Tonerider pickups..

[corsair]

hey there, gang..

... re-visiting an old project and looking at repowering a single h/b, 1V 1T w/coil split with a Tonerider ACII Classic because I'm looking for a slightly underwound sound - about 8kΩ, as opposed to the 12kΩ one that's in there presently -, and the specs look pretty damn good... as does the price! I've used premium priced pickups before - SD and Bareknuckle - and found that they really aren't worth hundreds of dollars more than say, Kent Armstrongs!! YMMV, of course!!

So. Anyone got anything to say about Toneriders?? I believe you cannot have too much information in these cases, so let's hear you!!

Second question. The ACII is a 4 wire pickup, so can I put in the coil split AND a series/parallel switch? Working it out on paper suggests I can, and I've checked a manufacturers website which also says I can: does anyone in here know for sure if it's a go-er?

Thanks troops!!

John

[stan]

Hey John, welcome.
Toneriders seem to get great reviews here, I doubt you'd go wrong with them.
Member Wierdbits is the wiring guru, but what you suggest sounds pretty doable

[corsair]

Cheers, man - I'll wait for the man to put me right!!

[robin]

Hi John, and welcome to the forums.

I put some Toneriders (can't remember the model) in an early Strat build of mine and then compared it to a $2.5k real Strat of a good friend of mine. We used his Marshall amp to get as good a comparison as we could and by the time you unplugged his guitar and plugged in my PBG we found it hard to pick any difference if any at all. He had new strings on his Fender and mine were a few months old at the time and we put the difference down to that. I know we're talking single coils here, but it proved to me that Toneriders are good value for the money.

I have also put AC4 HB's in a Tele thinline and a HSH strat and have been equally happy with them. I coil split the HSH but have not tried a series/parallel switch so can't comment.

Hope this helps.

rob

[pablopepper]

I've used Rocksongs, Hot classics and Precision plus. You won't be disappointed. Best bang for buck pickups out there, I reckon.

[wokkaboy]

Hi John welcome to the forum, I've used Toneriders on a few builds and recommend them good value for money.
Weirdbits the resident wiring guru will help you do a coil split and series/parallel wiring diagram that will be possible to do.

[Dedman]

I have Tone Riders in a Tele and their P90's in a LP, can't fault either

[Muzza]

I have Tone Riders in a Tele and their P90's in a LP, can't fault either

Are the Tonerider P90's very noisy?

[Simon Barden]

Are the Tonerider P90's very noisy?

Any straight P-90 is going to pick up a lot more noise than a humbucker, and more noise than a thin single coil like a Strat's. With its wide flat coils it's probably the pickup most prone to noise out there, which is why there have been a lot of dual-stacked versions in order to reduce the noise levels. Gibson's own attempt, the P-100, was quiet but didn't have the P-90 sound. Most of the double stacked versions are significantly deeper than the normal P-90s, so may not fit in guitars with thinner bodies.

My first P-90 equipped guitar was a Gibson LP DC faded (i.e. a cheap double cut LP special) and that was very noisy. I shielded the cavities and that helped a bit, but the lack of metal covers on most P-90s allows a lot of noise in. A friend has an old ES-330 with metal dog-ear P-90s, and he's never noticed undue noise. It seems a shame to me that manufacturers don't offer metal covers options for soap-bar P90s. They could still paint them black or cream and have them look like the plastic versions. The humbucker sized P-90s invariably come with a metal cover and benefit from the increased shielding, so why can't the normal ones?

Of course the amount of noise is going to depend on how much electrical noise there is in the location where it's being played, so for somewhere with minimal electric/electronics, they could be as quiet as anything else.

The Tonerider vintage P-90 set is a RWRP set, so are hum-cancelling in the 'both pups on' position. It's not stated on their website whether the Hot 90 set is, but being hotter, will probably also pick up a bit more noise.

[WeirdBits]

Yep, easy to do, a single On/On/On mini-toggle will allow you to have series/split/parallel. Alternatively, two push/pull pots can give you humbucker/split on one and series/parallel on the other... or, the two push/pulls can be inter-linked to give you 4 options: humbucker series, humbucker parallel, north single coil, south single coil.