Ash at Oil City answers pickup questions:

SteveF · January 2023

Thank you, that's ideal

I'm not a fan of the look of the square bobbins on PRS pickups, so that's no issue.

I actually have a set of Tremontis that came out of the PRS in the first place. They're not the original pickups I don't think (hang tag says SC250 pups, which I think are similar but not the same as far as I am aware) and it looks like someone has done a bodge job with some of the wire (possibly because the wires were too short, or because IIRC Tremontis came with the bridge uncovered?). I see from your custom page that you do refurbs etc. Do you think that this is something that you can tackle? The neck pickup seems fine, just the bridge that's a horror show.

Image: https://tfb-user-images.eu-central-1.linodeobjects.com/8dd1344633c03e5700328b6a82963a6418feceac998c1f1bc3

Image: https://tfb-user-images.eu-central-1.linodeobjects.com/b09e8670c535298823850d5ccd38f81792067f0a1dca575e8a

OilCityPickups · January 2023

OH DEAR LORD!!! that's like the movie 'Saw' for pickups! Yes I could sort that out, though I may never be able to unsee it!

OilCityPickups · January 2023

Lebarque said:

Hi, Ash. Still loving my Stonetones, thanks. I'm considering a Thornbucker neck and Thornbucker+ bridge for my 25.5" scale alder/rosewood partscaster. The keywords are clarity, balance, sweetness and versatility. Do you offer anything comparable, since I'd rather give my money to you?

My Airship Trooper bridge and a Scrapyard Dog neck or Forces Sweetheart neck should do the trick
A touch more sweetness in the - er .... Sweetheart :-)

Neilybob · January 2023

OilCityPickups said:

Hummm it may be a 'zombie' pickup - in which case it will need rewound, or it may have a dodgy joint. - I'd really have to have hands on (I only charge return postage for assessing a pickup). A DC resistance readout would be handy and tell me a lot! If you have a mustimeter you can simply plug a patch lead in the jack socket, turn tone and volume up full, and read between tip and ring.
Check all your other solder joints too :-)

Thank you Ash.

I don't have a multimeter but I know a friend who has one. Will take it over and get it checked. Thanks.

OilCityPickups · January 2023

Neilybob said:

OilCityPickups said:

Hummm it may be a 'zombie' pickup - in which case it will need rewound, or it may have a dodgy joint. - I'd really have to have hands on (I only charge return postage for assessing a pickup). A DC resistance readout would be handy and tell me a lot! If you have a mustimeter you can simply plug a patch lead in the jack socket, turn tone and volume up full, and read between tip and ring.
Check all your other solder joints too :-)

Thank you Ash.

I don't have a multimeter but I know a friend who has one. Will take it over and get it checked. Thanks.

From the exterior they look like standard P Bass pickups, so I would expect the DCR to be about 10.5k if it's much lower then there is bad magic at work, and someone probably needs to shake some bones at it and sacrifice a chicken Keiv. Of course failing that, I can sort it out by non supernatural means :-).

Lebarque · January 2023

OilCityPickups said:

Lebarque said:

Hi, Ash. Still loving my Stonetones, thanks. I'm considering a Thornbucker neck and Thornbucker+ bridge for my 25.5" scale alder/rosewood partscaster. The keywords are clarity, balance, sweetness and versatility. Do you offer anything comparable, since I'd rather give my money to you?

My Airship Trooper bridge and a Scrapyard Dog neck or Forces Sweetheart neck should do the trick
A touch more sweetness in the - er .... Sweetheart :-)

Thanks, mate. Sounds great. If I'm gonna hang them off a pickguard, I need the short legs right?

OilCityPickups · January 2023

Lebarque said:

OilCityPickups said:

Lebarque said:

Hi, Ash. Still loving my Stonetones, thanks. I'm considering a Thornbucker neck and Thornbucker+ bridge for my 25.5" scale alder/rosewood partscaster. The keywords are clarity, balance, sweetness and versatility. Do you offer anything comparable, since I'd rather give my money to you?

