We get it, Some of you are either very well attuned to what you want for tone and have a good knowledge of how to achieve that with your pickups. Some of you like to be more on the creative side of your tone and like to experiment more. Whatever your reason on this page you can mix and match different components of your humbucker pickups in the way you see fit. Choose from output ranges to magnet choices, wiring options and cover or finish options etc.
Click the "Learn more about pickups" link on the home page for more detailed information to help make your choices.
Important: Build your Own is classified as a custom order. Leads will be up to two weeks longer if special parts need to be ordered. Initial price displayed is for a full open coil humbucker build, Covers are extra, inline resistor for partial split extra.
Lets start with the Magnet:
Alnico 2- Loose lows, Scooped mids, Sooth highs.
Alnico 3- Loose lows, vocal mids, glassy highs
Alnico 4- Lows, mids, and highs all present and balanced. Very underrated magnet.
Alnico 5- The gold standard, Tight lows, pronounced mid and very present highs.
Alnico 6- We are still testing with A6, similar to A5 mids a bit more dominant highs sharper. We like these with coils around the 9-10k for neck 11-12k for bridge so far.
Alnico 8- The foundation of our top selling Angry Widow. Tight and dominant lows. A midrange that is very present but sounds a bit scooped. Highs are clear and bright but not overpowering.
Your Output:
Low output- 7.0k-10k In this range you have pickups that allow the signal to retain a good amount of headroom. Less push on the amp and a larger dynamic range allowing a lot of flexibility and response to how you pick and use your volume and tone. great with all magnet choices. but probably not A8
Mid output- 10k-13.5k In this range high frequencies start to drop off a little more and mid frequencies start to become more present. Lower headroom for a bit more front end push. great with A2,A5,A6 A8 might fit here also if your looking for a strong bright tone.
High output- 14k- well at this point the world is your oyster. The higher the output the more highs shave off and replaced with mids. Above 14k is where A5 and A6 work well however, This is the range where A8 becomes the top option. Your going to push your amps front end hard so the mids will start to dominate. The A8 helps a lot to diminish the mids and reintroduce the brightness in the highs giving an all around power house of a pickup.
Your wiring:
This one is easy, You got 1c steel braided wire. 2c and 4c shielded wire.
For coil splitting choose the 4c.
We recommend that you consider the partial split option for low output humbuckers if you plan to split. Info on main page.
Your Hardware:
Pole screws/slugs- Options for screws and slugs are Standard, Hex head. Colour options are nickel, gold plated, black
Finish options:
Standard choices- open coil, or covered, refer to the drop down menus for the options.
Mods:
Some mods can be fun to play with as well, such as the Peter Green mod. This is where one of the humbuckers has its magnet backwards causing the pickups to be out of phase magnetically when toggle is middle position. most other mods are wiring mods in the guitar.
Basic components such as baseplates, spacers and mounting screws etc, that are the standard in our lineup will be used.