I think the McFeely 454 is getting some new pickups this week...

Mark Wein

Mark Wein

Grand Poobah
Staff member
I put some brass saddles on it this week to try and tame the spikiness. The guitar sounds beautiful acoustically but I think the mistake I made was not realizing that many of the korina guitars that I like had alnico II pickups in them, and not the alnico V like the Suhr DSV's that I have in it now. I was thinking of trying the Suhr Thornbucker II but they only have them with chrome covers and I'm not sure they'd fit in the body. I have good luck with the DUncan Antituities in my strats and the '59 in my Les Paul so I figured the Alnico Pro II were a good choice. The slash version seems to have less low end so I went with the original flavor. I'll report back next week. The Music Lilly saddles are great, btw: https://amzn.to/4hd2rLd





1738261044479.png
 
I hope the pup swap works out. If it still ends up with spikiness after the swap, you could look at tweaking the potentiometer values. As an example, a 500k ohm pot in the volume will make a pup sound brighter than a 400k ohm pot. You could lower the values of all the tone and volume pots to tame the pups. There is a way to alter a 500k pot, with added parts, so that it will, effectively, operate like a pot with a lower value.
 
Mark Wein said:
My buddy Scott turned me on to them. I hadn't known of them until just last week.
Click to expand...

I've used them for some things like pickguards, pickup screws, tools, and some other odds and ends. Not super high end stuff but decent quality for very reasonable prices. Guyker makes some decent oddball stuff when you need it... like I needed some burnt chrome knobs and hardware to match my burnt chrome Floyd Rose stuff.
 
Too lazy to airdrop a pic to my computer:

Screenshot 2025-02-02 at 1.28.46 PM.png


Since my "in house" tech Jacob did the soldering it worked flawlessly last night. It sounds so different from my other guitar I'm going to need a new preset for it. Much lower output and kind of scooped sounding. Still a little aggressive in the highs but much more manageable.
 
Also, I had to take both a chisel and a drill to the guitar. @telecaster911 did such an exact job cutting things to the exact parts I sent him that I had to widen the pickup slots and the holes for the volume and tone.


Now it is just a volume and 1 global tone, and there is a 5 way that does this:

  • full bridge humbucker
  • outside coils on both pickups
  • both pickups full humbucker
  • inside coils on both pickups
  • full neck humbucker.
I was in a hurry so I spent the money on this: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...prewired-hh-5-way-super-switch-wiring-harness

these is the pickup set: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...ncan-alnico-ii-pro-humbucker-pickup-black-set
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top