Does anybody, really, KNOW what Filtertron/TVJones/MongoTron PU's DO?

[stubhead]

I have a friend who, believe it or not, has gone off the PU deep end - AGAIN. He's now decided that he doesn't "like" Gibson PAFies, Bursties etc (this after at least a dozen "Historic" Les Pauls with all their dizzying methods of classifying the same darn thing elevendithousand different ways) and he's found the perfect blend of balls and crunch and silk and thump and all that - he NOW likes the Filtertron, TVJones' kind of stuff. An independent, blindfolded taste test is of course out of the question, because you HAVE to put them into a Gretsch 6120 to bring out their full... jizz? Whatever. And even though you can't adjust them worth beans (them little screw "poles" fall right off if you dick them) except by an arcane arrangement of mounting rings (and natch the Machiavellian grandmaster ripoffers sell staggered even tilted mounts so one side or even one little corner can be higher) even though the exact height of the adjustment screwpoles of the Paffies was so-oo hugely important for the power & balance & "aperture" to be just exactly... whatever.

You can also be sure that the good wife is just thrilled beyond words that he's now got a whole 'nother species to hunt down and hang in the trophy room. The only good news is that I may be at least able to steer him smack-dab into a Mothy Cabronita or two. Or seven... (May? MAY? BWAHAHAHA With a full-tilt assault of Stubbese it's a foregone conclusion, sorry, wifelet! I feel really bad about that, too... snif.) 

BUT: and here's the honest-to-Abe truth - ALL THE FILTERTRONS DO, AND ALL THEY ARE, IS JUST A REALLY WEAKASS HUMBUCKER! Of course they have more twang & high end, that's what happens when there's only half as much wire round the mulberry bush - same thing happens to all single coils, I mean, like, what's the REAL diffie 'tween Strat and P90 P.U.s? And TV Jones is now making some Super/Atomic/hyper "trons" which creep up on towards the real PAF-style of WEAK WINDING. That is part'n parcel of what's so ineffably (but not immeasurably) SPECIAL about "great" sounding vintage pickups - they're really sporkin' WEAK, is all. So you have to turn up your amp and WO! HEY! your amp sounds GOOD when the preamp isn't vomiting buzzy/scratchy/scabby 12AX7 scratch hiss crackle-POP distortion & you actually attain genuine power tube overdrive. "Cabronita", christ-on-a-biscuit. Speaking of vomit, back before even the queasiness set in Gibson sent out a few ES175's and L5's and 350's with the 355's "Varitone" pickup-tapping, caps and resistors tone-warpy thing, and guess what? "Filtertron-in-a-knob" tone! Yiminy.

 

[Cagey]

There's nothing "magical" about PAF pickups. What Seth applied for probably shouldn't have been awarded a patent. It was just a variation of CMNR (Common Mode Noise Rejection), which was not a novel concept. It was just a different application of a well-known phenomena.

As a result, all pickups constructed in that way could be called "PAF" pickups, which many manufacturers have done. If they wind them weak, then they more closely match the ancient examples, which often sound like crap. If they change magnets and/or wind them hot, then they sound more like Duncan's JB parts. Ain't no thang.

 

[Jeremiah]

Don't Filtertrons also have the two coils closer together, which (insert some physics-related thing here. Maybe senses a narrower area of the string?) and so possibly also enhances the high end response.

Something that mini humbuckers and Firebird pickups also share. Unless you're talking about humbucker-sized filtertron type pickups, in which case they're the same size as a humbucker and so presumably don't have the coils closer together... :icon_scratch:

 

[Re-Pete]

I am no electrical engineer, but to my ears, I'm guessing half of that Gretsch/Filtertron sound is due to configuration of the pots and switches on the guitars as different to other guitars.

I mean, they have full on tone caps - no adjustment possible, the luxury of a volume pot for each pickup and THEN a master volume pot. All of those variable resistor pots have to bleed/lose/mashup/bias the tone somehow.

Then there's the cosmos beneath each pickup courtesy of the old world philosophy of having hollow construction that must also provide some tone colouration. It certainly provides feedback if you dare run a White Falcon on a 100 Watt Plexi!

Curiously too, the new Centre Block Falcons and Country Gentlemen etc. do sound less Gretsch-y,  if you know what I mean. More like a Chris Cornell Gibson ES335 actually  :icon_thumright:  .

 

[swarfrat]

The other bit of magic filtertrons poses is they have a shell which isn't a shell. One man's weakass humbucker is another man's humbucker minus being overwound to heck and not encased in a mud cage.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

They also have a narrower "sensing window", which makes them brighter too. That's why single-coil-sized humbuckers are still capable of sounding like single coils (if designed to), and don't necessarily need 500K pots like normal HBs.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I'd still want one of everything.

It's funny about the PAFs being medium output, according to that interview posted on here a while back, Seymour Duncan interviewing Seth Lover.  And I'm paraphrasing from memory:

SD:  How did you get the ideal number of winds to retain the perfect amount of treble?

SL:  That was the most winds I could put on the bobbin.  If I had a smaller wire gauge or bigger bobbin, there would've been more.

