broken.

[MBE]

I have a pickup in one of my guitars that just might be the answer for you. It was custom wound by Pete Biltoft of Vintage Vibe Guitars.

He took a P90 bobbin, put in some AlNiCo pole piece magnets like a strat (AlNiCo 5 for the bass strings, 3 for the trebles to smooth them out), and then put the whole thing in a grounded and wax potted chrome HB cover. Basically looks like a HB but with the pole pieces in the centre, and sounds like the ballsiest strat pickup you've ever heard.

If you want more info on it, PM me.