Swineshead Pickups = Gone.

[dave_mc]

i bought a set several years ago, and I had no problems, they were legit. I have no idea if anything has changed in the meanwhile, though.

[random]

Finally got my pickups!
Turns out the company disappeared but not my pups.
Quality is really nice...

Not the end of my worries though.
I didn't quite understand about pickup resistance when I ordered these.
These are - Bridge 11.0k - Neck - 7.5k - way hotter I need.
I sort of get it now, but with the company gone I can't have them altered.

Have you expert types on this forum any advice for me?
The pickups I have come closest to my desired sound with so far is the GFS Retrotrons.
In the neck I had a neck Liverpool 7.4k and a bridge Memphis 5.45k.

They gave me:
Lush shoegazer sound in the neck,
Sixties jangle in the bridge,
Acoustic type sound when split,
Totally different volume levels,
Horrid visuals.

I wanted to fix the volume levels and looks and concentrate my efforts on the split signal with some quality pups.
Now I feel kind of lost with my high output superpups, it's like I fixed the quality part of it but lost the rest.

Pickup noob needs advice.

[Afghan Dave]

Here you go!  :lol:

http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/shop/

Seriously, we love to help but this is a BKP forum and Tim pays the bills.

If you're looking for BKP stand well back because you'll get all the help you need.

[Philly Q]

Don't know what to suggest on your pickups, but I would ask have you tried the Swinesheads?  DC resistance doesn't tell the whole story.

And regarding the new thread title, can you actually confirm that Swineshead are out of business?  Tell us more.

[random]

I can confirm that the Swineshead website is gone and they can't be contacted.
If they have some real life shop that still works I wouldn't know.

Yes I've tried the pickups, that's how I know they are quality but too hot for me.

I'll try BKP or any pickup if it will do what I want.
Couldn't imagine BKP would have any problems about me posting problems with competitor pups.

[FELINEGUITARS]

I think most of us are open minded enough to engage in open pickup discussion - especially in a "contrast and compare" way , and hopefully in a constructive rather than a "fan-boy /bash anything that is not BKP" manner to better understand how things work and sound in different guitars.

But we must be respectful of the fact that all this bandwidth that we use is paid for out of Tim's (BKPs) pocket and Tim ultimately wants to encourage and support the use and sale of BKP products.

However it is sad to hear of companies struggling and going under in these tough economic times and it affects all small companies - including my own... so I do sympathise with the plight that Swineshead have faced.

[MDV]

I think most of us are open minded enough to engage in open pickup discussion - especially in a "contrast and compare" way , and hopefully in a constructive rather than a "fan-boy /bash anything that is not BKP" manner to better understand how things work and sound in different guitars.

But we must be respectful of the fact that all this bandwidth that we use is paid for out of Tim's (BKPs) pocket and Tim ultimately wants to encourage and support the use and sale of BKP products.

However it is sad to hear of companies struggling and going under in these tough economic times and it affects all small companies - including my own... so I do sympathise with the plight that Swineshead have faced.

A good post.

I dont feel that we need to be 'exclusive' to bkp in our discussions round here, but it is tims forum, its not free speech.

That said as far as I know tim hasnt prohibited discussion of other pickups, and this thread hasnt had a lock or a warning.

I'd be rather sad to see swineshead go, if they have. They were a go-to bang-for-buck pickup for guitars that werent that acoustsically impressive enough to take BKs, for me. I had some really good results with them.

But if you arent satisfied with them....youre asking on the BK board what to do about it....

Get BKs :D

[Philly Q]

A good post.

I dont feel that we need to be 'exclusive' to bkp in our discussions round here, but it is tims forum, its not free speech.

That said as far as I know tim hasnt prohibited discussion of other pickups, and this thread hasnt had a lock or a warning.

Agreed.  I've always regarded the "Pickups" part of the forum as being primarily for discussions/recommendations of BKP pickups, but that doesn't preclude all mention of other brands, especially for comparison and reference purposes.

I wouldn't hesitate to mention other brands (e.g. TV Jones) if it's a type of pickup BKP don't make.

[random]

Maybe the BKP rewind service is the thing for me?

[Philly Q]

Maybe the BKP rewind service is the thing for me?

Could be, but I'd recommend a good chat with Tim at BKP to make sure you get exactly the sound you're after.

