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Post subject: Fender Coronado XII pickups question
Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2010 6:16 am
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Hi there!

A week ago I got my sunburst Fender Coronado XII

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I'm very pleased with this guitar: very convenient, light-weight with nice chiming unplugged sound. But there's a huge problems with it: it's pickups. They are weak (especially bridge), anemic and lifeless. Also they hum a lot (much more that any other single coils), and have terrible feedback.

Has anyone had such an experince with Coronados? I would like to find the solution of this problem, and I'm thinking over the following variants:
a) Rewinding pickups in accordance with my specs;
b) Replacing the pickups with P-90s or humbuckers?

What would you suggest?

Thanks.


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Post subject: Re: Fender Coronado XII pickups question
Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2010 9:07 am
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Peter Krasov wrote:
...there's a huge problems with it: it's pickups. They are weak (especially bridge), anemic and lifeless. Also they hum a lot (much more that any other single coils), and have terrible feedback.

Has anyone had such an experience with Coronados? I would like to find the solution of this problem, and I'm thinking over the following variants:
a) Rewinding pickups in accordance with my specs;
b) Replacing the pickups with P-90s or humbuckers?

What would you suggest?

Thanks.


Greetings Peter.

Where to start?

The hum may or may not be a grounding problem inside the guitar and/or because the pickups by comparison are weak, your having to crank the amp up all the more to accommodate, in turn ramps up the hum of these non-humbucking pickups.

The feedback comes from the pickups not being effectively coil saturated, the guitar being semi-hollow and the fact that the pickups are weak where again, cranking the amp up to accommodate, exacerbates this situation as well.

Back in the era when your Coronado was actively being made, all like pickups going into any given guitar were made the same. Meaning, there was no mindset for a specific neck, bridge or even middle pickup. Installation into whichever position on whichever guitar was totally arbitrary.

You have options but in the end, it will cost you.

Say you have the OEM pickups coil saturated and/or rewound, this permanently diminishes the value of the pickups and in turn, your guitar as the pickups are no longer OEM stock, right down to their solder joints.

Say you replace the pickups with P-90s (which hum quite a bit too) or with humbuckers, these aren't direct replacements for what you have in there now. Consequently, permanently modifying the body of your guitar to accept them will also permanently diminish the value of the guitar. Note that the polepiece spacing with P-90s will be off too as well as a wrong choice of humbuckers.

All things considered, your best bet (and least invasive to the guitar) is to choose an aftermarket pickup manufacturer who has the skill and resources to custom make direct replacement pickups for your guitar and of course, to your specs in terms of what you want each to sound like and not sound like. Seymour Duncan for example, is capable of this. Last I heard, he was charging like $165 each for such things with a 10 week lead time. (Don't hold me to this though.) Naturally, this isn't without the additional cost of shipping and the fact that because they were custom made, unless defective, you can't return/exchange them because you don't like them in the final analysis.

Lastly, as I touched on above, if you ever chose to sell the guitar down the road, even upon having restored the original pickups in it, purists in terms of your guitar's collectibility will believe it or not, consider your guitar devalued due to the facts that regardless of the reason(s), the OEM pickups were removed at one time and consequently all the solder joints aren't original. (Yes, I am serious.)

It all boils down to one of three choices:

1. Put up with the pickups as no money or devaluation of the guitar would be involved.
2. Change or modify the pickups where an additional investment of (+/-) $400 would be required once everything is said and done, bearing in mind that you are ultimately devaluing the instrument.
3. Flip the guitar for something comparable where the pickups are more to your liking.

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Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2010 6:44 pm
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Curtis Novak does some excellent pickup restoration work......

http://www.curtisnovak.com/pickups_repairs.shtml

However, before deciding to have your pickups re-wound I would take the instrument to a qualified luthier and get a definitive diagnosis that the pickups are indeed the problem. It's also possible that some other facet of the wiring and/or circuitry is wonky.

Best of luck, HTH

Arjay

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Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2010 1:28 am
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Martian, thank you very much for such a great post!

I know about diminishing the value of modified vintage guitars. But I don't want to flip this Coronado for something else, because I've just got the complete 1960s Fender XII collection (see the picture above). I've been searching items for this collection for two years, and the Coronado is the final item.

I know that all the vintage guitars are usually sold and bought "as is", but I want all these guitars to sound properly. I have no problems with white Fender Electric XII, but, for instance, my Fender Shenandoah (right) is a rebuild. The inner metal bar is removed, and the bracing is modified.

So that's because I'm asking about replacing the pickups in my Coronado, because I want to tweak the sound to my preferences.

But, according to Retroverbial's words, first I'll bring this guitar to a luthier to check all the electronics. And then I'll make a decision.


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Post subject:
Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2010 6:03 am
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Peter Krasov wrote:
Martian, thank you very much for such a great post!

I know about diminishing the value of modified vintage guitars. But I don't want to flip this Coronado for something else, because I've just got the complete 1960s Fender XII collection (see the picture above). I've been searching items for this collection for two years, and the Coronado is the final item.

I know that all the vintage guitars are usually sold and bought "as is", but I want all these guitars to sound properly. I have no problems with white Fender Electric XII, but, for instance, my Fender Shenandoah (right) is a rebuild. The inner metal bar is removed, and the bracing is modified.

So that's because I'm asking about replacing the pickups in my Coronado, because I want to tweak the sound to my preferences.

But, according to Retroverbial's words, first I'll bring this guitar to a luthier to check all the electronics. And then I'll make a decision.


You're welcome and good luck!

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Post subject: Re: Fender Coronado XII pickups question
Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2010 7:49 pm
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Peter Krasov wrote:
Hi there!

A week ago I got my sunburst Fender Coronado XII

Image

Nice collection of 12s..especially the fender xII those are awesome..how did you obtain them??

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Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2010 7:17 am
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Hi, jk26!

I was searching for these guitars, and buying them, primarly through Ebay. It took two years to find all the four pieces of this collection.


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Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2010 3:04 pm
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Man, I hate that Hockeystick headstock.

Good colection though.

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Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 7:08 pm
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Those pickups were made by Dearmond and I wouldn't recommend rewinding because of their construction and vintage value. TV Jones makes several styles of pickup that are meant to mount in the same footprint as a Dearmond Dynasonic. It may not be an EXACT fit, but my spider sense says those might be a good bet to fit with the least hassle. A luthier could also make an adaptor ring that would allow the use of any pickup that will fit within the body rout and ring footprint.


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Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 4:03 pm
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Guitarfixer said what was on this mind.


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