My Airship Trooper bridge and a Scrapyard Dog neck or Forces Sweetheart neck should do the trick
A touch more sweetness in the - er .... Sweetheart :-)

Thanks, mate. Sounds great. If I'm gonna hang them off a pickguard, I need the short legs right?

Yep that's right, and indeed many Strat/Tele guitars can't take long leg pickups without extra routing. And for others, many PRS guitars require short legs in the neck position and in at least one model, short pole screws.
My advice to everyone is that you can put a short leg humbucker in pretty much any guitar - if needed by using shorter springs. So if in doubt order short legs (or ask me lol).

guitargeek62 · January 2023

Ash - I liked your blog post on sustainability, can you offer those fibreboard bobbins on any/all pickups?

https://www.oilcitypickups.co.uk/single-post/oil-city-and-nickel

Image: https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6abf16_73fb87f4ccf147c1a3c262f5a07d9482~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_1128,h_938,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/6abf16_73fb87f4ccf147c1a3c262f5a07d9482~mv2.jpg

OilCityPickups · January 2023

guitargeek62 said:

Ash - I liked your blog post on sustainability, can you offer those fibreboard bobbins on any/all pickups?

https://www.oilcitypickups.co.uk/single-post/oil-city-and-nickel

I can on pickups with double slug coils and ones with slug magnets.
Any of my humbuckers can be done this way, but only with double slugs. This has very little impact on the sound, just the slugs are obviously not adjustable for height (though they can be radiused to the fingerboard curve.

guitargeek62 · January 2023

Cool cool, good to know - thank you!

jaymenon · February 2023

Dear Ash

I’m fascinated by your calibre 5/3 pickups (AlNiCo 5 & 3)

I note that you don’t offer that in your Master Wound range, is that because that particular recipe works better with modern poly wire?

OilCityPickups · February 2023

It's actually because my Masterwound range is almost infinitely customizable - so if you want an Origin Strat set with Calibre 5/4 poles, or a Route 66 - then all you have to do is ask :-)
PS - all wire 'sounds' the same ... don't let the cork sniffers tell you otherwise. It's just the thickness of the insulation that changes the way a pickup can be 'laid up' and thus its sound.
In general PVA plain enamel wire has a thinner coating than either poly or 'Heavy Fomvar' Poly sit's in the middle with coating thickness and Heavy formvar is thickest.
Poly thus produces coils that sound slap bang in the middle between PVA PE and Formvar - it's not any form of poor relation to either
It's a bit more 'raw' than PVA PE, but not as 'raw' as Formvar. .

Funkfingers · February 2023

Er, slightly germane to the previous question from @jaymenon ;

Were Calibre 5/3 pickups ever part of your limited run 2012/2022 offer?

Right now, an eBay seller is listing (amongst other things) a trio of single coil pickups with what look like authentic OCP "2012" model ID labels on the underside. The rod magnets are hand bevelled quite crudely - as if I had done the task.

The bugger has added a healthy mark up on the 2022 offer price!

OilCityPickups · February 2023

Funkfingers said:

Er, slightly germane to the previous question from @jaymenon ;;

Were Calibre 5/3 pickups ever part of your limited run 2012/2022 offer?

Right now, an eBay seller is listing (amongst other things) a trio of single coil pickups with what look like authentic OCP "2012" model ID labels on the underside. The rod magnets are hand bevelled quite crudely - as if I had done the task.

The bugger has added a healthy mark up on the 2022 offer price!

I will hunt them down ... and reply
Update:

There are several sets of authentic 'offer' Strat sets on eBay including a Cal53 set.

Once people buy my pickups I really have no control over what they sell them for ... if they can make a killing then good luck to them - we all have a living to make, and nobody is forcing anyone to buy them.

