Drew
Forum MVP
Ok, so I've been playing a custom-wound single-coil in my Universe for about a week and some change now, courtesy of out very own Frank Falbo. I gather (and Frank, you should confirm or deny this) this one started life as a Blaze humbucker before he split it and rewound it as two seperate coils.
As a disclaimer, I've never particularly cared for the Blaze singlecoil. It's fairly sterile and dry, and just uninspiring. So, the standard to which this one's getting compared is pretty low. That said, this thing sounds night and day different from the Blaze. It's a little brighter, much more open sounding, very dynamically responsive, and has a great strat-like "clang" to the attack. While the Blaze has a very powerful, almost humbucker like midrange, this pickup has a light scoop to it, again reminiscent of a good Stratocaster pickup. If we follow the Dimarzio example of the Blaze being 7-5-4.5, I'd say the Falbo is an 8-3-5.
Clean, I'm split about 50/50 on the midrange but the extra sparkle from the Falbo single gives it the edge, especially in that "in between" position - get the slightest hint of grit on your clean tone and you're in instant SRV-does-Little Wing territory, way more so than I ever expected from a basswood-bodied seven. Distorted, however, this thing DESTROYS the Blaze. Betwen the slight midrange scoop (read - clarity) and the added extra upper harmonics (read - explosiveness), this thing just screams. It's defined, it's rich, it's clear, and it's just alive. It's a very touch-sensitive pickup - pick gently and it's nice and dark, dig in and there's this great explosive SRV-esq attack. I found myself paying much more attention to my picking attack than normal, intentionally pushing the extremes, because this pickup was useable in all of them and could actually keep up. Start doing bends with heavy guage strings and really raking and hitting the strings, and your guitar just wails in this most satisfying manner.
As for the other details... Output's actually pretty similar between the two, and if anything the Falbo may hum slightly less than the Blaze.
Really, I'm impressed. Pickups are rather incomprehensible to me, and to be able to wind one on one's own, much less to be able to make one that outpreforms a popular existing pickup by so much, just leaves me dumbfounded. I'm a big single-coil fan, a strat player from way back, and to be able to get lively, organic single coil sounds from my Universe for the first time just makes me grin whenever I pick my guitar up.
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Thumbnail review:
Strengths: honest-to-god strat tone from a seven. Excels in semi-dirty and dirty tones.
Weaknesses: Isn't creme-colored.
Clips:
Blaze single
Frank Falbo single
(note - the above two clips were cut with a cranked treble and scooped mid amp setting I'd dialed up for an overdum on a song I was working up that, in my excitement, I forgot to change. You can stil hear the radical difference in tone, but sometime I'll have to post a proper clean clip of the falbo. In the meantime, the distortion tone is my normal lead sound. AKG C1000 3" back and ~45 degrees off axis, pointed at the cone.)
song sketch demo w/. Falbo Single
(rough as hell demo, mostly to practice micing up my acoustic and recording in sonar. Same mic settings as the clips above, as I recall)
Picture: http://www.drewpeterson.org/images/UVwithFalbo.JPG
As a disclaimer, I've never particularly cared for the Blaze singlecoil. It's fairly sterile and dry, and just uninspiring. So, the standard to which this one's getting compared is pretty low. That said, this thing sounds night and day different from the Blaze. It's a little brighter, much more open sounding, very dynamically responsive, and has a great strat-like "clang" to the attack. While the Blaze has a very powerful, almost humbucker like midrange, this pickup has a light scoop to it, again reminiscent of a good Stratocaster pickup. If we follow the Dimarzio example of the Blaze being 7-5-4.5, I'd say the Falbo is an 8-3-5.
Clean, I'm split about 50/50 on the midrange but the extra sparkle from the Falbo single gives it the edge, especially in that "in between" position - get the slightest hint of grit on your clean tone and you're in instant SRV-does-Little Wing territory, way more so than I ever expected from a basswood-bodied seven. Distorted, however, this thing DESTROYS the Blaze. Betwen the slight midrange scoop (read - clarity) and the added extra upper harmonics (read - explosiveness), this thing just screams. It's defined, it's rich, it's clear, and it's just alive. It's a very touch-sensitive pickup - pick gently and it's nice and dark, dig in and there's this great explosive SRV-esq attack. I found myself paying much more attention to my picking attack than normal, intentionally pushing the extremes, because this pickup was useable in all of them and could actually keep up. Start doing bends with heavy guage strings and really raking and hitting the strings, and your guitar just wails in this most satisfying manner.
As for the other details... Output's actually pretty similar between the two, and if anything the Falbo may hum slightly less than the Blaze.
Really, I'm impressed. Pickups are rather incomprehensible to me, and to be able to wind one on one's own, much less to be able to make one that outpreforms a popular existing pickup by so much, just leaves me dumbfounded. I'm a big single-coil fan, a strat player from way back, and to be able to get lively, organic single coil sounds from my Universe for the first time just makes me grin whenever I pick my guitar up.
**********************
Thumbnail review:
Strengths: honest-to-god strat tone from a seven. Excels in semi-dirty and dirty tones.
Weaknesses: Isn't creme-colored.
Clips:
Blaze single
Frank Falbo single
(note - the above two clips were cut with a cranked treble and scooped mid amp setting I'd dialed up for an overdum on a song I was working up that, in my excitement, I forgot to change. You can stil hear the radical difference in tone, but sometime I'll have to post a proper clean clip of the falbo. In the meantime, the distortion tone is my normal lead sound. AKG C1000 3" back and ~45 degrees off axis, pointed at the cone.)
song sketch demo w/. Falbo Single
(rough as hell demo, mostly to practice micing up my acoustic and recording in sonar. Same mic settings as the clips above, as I recall)
Picture: http://www.drewpeterson.org/images/UVwithFalbo.JPG
I'm still trying to get my technique up to where I want it to be, before immortalizing it for all time, etc., but I'm making progress and demoing out ideas in the meantime. In other words, I'm probably making more progress on mine than our friendly neighborhood Adminishredder can say about his... 
News Flash for Drew: We're all trying to get our technique up to where we want it to be. I could point out tons of boo boos on my CD, but what's the point? It was fine for where I was at in life. I could point out even more in the recent song I did, but you know what? I'm just not as critical as I used to be. I had a lot more fun with Funkytown than I've ever had, it took far less time, and I enjoy listening to it.
