Mojotone Quiet Coil Pickups?

[Jethro]

Just reading about these more recent Quiet Coil Pickups that Mojotone is putting out

Anyone familiar with these??? I've been looking for a good noiseless P90 style for a while and these sound somewhat intriguing.

Here's the link I came across

http://www.mojotone.com/Pickups_x/P-90Pickups_x/Mojotone-56-Quiet-Coil-P-90-Soapbar-Pickup

 

[PumpJockey]

Cheaper (slightly) than the Fralin noiseless. I have used the latter with success. If they are done the same way they should sound good.

 

[Antigua Tele]

I found an article on the "Quiet Coil" scheme http://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/mojotone-quiet-coil

This is in reference to the Strat version, but it's most likely the case that the P-90 is using a similar design approach.

Quiet Coil designer David Shepherd has taken the very simple approach of using the same 42-gauge Heavy Formvar wire and Alnico magnets as a real vintage Strat pickup and configuring them as two tall, narrow coils, each with half the normal DC resistance. A series connection between the coils restores the combined DC resistance to typical single-coil values (5.8kΩ in the ‘58 model and 5.6kΩ in the ‘67 model), while a reversed winding and reversed magnetic polarity in one of the coils creates the hum-cancelling effect. The visible ‘pole pieces’, complete with ‘high-G’ vintage magnet stagger, actually don’t do anything at all; they are purely to maintain a conventional appearance. Some people may balk at this being purely cosmetic inclusion with no actual function at all but I must admit, I rather like it; Strats somehow don’t look ‘right’ without conventional pole pieces to me. ...

I tested a ‘58 Quiet Coil set — 5.8kΩ neck and middle pickups with a 6.2kΩ bridge unit — mounted on a Mojotone pre-assembled pickguard, using the recommended 500kΩ volume pot (don’t be tempted to try to make do with your existing 250kΩ pot: 500kΩ does seem to be necessary to get the proper voicing of the pickup). Tonally, I found them to be remarkably Strat-like: crisp and articulate, but never harsh, and without the compressed dynamics that many stack designs exhibit. When you’ve experienced a lot of different pickup designs, you know when the resonant peak — the sonic signature of the pickup — is in the right place, and the Quiet Coils have very much got that right.

These Strat versions are very similar to a DiMarzio Fast Track 1 then (link removed) , DC resistance of 5.78k ohms in series. A rail humbucker with electrical values that place it near a generic Strat pickup. Mojotone claims they made sure to get the DC resistance, resonant peak and inductance the same as a typical Strat pickups, and if that's true, I applaud them for taking the electrical aspects of a guitar pickups seriously, in the age of voodoo scatter winding magic. I'd also not necessarily believe they perfectly matched the resonant peak and inductance because they have not published these details, which makes me skeptical. Again, this is a "sounds good, is good" market. If they sound Strat-like, they're probably close enough, anyway.

So of course, the pole pieces are cosmetic. I actually really like the cosmetic pole pieces, and I've email Lace and communicated with Zexcoil about creating pickups that use their designs under the hood, but appear vintage correct over the top, and neither seemed interested. I guess they really prize their distinctive look and just can't let go of it, even though they're operating in a market that values vintage appearance to a fault. The P-90 version, I'd assume, is therefore similar to a regular humbucker with cosmetic screws, and probably steel blades or slugs for coil cores, like an EMG pickups is, below the plastic. Usually a PAF would have an inductance of 5H, where as a P-90 is closer to 7H, it's likely that these amount to "overwound" humbuckers that achieve closer to 7H for a P-90 like electrical response.

Since the pole pieces as fake, and there are likely steel blades in the coils, it has low gauss at the strings, rather that actual, powerful alnico pole pieces. That's probably going to make for a softer tone, like an aged pickup that as lost gauss due to the passage of time. They claim:

he manufacturer’s notes suggest you can adjust the Quiet Coils closer to the strings than a normal single-coil without side-effects, partly because of the lower Gauss magnets, but also because you have both polarities in close proximity, effectively both pushing and pulling the strings at the same time, rather than just pulling.

This is actually false. The pickup DOES NOT push against the string. The guitar string is steel, steel is permeable, the magnet pulls the string, regardless of polarity.

The real reason you can get it close to the string is because the gauss is just weak, as it is with anoy humbucker. Any humbucker with steel blades, screws or slugs can be positioned close to the strings.

The Quiet Coils are very good at resisting induced noise picked up by the coils — they are actually better than most full-size side-by-side humbuckers, due to the tighter proximity of the coils —

False. Any noise source is far enough away that it doesn't matter. The proximity of the coils doesn't reduce noise, all other things being equal, their relative orientation to noise source does.

I think their marketting pitch is overblown, though. They say "Mojotone's patent applied for '56 Quiet Coil hum-cancelling", note that this means a patent hasn't been granted and might never be.