As to the pole pieces, they are hand bevelled and have not been photographed particularly flatteringly. I've never had any complaints about oil city magnet tops, but for the record here's what our hand bevelled magnets look like. In this case Custom Sycorax middle pickup for Blackmachine.

Chairs · February 2023

Looking to replace the pickups in my PRS CU24. I've narrowed it down to either the Blackbird or Blackbird Ulfberht. I want that harmonic complexity and I'm usually higher gain than most. I will be wiring them up with a series/parallel switch.

I can see the originals are A4 Neck @ 9.7k, A5 Bridge @ 13k. I'm presuming the Ulfberht neck and bridge aren't both ceramic, and do you have approx readings for the resistance?

Both seem capable of clarity and complexity under high gain. Is there any reason I'd choose one over the other?

OilCityPickups · February 2023

Chairs said:

Looking to replace the pickups in my PRS CU24. I've narrowed it down to either the Blackbird or Blackbird Ulfberht. I want that harmonic complexity and I'm usually higher gain than most. I will be wiring them up with a series/parallel switch.

I can see the originals are A4 Neck @ 9.7k, A5 Bridge @ 13k. I'm presuming the Ulfberht neck and bridge aren't both ceramic, and do you have approx readings for the resistance?

Both seem capable of clarity and complexity under high gain. Is there any reason I'd choose one over the other?

Ulfbehrt Bridge is closer to 14k to match its ceramic magnet, and the neck Ulfbehrt is availiable either A5 or ceramic and is 9.9k (approx).
The Ulfbehrt has a tighter bass from the magnet choice - so better if you down-tune or are a hyper-bottom-end-chug kinda person.

Funkfingers · February 2023

OilCityPickups said:
Update: There are several sets of authentic 'offer' Strat sets on eBay including a Cal53 set.

Thank you for confirmation.

Neither Jay nor I could recall which of your Stratocaster-derived models had featured in the special offer production runs.

jaymenon · February 2023

OilCityPickups said:

Funkfingers said:

Er, slightly germane to the previous question from @jaymenon ;;

Were Calibre 5/3 pickups ever part of your limited run 2012/2022 offer?

Right now, an eBay seller is listing (amongst other things) a trio of single coil pickups with what look like authentic OCP "2012" model ID labels on the underside. The rod magnets are hand bevelled quite crudely - as if I had done the task.

The bugger has added a healthy mark up on the 2022 offer price!

I will hunt them down ... and reply
Update:

There are several sets of authentic 'offer' Strat sets on eBay including a Cal53 set.

That’s a pity Ash, I didn’t know that the Calibre 5/3 was part of your offer. All I saw were the stone tones - I would’ve jumped at a set of calibres…

awww well next time lucky…

OilCityPickups · February 2023

jaymenon said:

OilCityPickups said:

Funkfingers said:

Er, slightly germane to the previous question from @jaymenon ;;

Were Calibre 5/3 pickups ever part of your limited run 2012/2022 offer?

Right now, an eBay seller is listing (amongst other things) a trio of single coil pickups with what look like authentic OCP "2012" model ID labels on the underside. The rod magnets are hand bevelled quite crudely - as if I had done the task.

The bugger has added a healthy mark up on the 2022 offer price!

I will hunt them down ... and reply
Update:

There are several sets of authentic 'offer' Strat sets on eBay including a Cal53 set.

That’s a pity Ash, I didn’t know that the Calibre 5/3 was part of your offer. All I saw were the stone tones - I would’ve jumped at a set of calibres…

awww well next time lucky…

There'll be another one around soon :-)

GuyBoden · March 2023

OilCityPickups said: There'll be another one around soon :-)

I'm looking for a single 7 String fan fret bridge sloping pickup, I like warm clean sound with no icepick high treble.

I play Jazz(ish) stuff.

Any suggestions?

It's for my latest build/assembly.

This:

Obviously, the pickup has to have sloping sides.

