Pickups in Newwark St Starfire III

Synchro

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Hello all. I recently bought a Starfire III at Sticks and Strings in Tucson. I am quite impressed overall and when one considers the price I am astounded by the quality and sound per dollar spent. I'm curious about the pickups that came with it. They seem to be a mini humbucker, smaller than the humbuckers in a Gibson, about the size of a Gretsch Filtertron. I am very satisfied with the sound of these pickups, I'm just curious of how they stack up. Are they similar to the original vintage Guild pickups? They are bright, but not piercing and capable of being very mellow if I dial the tone controls back ever so slightly.

Anyone know any of the tech details of these pickups?
 

Walter Broes

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They're recreations of the pickups Guild used from about 1963 until the late sixties, Guild's own small humbucker. I've played one Newark Street guitar that has them, and I was pretty impressed - to me, they sounded a lot like the originals.
 

Synchro

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They're recreations of the pickups Guild used from about 1963 until the late sixties, Guild's own small humbucker. I've played one Newark Street guitar that has them, and I was pretty impressed - to me, they sounded a lot like the originals.

Thanks Walter. I took the Starfire along to the Arizona Gretsch Roundup yesterday and it performed quite well. I played it through a Winfield Cyclone amp and it sounded great. Slightly later another attendee took me up on my offer to give it a try and he played it through a Carr Rambler getting sounds not to be believed. I find it amazing that a guitar in that price range could be so well equipped as it comes from the factory. Other than a loose tone knob and the simple mods I perform on all of my guitars; the addition of Schaller strap lock buttons, a Compton solid bridge and the mandatory change to Thomastic flat wounds, the guitar is as it came from the factory and I have no plans to mod it further.

Those stock pickups are perfect! I don't have any great deal of experience with Guild guitars, so I'm not all that attuned to the expected sonic qualities, but I know that I love how it sounds. It struck me as a perfect balance between brightness and warmth; between smooth and rough. There's a bit of character but the overall sound is bright, yet sweet.
 

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I have a 1968 Starfire lll and a NS Starfire lV and it's dead-nuts on, as far as I can tell. I would like to get my hands on a NS Starfire lll to do an apples to apples test sometime.
 

Zelja

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Quoting myself from another thread:
You would think the current NS S-100 would sound reasonably similar to a vintage Thunderbird with the mini-hums, assuming the pickups are pretty faithful to the original.

Saying that, I came cross these guys who are offering upgrades to the NS mini-hums; http://www.ebay.com/itm/Guild-Starfi...item1c3c176ca0

They claim the NS pickups are wound to 5.2k only & they upgrade to a 6.8/6.7k wound. The latter figures are definitely more consistent with my mini-hums in my SFV. Can anyone with NS mini-hums confirm the DC resistance?

Synchro, have you got a multimeter & could you measure the DC resistance of your pickups? You can get close enough without pulling the pickups - all you would need to do is plug a standard cable into the guitar jack, turn on all tone & volume knobs to full & measure across the tip & sleeve of the other end of the cable while in the neck & bridge positions (and middle position if you wanted to). I'd be really interested in this to see if the claims in the ebay ad are well founded or not.
 

Synchro

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Quoting myself from another thread:

Synchro, have you got a multimeter & could you measure the DC resistance of your pickups? You can get close enough without pulling the pickups - all you would need to do is plug a standard cable into the guitar jack, turn on all tone & volume knobs to full & measure across the tip & sleeve of the other end of the cable while in the neck & bridge positions (and middle position if you wanted to). I'd be really interested in this to see if the claims in the ebay ad are well founded or not.
I'll see what I can do. I'm swamped right now with some other matters, but I'll try to get to it this weekend.
 

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1968 Starfire III

Neck: 7.29K resistance

Bridge: 7.23k Resistance

Newark Street Starfire lV

Neck: 7.25K resistance

Bridge: 5.08K resistance


Wow, no wonder the S-100s are dying on the vine, if this is the standard bridge value. That's a severely underwound pickup! That would also explain why every video has fuzztone on it.

Note to Fender/Guild:
Bump up the winding on the bridge pickups!


Synchro, your sig link is busted.

