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Post subject: Abby pickups
Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 9:22 am
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What makes these pickups so special, and more importantly, so expensive? I saw a set of these for $950 today on line. I know she hand wound pickups for Fender for years, but what makes them better than the guy winding pickups at the next workstation at the fender factory during those years? Did she have permission from leo to make them different? I'm just curious and befuddled at this latest Fender sensation. :shock:

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Post subject: Re: Abby pickups
Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 10:57 am
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masterhacker wrote:
What makes these pickups so special, and more importantly, so expensive? I saw a set of these for $950 today on line. I know she hand wound pickups for Fender for years, but what makes them better than the guy winding pickups at the next workstation at the fender factory during those years? Did she have permission from leo to make them different? I'm just curious and befuddled at this latest Fender sensation. :shock:


They're special because people will believe anything, and they're expensive because the more you pay, the more it's worth.

Hope this helps,

P.T. Barnum


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Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:47 am
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Always jealous, ignorant people on the way. :roll:

You can recognize hand wound (there is still a machine involved but she controls the speed and direction of the wounding) from any other..
It means not two of them sound exactly the same.
This was the way things were done in the early Fender times.
They breath, they are airy with a clear tone not found on any other pups.
You can differentiate all the notes in chords or arpeggios.
Just remind the difference between the "supervised" by Abby: they are initialed and the ones "handwound" by herself: they are signed and dated by her.
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Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:50 am
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alainlafrance wrote:
Always jealous, ignorant people on the way. :roll:

You can recognize hand wound (there is still a machine involved but she controls the speed and direction of the wounding) from any other..
It means not two of them sound exactly the same.
This was the way things were done in the early Fender times.
They breath, they are airy with a clear tone not found on any other pups.
You can differentiate all the notes in chords or arpeggios.
Just remind the difference between the "supervised" by Abby: they are initialed and the ones "handwound" by herself: they are signed and dated by her.



Thanks for proving my point.

By the way, let's not be calling names. I am neither jealous nor ignorant. If you have any manners, you will apologize.


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Post subject: Re: Abby pickups
Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:59 am
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masterhacker wrote:
What makes these pickups so special, and more importantly, so expensive?


Bragging rights.

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Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 12:43 pm
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SlapChop wrote:
alainlafrance wrote:
Always jealous, ignorant people on the way. :roll:

You can recognize hand wound (there is still a machine involved but she controls the speed and direction of the wounding) from any other..
It means not two of them sound exactly the same.
This was the way things were done in the early Fender times.
They breath, they are airy with a clear tone not found on any other pups.
You can differentiate all the notes in chords or arpeggios.
Just remind the difference between the "supervised" by Abby: they are initialed and the ones "handwound" by herself: they are signed and dated by her.



Thanks for proving my point.

By the way, let's not be calling names. I am neither jealous nor ignorant. If you have any manners, you will apologize.


Very sorry for the confusion, I was definitely not speaking about you..
My apologizes to you.


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Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 6:58 pm
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Many pickup winders for many large companies know nothing about guitars, let alone playing them. To them, it is just a job, nothing more. They are shown a pickup's components, have the winding machine demonstrated to them, how to thread and feed the coil wire onto the rotating bobbin, etc. and then, they are directed to try their hand at it. Once their supervisor sees that they have the basics down, the winders are then given preordained specs/parameters based upon the specific, designated model and run they are tasked to do. They are then supervised until they have demonstrated that they have the hang of what they are doing for even semi-autonomy. So, there is no mystical, magical things happening with Abby's pickups or anyone else's. Abby, like those who work for Duncan, DiMarzio or virtually any other large pickup manufacturer are merely following established procedures. Additionally, the winders do not necessarily build a pickup from start to finish, they specifically wind the bobbins, using a metered machine, cut the wire per the meter's wind total, test it for acceptable DC resistance tolerances and hand it over to the next person in the assembly line, proceeding on to wind the next one. Once experienced, repetition is the best teacher. Say their quota is to have wound 10 wound bobbins for the day. By the time they've wound the 10th bobbin on their first day, they know exactly how they should have wound their 1st bobbin. The vast majority of the time, the experienced who have worked at all stages of a pickup's manufacture can build an absolutely flawless pickup (per given protocols) from start to finish but they cannot tell you how the sum of the parts interact and do what they do. Just like any good, "folklore", if someone can use it to their advantage (in this case, Fender), they are surely going to exploit it.