And then there's this

http://www.mojotone.com/Pickups_x/P-90Pickups_x/Mojotone-56-Quiet-Coil-P-90-Soapbar-Pickup

No PC boards, batteries, stacked coils, or anything else associated with other hum-canceling pickups were used in our design.

Orly?

http://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/mojotone-quiet-coil

Unlike the majority of noiseless single-coil designs, these utilise side-by-side coils, rather than the commonly favoured stacked-coil configuration — effectively, they are a conventional humbucking design.

These companies really do take guitarists for suckers. Nearly all of them. I can't think of a single one that is wholly honest in how they market guitar pickups.

Consistent scatterwound coils for that handwound tone, sensitivity, and clarity.

Isn't "consistent scatterwound" a contradiction of terms? Who cares. Buzz words. Just buy the damn things.

 

[Zepfan]

They're consistently inconsistently wound.

 

[CFFF]

So would it be okay to call em P90 humbuckers?

 

[Antigua Tele]

Assuming that the P-90 is a side-by-side humbucker like the Strat version, then essentially it is just a mini humbucker with P-90 clothing, with the side assurance that they took some pains to make it electrically equivalent to a P-90. To market a humbucker as though it's a totally new, unprecedented way to achieve hum cancelling is deceptive, to say the very least. They know their customers, though. Most people who buy guitar pickups are demographically not much different than people who spend $50 on a Monster cable.

 

[CFFF]

Thank you, @Antigua Tele. Pretty much my thoughts too. Sheep are there to be fleeced, I guess.

 

[MojoTone]

I found an article on the "Quiet Coil" scheme http://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/mojotone-quiet-coil

This is in reference to the Strat version, but it's most likely the case that the P-90 is using a similar design approach.



These Strat versions are very similar to a DiMarzio Fast Track 1 then (link removed) , DC resistance of 5.78k ohms in series. A rail humbucker with electrical values that place it near a generic Strat pickup. Mojotone claims they made sure to get the DC resistance, resonant peak and inductance the same as a typical Strat pickups, and if that's true, I applaud them for taking the electrical aspects of a guitar pickups seriously, in the age of voodoo scatter winding magic. I'd also not necessarily believe they perfectly matched the resonant peak and inductance because they have not published these details, which makes me skeptical. Again, this is a "sounds good, is good" market. If they sound Strat-like, they're probably close enough, anyway.

So of course, the pole pieces are cosmetic. I actually really like the cosmetic pole pieces, and I've email Lace and communicated with Zexcoil about creating pickups that use their designs under the hood, but appear vintage correct over the top, and neither seemed interested. I guess they really prize their distinctive look and just can't let go of it, even though they're operating in a market that values vintage appearance to a fault. The P-90 version, I'd assume, is therefore similar to a regular humbucker with cosmetic screws, and probably steel blades or slugs for coil cores, like an EMG pickups is, below the plastic. Usually a PAF would have an inductance of 5H, where as a P-90 is closer to 7H, it's likely that these amount to "overwound" humbuckers that achieve closer to 7H for a P-90 like electrical response.

Since the pole pieces as fake, and there are likely steel blades in the coils, it has low gauss at the strings, rather that actual, powerful alnico pole pieces. That's probably going to make for a softer tone, like an aged pickup that as lost gauss due to the passage of time. They claim:



This is actually false. The pickup DOES NOT push against the string. The guitar string is steel, steel is permeable, the magnet pulls the string, regardless of polarity.

The real reason you can get it close to the string is because the gauss is just weak, as it is with anoy humbucker. Any humbucker with steel blades, screws or slugs can be positioned close to the strings.



False. Any noise source is far enough away that it doesn't matter. The proximity of the coils doesn't reduce noise, all other things being equal, their relative orientation to noise source does.

I think their marketting pitch is overblown, though. They say "Mojotone's patent applied for '56 Quiet Coil hum-cancelling", note that this means a patent hasn't been granted and might never be.

And then there's this

http://www.mojotone.com/Pickups_x/P-90Pickups_x/Mojotone-56-Quiet-Coil-P-90-Soapbar-Pickup


Orly?

http://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/mojotone-quiet-coil


These companies really do take guitarists for suckers. Nearly all of them. I can't think of a single one that is wholly honest in how they market guitar pickups.



Isn't "consistent scatterwound" a contradiction of terms? Who cares. Buzz words. Just buy the damn things.

Hmmm... Let me clarify any misconceptions. First of all we are not in the business of trying to mislead our customers. If that were the case there would be all kinds of negative reviews online from the thousands of people who have bought our products, and we would be out of business pretty fast. Let's be real, bad news travels much faster than good!

Our product details are true. Yes we did match the inductance and frequency response of a single coil, and yes we do consistently scatterwind our coils by programming a CNC winding machine to randomly layer the coil with the same pattern every time.

In regards to some of the statements you quoted above from soundonsound, they are an online magazine that bought our pickups and did their own review. We didn't pay for it or have anything to do with what they said so I would take what they say as someone's else's point of view and not Mojotone.