Am I right in thinking the A.M.P. pickups have individual rod magnet polepieces rather than the bar magnets used on most humbuckers?  That might make things a bit more complicated.

[MDV]

Maybe the BKP rewind service is the thing for me?

Could be, but I'd recommend a good chat with Tim at BKP to make sure you get exactly the sound you're after.

Am I right in thinking the A.M.P. pickups have individual rod magnet polepieces rather than the bar magnets used on most humbuckers?  That might make things a bit more complicated.

Correct. That there is no readily available BK equivelent is one of the reasons I think its fair this thread s here. (Another being that Random is right - discussion of swinesheads is rare and this will be one of the only places he could have gone where anyone knows about them).

The closest BKs are the Knuckledusters that were made for nathan sheperd guitars. As far as those particular pickups go, neither the bridge nor neck fit in normal humbucker routings.

But certainly there is the knowledge at BK to make 'true splitting' pickups and I'd look into a rewind.

[Lucifuge]

While I have never actually tried the Swineshead pickups, I was interested in them and was thinking about getting some, but I saw on their website around the beginning of December saying something like 'we will make all the pickups already ordered, but then will take a break and not make any more until 2010.'

I don't know if the disappearance of the website means that they will not be coming back, but I think this would be a shame as  the AMP pickup in particular is a design that is not that easy to get hold of.

I notice you said near the beginning you wanted these because:

The pickups I've ordered are the A.M.P. real single coil that will do classic humbucking.
Swineshead were the only ones I could find that would do what I wanted.

However, I'm not sure it's possible to have a 'real single coil that will do classic humbucking' - a pickup like this in my experience does not sound like a classic humbucker, it is brighter without the bass and low mid warmth. You might think that's a good thing (I do,) but it's still not a classic humbucking sound.

Also, if you make the output much lower than 11k, it will give a very weak single coil sound when split.

There are a number of other manufacturers that make pickups of a similar design, but given this is the BKP forum, maybe I shouldn't start listing them here :?

I guess the other option to get close to the same sound is to wire 2 standard single coils in series instead of parallel; if one is RWRP, you should get similar(ish) results, though I'm not sure how you'd fit them into a 2-humbucker guitar.

[MDV]

Gemini pickups make several models with asymmetric splitting, so the split sound isnt weak, but there as still lots of coils that arent paired off with one in another wind, giving single coil character. The poor soundclips put me off them though. Yeah, I know, a million and one other variables, but they really sounded shite.

BK made the knuckledusters, which by all accounts do have humbucker and single tones in one pickup, but the design is very unconventional and not a retrofit for most guitars - they have to be routed especially for them.

I've wired two singles, one RPRW, in series in two guitars - one was the middle and neck, two irish tours. Very interesting, and cool tone with them both on, but it while its humbucking, it doesnt sound like a humbucker, presumably due to the large seperation of the coils. The other was two singles (generic dean stock) that I made into a humbucker and put in a humbucker routing, neck position. Really compressed sounding humbucker tone. I didnt split it.

[dave_mc]

I think most of us are open minded enough to engage in open pickup discussion - especially in a "contrast and compare" way , and hopefully in a constructive rather than a "fan-boy /bash anything that is not BKP" manner to better understand how things work and sound in different guitars.

But we must be respectful of the fact that all this bandwidth that we use is paid for out of Tim's (BKPs) pocket and Tim ultimately wants to encourage and support the use and sale of BKP products.

However it is sad to hear of companies struggling and going under in these tough economic times and it affects all small companies - including my own... so I do sympathise with the plight that Swineshead have faced.

A good post.

I dont feel that we need to be 'exclusive' to bkp in our discussions round here, but it is tims forum, its not free speech.

That said as far as I know tim hasnt prohibited discussion of other pickups, and this thread hasnt had a lock or a warning.

I'd be rather sad to see swineshead go, if they have. They were a go-to bang-for-buck pickup for guitars that werent that acoustsically impressive enough to take BKs, for me. I had some really good results with them.

But if you arent satisfied with them....youre asking on the BK board what to do about it....

Get BKs :D

agreed.

if you like the sound of filtertron-style pickups, that might be the way to go? I haven't tried any filtertrons, though, I've just read that they're a completely different style of pickup to paf-types.

[gwEm]

you found them too hot? - but Swineshead were pretty good about putting the DC on their website...

anyway, would suggest BKPs of course ;)

too bad business looks bad for swineshead - its good they filled your order though