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Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:25 pm
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In most pick ups companies pick ups are simply machine wound; no human interaction during the process so they are absolutely similar to each others.

In a blind test anybody is able to recognize a "supervised by Abby" handwound pick up among other pick ups and anybody can hear the difference between them and a pick up personally hand wound by Abby.
It's as simple as that.
There were several very skeptical people among musicians friends of mine and we organized a blind test with acoustically very close Strats fitted with pick ups having similar specs.
100% guessed the correct Abby's pups.

Recently Oasis Music a UK Dealer has ordered a batch of 50 masterbuilt Strats to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Cliff Richard & The Shadows starts.They were clones of the very first Strat imported in UK for Hank Marvin (Fiesta Red of course). But these are fitted with Abby's hand wound, signed and dated pups
You can peruse on the site ShadowMusic the unanimous totally positive reactions of the buyers regarding these pups.
But apart those limited edition '69, as you can't buy Abby's pups as such, so there is no problem...


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Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 4:56 am
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I had a thought last night, Abby is in her 80's or something right? I don't know that many at that age with the finger dexterity it would take to make "handwound" pickups. If she does then good for her but "handwound" may just be a marketing term for "she pushed the button"... vs supervising another person who pushed the button.

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Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 5:05 am
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Abby makes some very good pups, I've played a strat with a set of hers under the hood and yeah, they're awesome. I'm not sure they're the best pickups I've ever heard, but definitely sweet sounding. But anyone even thinking about buying a set for $950 needs a psychological evaluation. IMHO

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Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 10:53 am
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VooDoo Blues wrote:
I had a thought last night, Abby is in her 80's or something right? I don't know that many at that age with the finger dexterity it would take to make "handwound" pickups. If she does then good for her but "handwound" may just be a marketing term for "she pushed the button"... vs supervising another person who pushed the button.


If you happen to buy a Tribute Mary Kaye Strat (a dream guitar BTW) just watch the video delivered with it and you'll see it's much more than the usual pushing a button.
Well that's all for that thread


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Post subject: Re: Abby pickups
Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2015 1:09 pm
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Well now,
Owning a slew of fine wood and sum of parts, i can say...i have an abby strat a surf green 2014 NAMM she signed i gold i didn't yet note date...i didn't know this pig had these. I just happened to get it because it was UGLY, and had a rosewood neck and my money maker has been my blocked (ash), fralin blues special equipped 1984/5 '57 RI...that is simply $@!&, refretted recently and plek'd by Mike Lull. the guitar has a black cat .1uf i had laying around that measured perfectly....drove my anal friend nuts when i just slammed it in there and fired it up he is a perfectionist and his work prove it....not this time MY guitar).

The guitar is my main stay all the things i have done of note were on that strat although i am a tele man from the get go...that was my 4th strat the rest i purged in days. so in my opinion i needed NO other strat it is 'da blues machine but lacked bell tone (i knew that going in because i went through seven sets of pups before choosing the fralin blues specials years ago because Lull recommend them never heard of the guy i was going to use duncan's)

Well i live on an island in the PNW and on this island is a former software weenie that owns a really nifty music store i go to when my wife lets the dog eat through my leash...and can find my debit card....she's a tricky lady been married to her 35 years.

So i go there one day and he's got a BUTT ugly beaten up to crap status....2010 CS Esquire (ULTRA relic) i am telling you it is ugly....but plays like butt'a - it's got the BG-1400 in it and i had to have it.....so SIN had occurred. now it was my first fender custom shop unit i have (unless my 84/5 strat is too necak like no others and like a parts guitar first year out of corona it believe could be a bastard child all i know is NO 57 has a neck like it.) a Les paul that has some history but this one was just so damn ugly you could row home from china if need be and it would work for the gig...simple as that (AND AMAZINGLY and NO POOPIE HERE...i pull it apart to see if i could add a neck pup is i want (didn't) and it was penciled 6/XX/2010 my birthday (58th). SO the day i pick it up (i bought other stuff so i had to come back with wife's twruck) (software pioneers sometimes own what we tend to call twucks.....four cylinder ya know! -that day she drove the miserable thing home and made me sell my TRUCK (460, 250 HD 4x4 ugly and it was a peeler)....what logic that damn woman has eh? 4 cyl for replacement of a 8 cyl hog...."woman think" i guess...back to Abby

