Fralin minis and firebirds

[Bellyheart]

http://www.fralinpickups.com/mini_humbuckers.asp

Just visited the shop last week and he had me play these things. They sound amazing. I was convinced it would be dark and muffled but the amount of clarity is incredible. Sounded so full and had great output. Makes me want a guitar that has mini humbuckers.

[HorseyBoy]

Which ones did you play, the mini humbuckers or the Firebird pups? Turns out they're very different things. I got completely obsessed with them when I was hustling up some vintage-spec pups for my 1990 Firebird (the stock ceramic pups Gibson still use in them are really harsh and shrill - very high output). Ended up getting a set of Zhangbucker Firebird pups which completely transformed the sound of the guitar and learned a lot more about pickup design along the way.
Great article by Jason Lollar here: http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/H ... Humbuckers
And another on his blog: http://www.lollarguitars.com/blog/2012/ ... g-in-tone/

A mini-humbucker is made like a miniature PAF pickup: it has one bar magnet positioned under each coil, with adjustable pole pieces made out of a ferrous alloy; the other coil contains a ferrous metal bar that is not adjustable. This corresponds to a PAF with adjustable poles in one coil and a series of metal slugs in the other coil.

A Firebird on the other hand, has a bar magnet in each coil. Each coil is wound around a bar magnet, one coil is south up and the other is north up. The inductance properties of steel and alnico magnet grades are very different. Also the magnetic field shape and size are different between the mini-humbucker and the Firebird.

Firebird pups are a lot brighter than PAF-style humbuckers and minis. They're really clear and way twangier than you'd expect. A lot of people describe the sound as like "a pissed-off Telecaster", which is pretty accurate.

[Bellyheart]

That's how Lindy described them. I played both the minis and the firebird. I preferred the firebirds but the minis were also great, but the firebirds had more chime and clarity, which is what I prefer

[HorseyBoy]

Saw on OSG that Musician's Friend has new USA Firebirds for $1,100 or so, which is as cheap as they're likely to get:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitars/ ... ric-guitar

You could always whack a set of proper Firebird pups in one of those