Possible materials to make a Stimer-Style Pickup

wildfire

I like the look and sound of the Stimer pickup, but I'll be damned if I spend $300 on one. It sounds good, but no pickup sounds $300 good. I do look how it looks though, with the kind of chrome finish, with the volume knob, the clip on the bottom, etc. I was wondering does anyone have any idea what would be a good casing for it? I was looking at some cigarette cases and I can't find one in the right size.

Basically I want to take a normal electric pickup and fit it in there with a volume knob.

Any ideas?

MichaelHorowitz

You might check out the Kirvo pickups which are a popular lower cost alternative:

http://shoppingcart.djangobooks.com/eco ... ckups.html

Just using a standard electric guitar pickup won't really work on a Gypsy guitar because the strings are made of silvered copper so the balance will be off. The pickup has to be wound so it will compensate for this or you'd have to string your Gypsy guitar with nickel strings.

-Michael

crookedpinky

The other thing to bear in mind is that a standard pickup is thicker/taller than a stimer so you'd need to mount it right in the soundhole - if you had a big enough soundhole. Or if you had enough clearance under the strings.

I had plans to build one from scratch just never got round to it - maybe later this summer. One major obstacle is the legendary low out put of the G string in particular. I have one of Duponts reissue Stimers and even though it's supposed to be wound in such a way to counteract this problem it doesnt do it very well.

Unless you use some kind of adjusting mechanism - a screw ( as in most humbuckers ) or a slug ( as in some Strats ) - you'll probably always get an imbalance. My plan was to have a specially shaped magnet with a raised section under the G string as I can't for the life of me see how you can adjust the actual winding.

The Krivo buckers look good and If it wasnt for import tax I'd buy one

crookedpinky

PS My STimer is semi permanently installed on a Dell Arte Pigalle strung with a mixture of strings - Argentines and electric - to try and balance out the G string issue

wildfire

I don't know if the balance is really that big of an issue This guy added a P90 to a cheap richwood, and it sounds fine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMhz_0Rs9Qw

Ithink a compressor pedal will help even it out if that is the case though.

crookedpinky

trust me it IS an issue. The P90 is a great choice as the Stimer is practically the same internally as a p90 - I know cos I took my Stimer apart - but I would imagine that the pole pieces on the Richwood mounted p90 have been adjusted to balance out the G string weakness and it's not obvious what kind of strings he's using.

The G string weakness has been well documented in this forum on numerous occasions with a number of solutions proposed including a compressor, an eq pedal, a plain G string or - the john jorgenson method - just live with it.

MichaelHorowitz

wildfire wrote:

I don't know if the balance is really that big of an issue This guy added a P90 to a cheap richwood, and it sounds fine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMhz_0Rs9Qw

Ithink a compressor pedal will help even it out if that is the case though.

1) He's probably using nickel strings which you wouldn't want to do unless you only play the guitar as an electric.

2) As a listener you don't notice the balance problem that much, but as a player it can drive you nuts. You'll see what I mean if you try to do this...



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MichaelHorowitz

crookedpinky wrote:

I have one of Duponts reissue Stimers and even though it's supposed to be wound in such a way to counteract this problem it doesnt do it very well.

It does work pretty well if you have low action and 11 gauge strings....if you mount it on your average Asian guitar then usually the action is a lot higher than a Dupont which will exaggerate the imbalance between the strings. On Duponts it works very well...


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wildfire

I just tried soldiering a pickup to an output jack on my acoustic dreadnought (which is strung with D'Addarrio Gypsy Jazz Lights, Silvers) . The pickup was one off an old harmony 70's guitar I had laying around and aside from the poor grounding, which is the result of either the pickup being bad or my horrible craftsmanship (most likely the latter), and it sounds fine run through a Roland Microcube. I just don't hear the G being too loud. I even tried out a Dean Markley Pro Mag pickup and that works too. This is precisely the reason I want to build my own Stimer Style pickup. $300 and it doesn't even work? Bozwollocks!

crookedpinky

The issue os not the G string being too loud with Stimers it's the opposite, it's too quiet.

Last night I fitted an Artec soundhole pickup with adjustable pole pieces to my Anastasio which has a round hole and it worked a treat. Sounded a bit more acoustic than the the Stimer but you could still push a valve amp into a bit of grunginess.

Alan