Advice Requested: Pristine Pups for Hardtail ASAT/Tele

Hello Forummates!

I'd like opinions on all pups you have experienced that would deliver the following: absolute pristine clears, high tone like crystal while still providing enough mids/lows for a "full" sound when needed.

Price isn't an object, just your passionate advice about your experiences wanted. Also, if any "noiseless" type ASAT/Tele compatible pups fit this bill, would be very interested.

Thank you for sharing your experiences and thoughts with me!

I think an ASAT Z-3 would be a good candidate. You might check one out at a local G&L dealer. If you want a bit more in the bridge pickup, you can get the MFD Z-Coil Will Ray Bridge
from the G&L On-Line Store and it's on sale too. Here's the link to it (opens in a new tab): mfd-will-ray-z-coil-bridge-pickup.

Just my $0.02.

Thank you, I think a few of these .02 brain donations will get me lots in the end, I appreciate your suggestions and will check them out!

Hopefully you won't find my response too out of the norm.

I've spent a lot of time with modified Z Coils on a Tribute S-500 and have been very happy with the result. But to get those bell tones and chime the bass is reduced. I remove the original Z Coil magnets and adjustable slugs and insert 1/8" diameter 1/8" long neodyium disc magnets. I am happy with the sounds I get but I don't feel it will meet your needs to be adjustable to get the bass tones back.

Leo uses a RWRP wound coil and a non RWRP wound coil but makes an error by using an opposite polarity magnet on the RWRP half, this isn't necessary but it emulates Seth Lover's humbucker design. Its necessary in Seth's design due to the coils being full width (across all 6 strings). The Z Coil windings only cover 3 strings each. The problem created with the different polarity magnets is that these are so strong that the magnet from the GBE side induces significant out of phase signal in the EAD side and vice versa. This gives the pickup and true "out of phase" sound that bothered me. A lot. Out of phase is great when you can switch it on and off, the Z Coils have it all the time. The sound may not bother you, you may get used to it - but it's certainly not pristine nor crystal like. The old Comanche VI's will give you a good GBE signal when only having a bass coil switched on, which is the audible impact of the two opposite polarity magnets on the same pickup with 3 string coil widths.

There's a couple of fixes. You can take your Z Coil apart (expect at least 1 broken winding when working on 3 Z Coil pickups) and reverse the magnet on the EAD or GBE side. Do this for all the pickups on your guitar. You'll still be fully humbucking and the induced signal from one magnet to the other's coil is now in phase. It does take some effort to do this.

My fix was the to make all the magnets the same polarity and have that 1/8" X 1/8" neodyium disk magnet for each string. The factory's standard ceramic magnet is way too powerful for this pickup.

I'm finding as I get older (67 now) that I'd rather have more windings closer to the strings with weaker magnets in the pickup. The optimium design would be to pick a magnet strength that is just below that of causing wolf tones at the closest pickup spacing to the strings that you can accept. The EAD strings are the last to exhibit wolf tones for a given magnet height, the GBE strings are the first. Pickups with staggered magnet heights with an elevated G string tend to cause the G string to exhibit wolf tones sometimes before the little E string. Also different string formulations impact the inception of wolf tones.

I think my optimum design would be a Z Coil pickup, with 1/8" X 1/8" neodyium N42 disk magnets for the EAD strings and 1/8" X 3/32" (or less length) for the GBE strings - possibly a 1/8" X 1/16" magnet for the high E string. All magnets the same polarity. Of course the adjustable slugs and the ceramic bar magnets would be removed.

As it is with 1/8" X 1/8" for all 6 strings I have 3 tilted Z Coils, closer at the low E and further away at the high E. This means the windings are also closer to the low E and further away from the high E, exactly opposite what it should be (the low E induces a lot more current in the coil that the high E at equal spacing). Still, I'm very impressed with tones and crystal like sound I get from this guitar.

If you're not wanting to modify your pickups look for a 6 magnet Strat pickup with a lower grade ALNICO magnet under the GBE strings. I've seen some that Fender makes (ALNICO 5 under the EAD and ALNICO 2 under the GBE) but these maybe model specific pickups you can't buy outright. For the current time anyway.

Neodyium magnets (N42) of a given size are within 5% of the magnetic output of the same size ALNICO 5 magnet. An ALNICO or Neodyium magnet longer than 1/8" gives a little more magnetic strength at the string but creates a huge magnetic field (in comparison) in places you don't need it - like in the tremolo spring cavity or into the adjacent pickup. If you can live without the center pickup on a Strat guitar I'd say consider removing it, or put in dummy pickup for noise canceling whose magnets aren't charged. The Telecaster basic 2 pickup design may have been the best after all. I get my best tones on my modified Z Coil S-500 Tribute based Comanche VI with the neck and bridge pickups running together.


Good picking.