SO, some dudes slide by my pad and see my rather ugly Porsche RSA sitting out front with no bumper and looking like it was undergoing an upgrade to an RS 3.8 this was about a week before christmas.

they had 100 dollar bills...i retire i 5 months -AW what 'da hell eh? so immediately i did what have wanted to do forever...making a dime off of windows is cool being creative can be a pain after ...aw making it work again like it did the night before) ...tossed it out of my creative environment. (after talking to the damn money manager taxes and crap come into play) so i bought an apollo twin (HIGHLY suggestit), iMac 5K retina, rented an a frame to put it all in up the hill from the house like an office sort off but i have NOW a unfettered by windows poo poo creative environment. (my when i loaded pro tools, the UA stuff and Focusrite and a few other things like eleven rack - all loaded FLAWLESS...not one burp, only one "driver" download which was perfect, no damn hassles at all and spent pretty much 27 years in data centers fixing that winders stuff


ANYWAY (valley girl speak i married a Reseda high grad...ucla too...double whammy)

bought other cool stuff BUT...all of ya know we trade, buy sell guitars and amps like the ....clowns we CAN be at times

but why did you trade the martins and tele for a 2012 NAMM tele....."cuz" that's man logic...usually driven by fine northwest brewed beer of note i might add.

SO, having cash, balls, it was christmas and the deflated ball crap hadn't occurred yet...i needed to celebrate...so i head down to where this guy's shop is again....wife horrified but....she is uber fine in the moola dept so she has learned NOT to shake her head when i drop (10K to Tal Farlow to buy HIS guitar yet he hands me back the 10 and says i can have the guitar after the gig was done at jazz alley) what a cool dude.
back in 97 ish not long before he died i spent each break chatting with him i had a bad day at a redmond company so went to Seattle to chill at jazz alley stumbled in to tal, Herb and i believe Charlie Byrd that night
Plus i am recovering from a medical induced operation issue that pushed my mind over the limit and not quite back as this disjointed stuff indicates.

(and mind still reeling from the offensive coordinator's call for the pass ......OHHHH i was so pissed i WALKED friggin home (now i gotta get on the bus to drive to get the WIFE's truck home -i drive Porsches not trucks except to crash (twice) or to move friends...i like brakes, light nimble cars that squirt).....in the friggin dark damn near blind because of cataract surgery so my ancient butt can't see much less walk)...at night but man the lights os Seattle and Edmonds, and port townsend as i walked home priceless...i feel so so so bad for those guys that was their win

but it didn't happen.....i never played the opry either...disappointment abounds eh?


SO down in this town (Langley) is a swiss bakery a real one with a owner who is a dead ringer for my keepers' dad...dead ringer. so they make the best damn swiss and french pastries/cookies.....so now having loaded up for chow for Christmas preflight, and now headed where i go to do one thing.....like when paid for some of the ridiculous les paul prices i paid)....to a lounge in the Prima Bistro that sits above the Whidbey cafe (EXCELLENT).....

So we eat some FINE chow, i have a few fingers of JDB + ice, with the wife who KNOWS what is going to happen next and it isn't wasn't gonna be wild teen aged type of sex......would saved me some damn money though i suppose eh? -crap didn't think about that stuff.

You see when i saw a super super curly burst quilt top (curly quilt) les paul at american music in Fremont wa in late 80's i am thinking 86/6....same stuff head to the Trollyman's pub i Fremont down the hill for some pints walk back up the hill and SEPARATE LOGIC from emotion......

