Pickup question

[batterypowered]

Howdy, I was wondering if anyone had any good info about the pickups on the Fender Electric XII. It's been a favourite of mine, and I'm going to be modifying an old Ibanez that's been ripped apart for years, and making it a 12-banger electric. I know that Seymour Duncan made some pickups like it a few years back, but I haven't been able to find more than that. I think they're a split single-coil. Any help is appreciated!

 

Here's a pic for reference:

http://guitargeek.com/gear/img/fender_XII.gif

[njrocker]

"The Fender Electric XII. Introduced in late 1965, this model had unusual split pickups , much like a Precision bass." Well, the pickup on a P-Bass is a humbucker, having two pole-pieces per string. But the pickups on the electric XII look like they're of the lace-sensor type, and i don't think fender made any hum-bucking sensors. The electric XII pickups look a lot like the mustang bass pickups too, and those are single-coils.(With its signature body shape, 30" scale length and split single coil pickup, the reissue Fender Mustang bass is virtually identical to the model that was originally made in 1964.) But then again, a guy on harmony-central said they were "hum-cancelling pickups." another harmony-central dude said they "sound like jaguar pickups," which are single-coils. So, i'm not sure which they are. i've heard they don't do well with distortion, but i've also heard that they're "good for power-chordy stuff." (i think they do well with both clean and OD- you just have to mess with the tone knobs.) and oh, good luck finding them for sale.

[Blue Strat]

I think that they're single coil. I'd go with blade pickups, because you wouldn't have to worry so much about the pole-pieces not lining up right with the strings.

[njrocker]

batterypowered,

 

let us know when you finish that gui-tar! just wondrin, what type of music are you planning to play with it? i've always thought twelve-strings were cool, but i don't know what you do with an electric one.

[Caevan O’Shite]

Like the pickups on a Fender Precion Bass, they can actually be wired to perform in a variety of ways. You can wire them so that they are hum-cancelling, and still have a very characteristic, "single-coil" sound.

 

Obviously, they're "double-coils", no matter how you wire them; there're two coils there, right? Albeit one for the lower-three strings, and one for the higher-three.

 

Remember a few years back, when PRS had a guitar out with Lindy Fralin pickups in it? Those were sort of like these, only with the two coils put in one housing, and arranged like a P-bass' pickup.

 

Wire up the two coils of each pair for all series/parallel and in-phase/out-of-phase combinations, and you'll get a lot of different tones and volume-outputs from them. Off of the top of my head, I believe that two of the possible combinations would be hum-canceling; one would be somewhat "humbucker"-sounding, and one would sound more "single-coil". I'll have to bone-up on that, though, and when I get around to it I'll post back!

[batterypowered]

Originally posted by njrocker:

batterypowered,

 

let us know when you finish that gui-tar! just wondrin, what type of music are you planning to play with it? i've always thought twelve-strings were cool, but i don't know what you do with an electric one.

I don't know what I'd play with it... I'm prone to make a lot of noise with whatever is in my hands. ;D I'm not really set up to practice much or seriously write right now, since I'm in the middle of finding a new place, so time will tell.

[Guitar Geezer]

For what it's worth, Jaime found this in one of his old guitar books

http://www.teamtatham.com/lynntest/fender12.jpg

LynnG