 

[greywolf]

Yep they are "just" narrower field low wind humbuckers , but the sound great . I have Super trons, Hi-Lo's and Classic/Classic Plus  and love them all .  A nice compliment to the PAFS, and Singles in my other axe's

 

[stubhead]

SD:  How did you get the ideal number of winds to retain the perfect amount of treble?

SL:  That was the most winds I could put on the bobbin.  If I had a smaller wire gauge or bigger bobbin, there would've been more.

Pure applied genius! It reminds me... there are some highly evolved calculations used to determine the optimal speaker enclosure size, having to do with phase calculations, the dangers of sealing cabinets with frequencies that multiply etc. The "Thiele-Small parameters" are the magic secret power numbers... so when Jim Marshall needed to build stuff to handle the ever-increasing power of his amp heads that Townsend & Hendrix were pestering him over, he... broke out the ruler, and the 9th grade algebra, and calculated how he could build speaker cabinets - using the very least amount of wood possible! Then he carefully, painstakingly researched which speakers he could get cheapest by the boxcar, and the legend was born. It turned out to be somewhat of a problem when Townsend & Hendrix discovered that the low-rent Celestions blew like a two-dollar Juarez... air compressor*; but it was no problem at all when all the hundreds, then thousands, of paying customers discovered the same thing! "But JIMI uses them! Eeee! Eeee!" Pop! Pop! "Eeee!" Pop! etc. "Better buy six stacks, so at least two will be working! Eeee, eeee!" Pop! Ka-ching! Etc.

*(close one....) :binkybaby:

 

[Cagey]

Surely you jest. I'm fairly confident that the only thing Mr. Marshall used a ruler for was measuring the height of the stacks of money his amps and cabinets brought in.

 

[swarfrat]

I just made a bongo cajon for my 16 month old son. Except I made it with one chamber (which will get 'snares' - ie spent guitar strings) is a box within the other box, and I tuned the bass chamber to about 80 Hz and the snare chamber to 240Hz.  I ran the numbers through a speaker calculator online. Repeatedly.. then when we made a mistake in the cut list on one of the bigger cajons. Then we  said.. Ok, given the leftovers from the cajon build... we can make the bongo cajon about 'so big' using the leftovers. Ehhh looks about right.

And yeah,  my boy loves it. I need to get a finish on it, because he so far he only uses it for teething - but he does go and get his bongo drum out of the toy pile when I play it, so we can jam on drums together.

 

[Re-Pete]

Surely you jest. I'm fairly confident that the only thing Mr. Marshall used a ruler for was measuring the height of the stacks of money his amps and cabinets brought in.

Marshall's first stacks were 8 x 12s!Townshend's ROADIES were complaining they were breaking their backs, so Jim kindly cut it into half.

I think Jim measured the first stacks to be just high enough that Pete could change the settings on the amp up on top, but intentionally was too high for a short assed prankster like Keith Moon to quickly fiddle with in between songs  :laughing7:

(And that's probably about as scientific Jim Marshall would have gotten in those days)

:dontknow:

 

[Cagey]

I've heard of those and seen pictures, but nothing in real life. I don't think very many were made, for the reasons you pointed out. Too unwieldy.

Biggest bottoms I've ever had to deal with were Ampeg's SVT 8x10s. Like moving a bloody refrigerator. Those, and I had an Ampeg VT-22 with EVM-12Ls in it that weighed approximately 80 bajillion pounds.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Marshall's first stacks were 8 x 12s!Townshend's ROADIES were complaining they were breaking their backs, so Jim kindly cut it into half.

I think Jim measured the first stacks to be just high enough that Pete could change the settings on the amp up on top, but intentionally was too high for a short assed prankster like Keith Moon to quickly fiddle with in between songs  :laughing7:

(And that's probably about as scientific Jim Marshall would have gotten in those days)

:dontknow:

Those came later, made just for him, along with the 200 watt head.  The first Marshalls for sale were the 1962 JTM 45.  It was based on Fender's 59 Tweed Bassman.  It sat on a 412 with Celestions.

 

[mayfly]

Marshall's first stacks were 8 x 12s!Townshend's ROADIES were complaining they were breaking their backs, so Jim kindly cut it into half.

I think Jim measured the first stacks to be just high enough that Pete could change the settings on the amp up on top, but intentionally was too high for a short assed prankster like Keith Moon to quickly fiddle with in between songs  :laughing7:

(And that's probably about as scientific Jim Marshall would have gotten in those days)

:dontknow:

Those came later, made just for him, along with the 200 watt head.  The first Marshalls for sale were the 1962 JTM 45.  It was based on Fender's 59 Tweed Bassman.  It sat on a 412 with Celestions.

Ahem, those cabs were actually made to go along with the first 100W heads (which were actually two JTM 45 power sections in one chassis, fed by the same preamp).  The Marshall Major (the 200W head) came along years later when Richie Blackmore asked for them.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

The internet is full of information, but no indicator of truth or accuracy.

http://www.drtube.com/en/library/schematics/69-marshall-schemas