The bridge pickup from these pickups would be nice, with double transparent coils:

Image: https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6abf16_6f9377a74fb14d31aecfef0d86230ee4~mv2_d_3810_2999_s_4_2.jpg/v1/fill/w_564,h_444,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/6abf16_6f9377a74fb14d31aecfef0d86230ee4~mv2_d_3810_2999_s_4_2.jpg

OilCityPickups · March 2023

Hi guy. The clear bobbin 7 string slanted pickups are custom order and fully hand made ... bobbins as well. We do them but they are not cheap. PM me to chat

jaymenon · March 2023

This:

It would be completely awesome if the slant of the pole pieces was accurately matched to the slant of the pickups, such that the two pole pieces for each string were aligned perfectly...

Sonically - no difference

But in terms of precision & attention to detail - awesome

OilCityPickups · March 2023

jaymenon said:

This:

It would be completely awesome if the slant of the pole pieces was accurately matched to the slant of the pickups, such that the two pole pieces for each string were aligned perfectly...

Sonically - no difference

But in terms of precision & attention to detail - awesome

With our pickups they always are 'bang in line' as our slant angles and pole spacing are custom for each clear bobbin 7 pickup we build. So provided we are given the correct slant angle all will line up perfectly. The pickup in the picture is not one of ours.

roberty · March 2023

@OilCityPickups said:

many PRS guitars require short legs in the neck position and in at least one model, short pole screws.

My S2 Standard 22 needs short legs in both positions and short screws in the bridge position

GuyBoden · March 2023

OilCityPickups said:

jaymenon said:

This:

It would be completely awesome if the slant of the pole pieces was accurately matched to the slant of the pickups, such that the two pole pieces for each string were aligned perfectly...

Sonically - no difference

But in terms of precision & attention to detail - awesome

With our pickups they always are 'bang in line' as our slant angles and pole spacing are custom for each clear bobbin 7 pickup we build. So provided we are given the correct slant angle all will line up perfectly. The pickup in the picture is not one of ours.

The picture is of my guitar build that needs a good quality pickup. I've emailed your OilCity email at gazette@oilcitypickups.co.uk for suggestions, many thanks.

OilCityPickups · March 2023

roberty said:

@OilCityPickups said:

many PRS guitars require short legs in the neck position and in at least one model, short pole screws.

My S2 Standard 22 needs short legs in both positions and short screws in the bridge position

Exactly ... if I remember correctly it's because there's more meat in the neck joint than say a Gibson LP

roberty · March 2023

OilCityPickups said:

roberty said:

@OilCityPickups said:

many PRS guitars require short legs in the neck position and in at least one model, short pole screws.

My S2 Standard 22 needs short legs in both positions and short screws in the bridge position

Exactly ... if I remember correctly it's because there's more meat in the neck joint than say a Gibson LP

They do something, it is freakishly resonant

jaymenon · April 2023

Oil City telecaster neck pickup covers - are they nickel plated or chrome plated please?

OilCityPickups · April 2023

The earliest Tele neck pickups are brass and appear at lest to be chrome plated rather than nickel plated - although many early ones have corroded and been scratched to the point it's practically impossible to tell. Since the early days Fender appear to have used both nickel plated and chrome plated through the years. Today all the neck covers are nickel (it's more transparent to the signal than brass) and are chrome plated I believe. I will check next time I have a modern one in for rewind :-)
Oh and our neck covers are nickel and nickel plated - and chrome is a custom option you just have to ask for.

stickyfiddle · April 2023

If I wanted an alternative set of pickups for a strat and had various hankerings for Tele or PAFs bridge pickups but also Firebirds, what would you go for? I'm a clean-crunch guy playing a mix of indie/alt, soul, americana so let's assume no need for anything louder than ACDC...

HSS? Tele-S-FB? FB-FB-FB? Just a simple H-FB?

Can you get workable strat position 2/4 sounds from FB-based pairings?

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