I get there is tons of smoke and mirrors out there which can muddy the water, but I suggest you try our pickups and judge for yourself before assuming anything. That way you can have an informed opinion without giving off misinformation about other companies and their products.

 

[Derek Kiernan]

What is unique about the design?

 

[Antigua Tele]

Hmmm... Let me clarify any misconceptions. First of all we are not in the business of trying to mislead our customers. If that were the case there would be all kinds of negative reviews online from the thousands of people who have bought our products, and we would be out of business pretty fast. Let's be real, bad news travels much faster than good!

Our product details are true. Yes we did match the inductance and frequency response of a single coil, and yes we do consistently scatterwind our coils by programming a CNC winding machine to randomly layer the coil with the same pattern every time.

In regards to some of the statements you quoted above from soundonsound, they are an online magazine that bought our pickups and did their own review. We didn't pay for it or have anything to do with what they said so I would take what they say as someone's else's point of view and not Mojotone.

I get there is tons of smoke and mirrors out there which can muddy the water, but I suggest you try our pickups and judge for yourself before assuming anything. That way you can have an informed opinion without giving off misinformation about other companies and their products.

Thanks for representing in this thread.

Per your product pages:
http://www.mojotone.com/Pickups_x/P-90Pickups_x/Mojotone-56-Quiet-Coil-P-90-Soapbar-Pickup and http://www.mojotone.com/Pickups_x/StratocasterPickups_x/Mojotone-58-Quiet-Coil-Strat-Pickup

No PC boards, batteries, stacked coils, or anything else associated with other hum-canceling pickups were used in our design.

If these pickups are in fact side-by-side humbuckers, I don't think you should make the statement above, as this is a ubiquitous design paradigm that dates back to the early 1950's.

I think there is virtue in your product in that it looks vintage correct, which is unique for a non-stack humbucker design. The only other products I know if that do this are the Lace Holy Grail and the Fender Split Coil 55. There are plenty of good things to be said about these pickups, based on what I understand about them.

Thanks for confirming that you went the extra mile to verify the matching inductance and resonant peaks, and for even acknowledging their importance in pickup design.

I still think "randomly layer the coil with the same pattern every time" is a contradiction of words, but semantics aside, as a tester of guitar pickups, I appreciate the fact that imperfect layering reduces coil capacitance, regardless of whether it is a random or a fixed pattern. I have measures a lot of Tonerider's pickups and have found that their scatter-CNC wound pickups have a lower capacitance than machine wound pickups from Fender and elsewhere.

 

[MojoTone]

What is unique about the design?

I think the fact that we stay simple and stick as close to actual single coil attributes as possible makes our design unique. Things like using Alnico magnets, proper gauge coil wire, proper inductance and frequency response, no routing or batteries required, all while maintaining the proper size and look of a single coil makes ours pretty unique as well. Most importantly, it's all about sounding and feeling right which is unique as well

 

[Derek Kiernan]

Yes, but which part is unique? I'm glad you considered inductance, but I'm sure players are interested in how you're differentiating it from side by side designs done for decades.

 

[Rob DiStefano]

mojotone "quiet coils" are just that - a pair of coils, not a single coil. there is no known way to build a passive single coil transducer en toto that won't suck in rf noise and emit some measure of humbuzz. it will take an additional coil - dummy or magnetic - to kill some or a lot of the humbuzz. there is an art to designing a noisefree pickup that will have s single coil type sound. mojotone's "quiet coils" do that quite well.

 

[Jethro]

Wow....I believe I have started something

 

[Rob DiStefano]

nothing started but a rendering of the truth, and the truth shall set you free. hopefully. maybe.

 

[tooloud]

I ordered at set to put in my new 2017 tribute les paul I want to gig with this guitar
since you never know how bad the power will be Ill try these, the crowd wont know the difference.
If your a good player these will sound good I'm sure..... I will get them soon and see.

 

[LKNJ]

I ordered at set to put in my new 2017 tribute les paul I want to gig with this guitar
since you never know how bad the power will be Ill try these, the crowd wont know the difference.
If your a good player these will sound good I'm sure..... I will get them soon and see.

I just finished a partscaster with noiseless p90s, and sadly the pickups I installed aren't very good. So, I'm very interested in any feedback you might have on these.

 

[Jethro]

I ordered at set to put in my new 2017 tribute les paul I want to gig with this guitar
since you never know how bad the power will be Ill try these, the crowd wont know the difference.
If your a good player these will sound good I'm sure..... I will get them soon and see.

Yes, please report back on these....very seriously thinking of trying them in my SG

 

[tooloud]

I will be taking this Les Paul to A gig Today, I got this guitar for live playing I'm not realy a p90
purist so i will see if I like it live, at the house at home levels it sounds great and dead quite.

 

[tooloud]

So I played this guitar at the gig, now first of all I am mainly a fender type guitar player
so just playing this les paul is a little funny feeling and like I said above I am nor a P90 Purist
so don't know how a purist would think these pickups sound, I think they sound killer and
quiet I like them they stay in for Now.