Pickups for 12 string ?

[totnesdave]

Hi again :)

Still enjoying my Slowhand BKP set on my Strat, but here's another poser to ponder.....

Just purchased a 12 string electric very cheaply on eBay from a seller in Germany, a really nice little guitar with delightful fretboard and edge inlays and really rather cute :) A real bargain, brand new for 126 quid, I think :) Set neck, carved top, mahogany stained type back, works for me :)

Thumbnail here, click to enlarge :)



Now, it has a pair of ho-hum 'les paul' style humbuckers fitted, albeit without polepieces, which do the job for now, but they do lack that jangle which is nice to have with an electric 12, and thus are making me think of future embellishments !

I was wondering what my best options are for sparkling it up, are there any particular special requirements for 12 strings...must they be 'blade' style pickups etc ?

I was looking at the 'Mississippi Queen', humbucker style P90 drop-ins ... they have got my attention for sure :)

Any thoughts and advice welcome, I know very little about 12 strings, it's all new territory to me !

cheers

Dave.

[MrBump]

Nothing constructive to say, apart from the fact that I LOVE that guitar!

[AndyR]

Wow! Looks very nice.

Not a lot to say, cos I've no 12 string experience either.

But I'd assume that as long as the string pairs sit where singles would, then I'd guess that standard pickups would be fine.

Not sure about MQs - my experience is they're quite fat. But I've only tried them in solid mahogany.

If I'd just acquired it, my first thought would be "Stormy Mondays" and then come on here and ask - I'd probably want to email Tim on this one as well, it might even be that a custom wound MQ, less hot, might be where I'd want to go.

I'm assuming the current pickups are standard humbucker size?

[Chris Rowberry]

I think you are on the right track with the Mississippi Queen. Although the Mississippi Queen can sound quite fat at the end of the day it is still a single coil so you will still get some of that "jangle". The fatness of it may not be such a bad thing since 12 strings are normally quite high end anyway so having a Mississippi Queen in it would give you some more bottom end but also being a single coil it would still retain a good jangle to it too.

Other then that i would say you should look into Stormy Mondays. Stormy Mondays will give you a nice clean brisk/jangly sound with plenty of clarity but will also sound smooth.

Chris

[PhilKing]

There is a pickup that would work really well, but I'm not sure if it is out of development yet.  I am probably going to use it on a 12 string electric (at least in the neck, I might put a Stormy Mondya in the bridge).  It is a split coil HB, and only uses 3 of the poles in each coil (sort of like a Fender wide range but it doesn't have slug coils in the other 3 poles).  AIV Stormy Mondays will also be great.  Manhattans would also be a good choice if you want the P-90 sound.

[MrBump]

There is a pickup that would work really well, but I'm not sure if it is out of development yet.  I am probably going to use it on a 12 string electric (at least in the neck, I might put a Stormy Mondya in the bridge).  It is a split coil HB, and only uses 3 of the poles in each coil (sort of like a Fender wide range but it doesn't have slug coils in the other 3 poles).  AIV Stormy Mondays will also be great.  Manhattans would also be a good choice if you want the P-90 sound.

What is this pickup of which you speak???

[tomjackson]

I have standard Stormy Mondays may be a little round and soft.  They are lovely but I wouldn't associate them with jangle.  They are AII BTW.

[totnesdave]

Mm, hmmmm much food for thought, thanks guys :)

Quick check with a ruler shows centre-to-centre bass E to treble E polepieces on my Les Paul to be about 50mm

Centre-to-centre between bass E and treble E courses on the 12 string at neck pup is about 52mm

Pickup surrounds are standard Les Paul style.

So seems like standard pole-pieced pickups are feasible.

I'd much prefer an 'open' sounding pickup rather than the smoothed compressed sound of humbuckers, so P90 sort of thing intuitively strikes me as the best option, interesting to see that the the MQ P90s can be ordered 'coil tapped' too, hmmmmmm :)

Dave.