Newark Street Starfire Pickups

matsickma

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In my experience the bridge pickup of the Guild mini humbucker has always been marginal. I have a half dozen vintage guitars from the 60's and the bridge performance is weak especially on hollow body guitars like CE100, SF3, X175 and fully hollow M75. On the other hand solid or semihollow guitars like SF5, Thunderbird sound damn good!
I also found the early NS S100 with mini humbuckers, properly adjusted in height, sounds great.

I am not a fan if the mini HB on hollow bodies but think their great on solid and semihollow.

M
 

GAD

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In my experience the bridge pickup of the Guild mini humbucker has always been marginal. I have a half dozen vintage guitars from the 60's and the bridge performance is weak especially on hollow body guitars like CE100, SF3, X175 and fully hollow M75. On the other hand solid or semihollow guitars like SF5, Thunderbird sound damn good!
I also found the early NS S100 with mini humbuckers, properly adjusted in height, sounds great.

I am not a fan if the mini HB on hollow bodies but think their great on solid and semihollow.

M

Could you possibly measure them and post the results in this thread? http://letstalkguild.com/ltg/showthread.php?185150-Minibucker-reference-post

It's not perfect, but measuring from a cable gives a good idea of the values without having to take the guitar apart. Coopersburg about an hour from me. I could swing by with my meter and do it for you if you'd like. :emmersed:

I could easily assume that in a guitar with two equal pickups that the bridge would seem a bit weak which is why matched sets generally have hotter bridge pickups these days.
 

matsickma

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Haha...missed your latter comment about swinging by...
That sounds like a good idea one of these days. However I think I can handle a multimeter! My circuit days are long gone and forgotten as I spent most of my EE life in Fields and Waves designing antennas.

Maybe we can meet at Satriani show in Philly and when I get the basement more organized have you over.
M
 

GAD

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Haha...missed your latter comment about swinging by...
That sounds like a good idea one of these days. However I think I can handle a multimeter! My circuit days are long gone and forgotten as I spent most of my EE life in Fields and Waves designing antennas.

Maybe we can meet at Satriani show in Philly and when I get the basement more organized have you over.
M

An antenna guy, huh? Much respect. Do anything with Ham radio these days?

If I do see G3 it would likely be in Newark. If your basement is like my life then "organized" = "never". :tongue-new:
 

Quantum Strummer

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The thing with the original anti-hums is they vary both in the number of winds and the wire used. The ones with ~5KOhms DC resistance aren't "broken" but rather wound with heavier gauge wire (and likely fewer winds). My Bluesbird has a pair of these, and in that guitar they sound superb. I think the lower resistance reissue pickup sounds great in my NS T-bird too. It's got jangle in it, which to me seems appropriate for that guitar.

Dunno why Fender/Guild chose a non-matched set for the reissue. I've never knowingly come across this with any '60s Guild I've played. But I have played other guitars with sets of the lower resistance p'ups.

-Dave-
 

GAD

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The thing with the original anti-hums is they vary both in the number of winds and the wire used. The ones with ~5KOhms DC resistance aren't "broken" but rather wound with heavier gauge wire (and likely fewer winds). My Bluesbird has a pair of these, and in that guitar they sound superb. I think the lower resistance reissue pickup sounds great in my NS T-bird too. It's got jangle in it, which to me seems appropriate for that guitar.

Dunno why Fender/Guild chose a non-matched set for the reissue. I've never knowingly come across this with any '60s Guild I've played. But I have played other guitars with sets of the lower resistance p'ups.

-Dave-


Hmm - we don't seem to have much data, but in the pickup measuring thread the '60s Starfires all seem to be in the 7k range and the '69 and '70 Bluesbirds are reporting ~5-5.5k.

Looking at this I have to wonder if there are two versions of these mini-hums. If Guild randomly bought two mini-hums off of ebay and got a '65 Starfire neck and a '70 Bluesbird bridge, then based an entire line of guitars off of the simple assumption that those single samples were representative of the all mini-hum pickups, it could certainly explain this mess.

Need... more.... data!


Any chance anyone with a ~1970 Bluesbird has pics of the backs of the pickups?
 

matsickma

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I can eventually get them.
I'm back in PA but heading to a show tonight and F, S and Su will be visiting my mom. On Monday I'll be back in town and will assemble all the items, pictures and measurements I committed to.
M
 

matsickma

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In regards to HAM radio and antennas...

I haven't done much with HAM but have friends that were into it. My frequency range was Microwave and millimeter wave. Essentially 1GHz to 100GHz.

If you need some design info I may be able to help or ask an antenna HAM about it. Not sure of the various HAM bands but their pretty narrow band which is the opposite of my broad band background.
M
 

matsickma

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BTW...not trying to get basement perfect just want to finish the walls, ceiling and hookup all the wires that are dangling about.
M
 
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