Same was being done at the prima and she knew it.....wadd'a buying her satiated belly growled...."well meekly i said Rob says he has a rosewood neck 2014 namm strat in surf green and ugly.....but you have a strat ..."it got a maple neck HONNNNNNNNEY).....with a big smile on my weed colored teeth glowing like uranium in the night.....it was broad daylight out

so i walk in buy the strat almost got the ash bodied one too but wanted to focus -Rob KNOWS how to order CS guitars from fender all the tricks etc.

so i get home and decide to slam in a nice mil grade rolled film sprague from the satellite days (.047 on the dime)
oil the fretboard (took 14 coats wet wet coats to make it happy again a few days) and spray in some deoxit for some preventative...i live by the salt water and my third floor gets douched in the winter by salt and water so all my tube sockets, everything gets yearly Deoxit treatment with MUCH success

so inspired to do this i open 'er up and sure enough there are Abbys in gold (i will shoot pics when i redo strings and get dates) but...they do sound wonderful...i have a amp that is based on the ac30 it is a clone made in venice ca.. nicely done with a Celestion gold best single coil amp i have heard

so my abby tele's sound airy and warm, my strat the same even though they are "fatter" i hear...but the bell tone IS there and with a nuts on perfect mils spec .047 (and if you roll off your tone and say the ceramic in there is OK...so OK.

but.....think about your amp and the dimes spent dropping in orange drops, or astros or mallory 150's etc

look great stride in audio have shown that ceramic (not the crap disc formula although on a scope,...the look good)....but think about it...so you are rolling off the HI freq tone for a nice bossa, or belly rubber, or some jazz thing......that cap is in the signal chain albeit most of the time as a high freq bleed.....it still can affect the tone in a non likable manner

i prefer to use a nice cap and put the original in a bag in the case for those guys that GOT to have the "EXACT" cap that it came with


film ....it's i the signal chain ...think about it.

sorry i have eight abby's (as installed) and i swear by them....but i also use other people also

like Duncan's P-90 antiquities (50's) BOLTED to mahogany added to SG to get perfect magnetics and vibration to guitar/pickup it has so much should.....500k + 500k .022 orange drops shielded push back, tone pros aged, with grover lockers aged all nickel, bone nut....it's killer...

so i use other pups also...abbie's kill my 2 cents now to the mandostrat page....


HERS ABBY....i have seen people wind, look online...some know how to0 ....manipulate the winding come in and chat about what they see when they look inside under the cover....and tell folks stuff over the decades.....people are not machines AND MOST important


Creativity can not be put on a time clock :shock:


Get what ya want and what sound best for your sound and bragging rights. a phrase i remember from doing avionic STC's as a young a wild 25 year old are to be remember by me from the days i ran with oil men in the late 70's

"Ain't bragging if it's fact!" T- Boone -R :mrgreen:


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Post subject: Re: Abby pickups
Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2015 2:00 pm
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I dunno......

Last April I bought this Custom Shop Strat purely on the basis that it was black with rosewood and had a vintage-spec neck and fretboard. That it was a "Closet Classic" 1960 relic was not a factor though it is a tastefully-finished instrument.

Image

It sounded just heavenly in the store after a two-hour audition so I took it home. When I plugged into one of my vintage Fender amps the guitar's tone became even more addictive so I took it apart to see just what was afoot. The pickups turned out to be a set of signed AY's (apparently some of the last that Ms Ybarra ever wound before her retirement). I have Strats with many different sets of Fender pickups and though I still maintain that the Fat 50's are the best standard-production single-coils that Fender makes, there's just a certain *something* about these AY's that's hard to quantify empirically but sound like magic to the ear when plugged in. Sonically, this guitar resembles a '63 Strat I once owned.

My 2¢, YMMV

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Abby pickups
Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2015 5:40 pm
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Retroverbial wrote:
I dunno......

Last April I bought this Custom Shop Strat purely on the basis that it was black with rosewood and had a vintage-spec neck and fretboard. That it was a "Closet Classic" 1960 relic was not a factor though it is a tastefully-finished instrument.

Image

It sounded just heavenly in the store after a two-hour audition so I took it home. When I plugged into one of my vintage Fender amps the guitar's tone became even more addictive so I took it apart to see just what was afoot. The pickups turned out to be a set of signed AY's (apparently some of the last that Ms Ybarra ever wound before her retirement). I have Strats with many different sets of Fender pickups and though I still maintain that the Fat 50's are the best standard-production single-coils that Fender makes, there's just a certain *something* about these AY's that's hard to quantify empirically but sound like magic to the ear when plugged in. Sonically, this guitar resembles a '63 Strat I once owned.

My 2¢, YMMV

Arjay


That's a Beauty Arjay !!

And Abbys too !! 8)

cheers!

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Post subject: Re: Abby pickups
Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2015 6:15 pm
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