Pickups off the beaten track - Tarbacks

[Cirrus]

After a few years of a "Gotta catch 'em all" attitude towards pickups I calmed down a bit last year when I finally got a pair of ceramic magnet Filtertrons from the '90s for my Gretsch, following in the footsteps of Chris Cornell who's Japanese Duo Jet was all over Soundgardern's "Superunknown". These pickups get awesome gretschy cleans through to raw, nasty distortion.

And I *thought* I was also finished with the pickup roundabout on my beloved Gibson Explorer when I got a pair of mid-'70s T-tops early last year. But there was still one scratch left to itch: I wanted to know what Tarbacks sound like - the mysterious pickups fitted to Explorers, SGs, and occasionally 335s in the '70s. Totally encased in black epoxy and powered by the alien sounding "Indox 7" ceramic magnet.

Finally, I have my answer: They're pretty cool, and a bit weird.

 

[State of Epicicity]

Man, I gotta know more about their tone!

 

[dronerstone]

Currently waiting for a pair of DiMarzio K10's which I'm gonna put in one of my Ibanez Artists. They're the vintage OEM version of the Super 2 (DP104) and are usually found in old Hondo "Deluxe" guitars.

But dude, do those Gretsch's look swell.

 

[Cirrus]

Huh. Forgot about this thread.

Ok, so I've had some good times with these pickups.

They're really cool, I like pickups that have an obvious character. I believe these were among the first stock pickups to have calibrated neck and bridge winds - The T-tops that preceded this branching out were 7.5k neck and bridge.

Tarbacks were for the most part 7.5k bridge, and between 5 - 5.5k neck. T-top bobbins, I suspect the bridge ones are wound exactly the same as T-tops because I don't see why they'd have done something different. The indox 7 magnets are ceramic, but I don't think they're particularly strong judging by the output; honestly in overall signal strength there's not much in it between these and T-tops which are short a5.

The sound is interesting; Bridge has the usual PAF-like mid honk around 1kHz, but less compression and more attack. The bass is a little thicker than a T-top/PAF style, and the low mids are tighter, less wooly and woofy. The neck is a departure. This one is 5.3k. It's tight, clear, scooped almost like a single coil if it wasn't for the bass thickness. There's basically no change in the low mids when you switch between neck and bridge, so it's not like T-tops/ PAFs where you get this big slab of WHOMPF around 200-300hz when switching to neck. In that sense they're nicely balanced, but the upper mid scoop makes them drastically different. You can do funk strumming on the neck position and get great sparkling stabs.

Middle position is really cool, too - you get such a big hollow tone, think spaghetti western or surf vibes.

Distorted the bridge rocks fantastically, tight but balanced, great tracking on the low strings in chords. The neck gets meaner and gnarly, in that sense it's kind of filtertron/firebird-esque, though it does have a humbucker bass.

 

[FuzzyAce]

Huh. Forgot about this thread.

Ok, so I've had some good times with these pickups.

They're really cool, I like pickups that have an obvious character. I believe these were among the first stock pickups to have calibrated neck and bridge winds - The T-tops that preceded this branching out were 7.5k neck and bridge.

Tarbacks were for the most part 7.5k bridge, and between 5 - 5.5k neck. T-top bobbins, I suspect the bridge ones are wound exactly the same as T-tops because I don't see why they'd have done something different. The indox 7 magnets are ceramic, but I don't think they're particularly strong judging by the output; honestly in overall signal strength there's not much in it between these and T-tops which are short a5.

The sound is interesting; Bridge has the usual PAF-like mid honk around 1kHz, but less compression and more attack. The bass is a little thicker than a T-top/PAF style, and the low mids are tighter, less wooly and woofy. The neck is a departure. This one is 5.3k. It's tight, clear, scooped almost like a single coil if it wasn't for the bass thickness. There's basically no change in the low mids when you switch between neck and bridge, so it's not like T-tops/ PAFs where you get this big slab of WHOMPF around 200-300hz when switching to neck. In that sense they're nicely balanced, but the upper mid scoop makes them drastically different. You can do funk strumming on the neck position and get great sparkling stabs.

Middle position is really cool, too - you get such a big hollow tone, think spaghetti western or surf vibes.

Distorted the bridge rocks fantastically, tight but balanced, great tracking on the low strings in chords. The neck gets meaner and gnarly, in that sense it's kind of filtertron/firebird-esque, though it does have a humbucker bass.

Funny, I was just thinking yesterday how I hadn't seen you post around here in a while.
Do you also build your own pickups? Seems like you'd be into that based on your microphone build thread.

BTW, did you finish that album you and the band had been working on? I'd still love to check it out.

 

[dronerstone]

Currently waiting for a pair of DiMarzio K10's which I'm gonna put in one of my Ibanez Artists. They're the vintage OEM version of the Super 2 (DP104) and are usually found in old Hondo "Deluxe" guitars.

But dude, do those Gretsch's look swell.

Installed these last week, and I'm super happy with the outcome. Will post pics in the guitar thread later today, if I find the time!

 

[Cirrus]

Funny, I was just thinking yesterday how I hadn't seen you post around here in a while.
Do you also build your own pickups? Seems like you'd be into that based on your microphone build thread.

BTW, did you finish that album you and the band had been working on? I'd still love to check it out.

Nah, it's not done yet. At the start of the year I was aiming to be mixing in April, but then we spent May-August kind of, if I'm being honest, just mucking about working on gigs and new ideas, but also having regular sessions with a local Violin player who contributed parts to 6 songs, slowed down by her having a bad car crash in late June.

Then I quite deliberately stopped thinking about it at all until 3 weeks ago, so I could approach it fresh. So at the moment I'm in the middle of mixing 11 tracks. Things go so much slower now I'm a parent because I can't ever just sack everything off and spend every evening and weekend mixing like I used to.

 

[Cirrus]

On pickups - no, thought I've got a mate in Melbourne who does and keeps telling me to get a winding machine.

 

[FuzzyAce]

Nah, it's not done yet. At the start of the year I was aiming to be mixing in April, but then we spent May-August kind of, if I'm being honest, just mucking about working on gigs and new ideas, but also having regular sessions with a local Violin player who contributed parts to 6 songs, slowed down by her having a bad car crash in late June.

Then I quite deliberately stopped thinking about it at all until 3 weeks ago, so I could approach it fresh. So at the moment I'm in the middle of mixing 11 tracks. Things go so much slower now I'm a parent because I can't ever just sack everything off and spend every evening and weekend mixing like I used to.

Life happens! I understand, it can be a juggling act with priorities.

On pickups - no, thought I've got a mate in Melbourne who does and keeps telling me to get a winding machine.

I've dabbled with the thought myself, may do it at some point. Another rabbit hole to go down.