Rick tried out the Lace and the Q-Tuner pickups in the Klein variation guitar. He thought that the Lace pickups were too thin and bright if I remember correctly. We went with the Q-Tuners over the Bardens as I have a real Klein with Bardens already. We are going to use the Bardens in the baritone that he’s building for me now (which will have your bridge pieces!). The Lace pickups sit on my shelf at the moment with no home in sight.

I did just put a set of Jason Lollar Charlie Christian pickups in a Tele and am waiting to give that a try soon.

Hope you are well,
Al

Cheers,
Ola

-Al

I would point out that this is not an apples to apples comparison. The Langcasters are active pickups while the Alumitones are a passive pickup design. Pros and cons to be sure for each because of their respective approaches.

I then bought a set of the Lace Alumitone P90 style pickups and installed them. I found the Alumitone pickups sound was a little thin. The frequency spectrum was nearly flat-lined, but it just didn’t project anything special from the guitar.

With the solid ash body and hard maple fretboard I was expecting something more pronounced and fidelity-rich with the Alumitones. When not amplified this guitar has a bright full sound from the woods used, and the sustain is excellent for having a 6 screw whammy setup. I would think that the Alumitones should have picked up some of this great tone.

I was able to get some extra pinch harmonics, but it didn’t provide enough drive for the front end of either the amp nor the effect pedals. These are fairly good for direct mixer feed in a studio setting when recording, but I didn’t like them through the pedals or amp. Those who direct record may be happy with these. For a clean low gain sound they are just fine, kind of like Dano lipstick tubes without the hum.

I found that a decent graphics equalizer helps between the guitar and the pedal chain. An EQ box adds some gain and can adapt the sound somewhat to the chain. But really I just want that P90 sound back without all the hassle.

I’m going to eventually swap these out for some better P90′s, as the guitar itself feels good to me and the original stock P90′s had better P90 tone then the Alumitones. Probably all I really needed was to put some grounded shielding paint in all the cavities and keep the original stock P90′s, so I’ll look in that direction as a first step back.

Just a hunch… I would bet the Alumitones would perform better in other body woods, such as mahogany. The warmer woods may benefit using these. Ash and other bright woods should probably stick to the vintage pickup coil designs.

I’m sure curious about those Q-Tuners. I’d love to try a set in my fretless SX Jazz Bass… But the price, ouch!

The best pickup is the one you don’t hear

Q-Tuners are the leaders, being the first pickups to use neodymium magnets. Also known as “super-magnets”, their unique characteristics and high performance make them superior for sound reproduction applications.

We’ve invested over 25 years perfecting our patented symmetrical electromagnetic circuit to make Q-Tuners the best pickups available.

Our proprietary computer aided guidance system allows for perfect side-by-side alignment of the windings creating physically as well as electrically identical coils. These coils are then baked, permanently “thermofusing” the wires producing two solid self-carrying “air” coils. One neodymium bar magnet is placed in each aircoil before both are sealed in epoxy resin. This Q-Tuner “powerhouse” is insusceptible to feedback and 100% humbucking action is ensured.

We top it off by feeding this pure signal out through two 999 silver coil lead-outs, the best electrical conductor available.

I haven’t been able to find a good sound file that would help in getting a grip on the true sound of these pickups.

-Al

Seymour Duncan P-Rail Pickups

Something a cross between P90 and a single coil “strat” rail all in one pickup. With two of those, it’s easy to get lost in all options and variations you can have, full humbucker, only P90, only strat rail sound, out of phase, in phase, pararell and serial switching. They’re as large as a regular humbucker so their P90 size isn’t like a traditional P90 sized pickup. Whether they’re heavy or not, I don’t know. The combinations makes it good for an “all around” guitar to bring out at gigs. Maybe “strat quack” being the only sound missing from it.

I think, for a Klein body this makes an interesting option, since you may very well get rid of any middle pickup, but gain the sound you get from a middle pickup, since it gets quite tight and crowded in there anyway, with a 24 fret neck.

The larger ones seems to have the single-coil sized Alumitone flanked by “filler” metal to give it the right size. So I really do wonder what the “voicing” involves. I contacted Lace once upon a time with that very question but they didn’t have an answer for me. Either way, I’m thinking of a pair of P-90 sized ones for one of my workhorse guitars. They’ll probably look a bit out of place compared to plain ol’ black plastic, but there ya have it…