<edit for fixeded>
 
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Ralf, I measured it a half a dozen times. I could not believe it either. Maybe the UK shop only had people complaining about the bridge pickups and assumed that the neck pickups were the same?

Maybe my SF III has a little more output that their guitar did too.
 
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I should really set up my a-b switch into an amp to compare levels out on both guitars. I wonder if there is enough slack in the wiring harness to swap pups without soldering?
 

Walter Broes

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That resistance difference between neck and bridge would indeed be cool if it was the other way around. This way, it's a recipe for a thin lead pickup and a boomy neck pickup. Monday morning factory job?
 

Zelja

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Bizarre! Other way around would be better as you say, Walter.

I have a similar issue on an NS Aristocrat I just got but the pickups are very similar:
Neck: 6.90 k
Bridge: 6.73 k

I'm exchanging emails with a Fender rep about specs for these pickups & he states the neck & bridge are different parts, with a few more turns on the bridge, but that doesn't seem to be what I'm getting.

For comparison my vintage Franz are as follows:

'55 X50 Neck: 6.92 k
'63 CE100D Neck: 5.45 k
'63 CE100D Bridge: 5.58 k

Note these are all values measured with the pickups in circuit so they will read a few % less than if it was out of circuit, but close enough for rock'n'roll.
 

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That resistance difference between neck and bridge would indeed be cool if it was the other way around. This way, it's a recipe for a thin lead pickup and a boomy neck pickup. Monday morning factory job?
Or maybe Fender got a mis-matched pair by accident and that's what the factory duplicated.

Information passed up through the chain of command.
 
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Synchro

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I will say this, it functions well enough. I played it last Saturday at a jam and let someone else play it later on and it sounded great.
 

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1969 Starfire IV

An analog meter was all that was handy so this isn't precise but neck and bridge measured just under 6K with the neck reading slightly higher. In practice the neck pickup is WAY louder than the bridge pickup on my guitar. It's pretty much on the deck to get the output matched with the bridge.

I've not tried this but recently read that dropping the neck pickup way low and raising the pole pieces will help to have a more balanced tonal range trying to balance output between two pickups. Any thoughts? I'd be curious for a more scientific explanation of pickup height and (vs) pole piece height as it relates to overall output levels and frequency response - if that's even the right term.
 

SFIV1967

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I'd be curious for a more scientific explanation of pickup height and (vs) pole piece height as it relates to overall output levels and frequency response - if that's even the right term.
There are many websites and videos about that topic, here are some of them:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/the-tone-garage/fine-tuning-the-adjustment-of-passive-humbuckers/
http://www.ratcliffe.co.za/articles/pickupheight.shtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wMdVCnP53I
Ralf
 

cc_mac

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Thanks for the links. I am going to do some experimenting. What is of direct interest to me is the difference in sound, tone, response, character, volume (pick a word) between
1) Pickup height 5mm below bottom of E strings with pole pieces adjusted up 1mm so that pole piece distance to strings is 4mm
versus
2) Pickup height 10mm below bottom of E strings with pole pieces adjusted up 6mm so that pole piece distance to strings is is still 4mm.
 

SFIV1967

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Thanks for the links. I am going to do some experimenting. What is of direct interest to me is the difference in sound, tone, response, character, volume (pick a word) between
1) Pickup height 5mm below bottom of E strings with pole pieces adjusted up 1mm so that pole piece distance to strings is 4mm
versus
2) Pickup height 10mm below bottom of E strings with pole pieces adjusted up 6mm so that pole piece distance to strings is is still 4mm.
Neither 5mm nor 10mm can be a correct value, same for such extreme height of the polepieces over the pickup.

msr-300x225.jpg


As a rule of thumb, humbuckers can sit as close as you want for the volume you want. To begin, fret the top and bottom E strings at the final fret. Using a steel rule, adjust the humbucker’s height until its treble and bass sides both sit evenly 2.5mm beneath the fretted strings. Gibson for instance recommends:
- Neck & Bridge height - Bass-side = 3/32"
- Neck & Bridge height - Treble-side = 1/16"
Regarding polepieces some say they should be flat with the surface to begin with, some even have them below surface, and then raise them a little just to balance the 6 strings.
Ralf
 
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