Main Description

Fender®, Squier®, Stratocaster®, Mustang® and Strat® are registered trademarks of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and Axesrus® has no affiliation with FMIC

Bode Plots

	Swap Graphs?
	Pickup #1 Single Coil Humbucker Telecaster P90 Offets Bass Other Texas Blues (Bridge) Texas Blues (Neck + Middle)	Pickup #2 Humbucker Single Coil Classic 50s Bourbon CityXDevestatorEtherealHereticHot IronModel 24True 50s

Bode plots are one of my “things” when it comes to pickups – I’m a huge believer that “guitars sound like guitar”, and that there is FAR too much expectation placed on pickups “to be different”, with a real belief that these things are very “black and white/good and bad/one thing or the other” and, honestly? Its not true!

Really, there isn’t a massive amount of tonal difference between, say, an Axesrus late 60s and an Axesrus Mid 50s single coil. Sure, if we were to compare a very high output humbucker like the Hot Iron and a very traditional single coil, the differences start increase, but at no point does the guitar start sounding like anything other then a guitar! Think of them as shades of grey, and you wont go far wrong.

So, when shopping pickups? And being confronted with a wall of numbers, hugely flowery write ups, sound clips that don’t tell you a great deal – Bode plots are a fantastic way to say “these 2 are similar, this ones a bit more of this, that ones a little more that” – it might not come through in the recordings, it might not be evident in the numbers, you can guarantee the write ups are going to over egg the pudding – but the bode plot? She cannot lie!

So, a quick crash course in reading bode plots?

The higher the peaks frequency (in kHz) the brighter the pickup.

The higher the peaks voltage (in dBU), the more aggressive its going to be in that register.
The ”wider” the lead in and lead out immediately around the peak (the Q factor) the smoother the pickup is going to be. The narrower, the more focused and snappy it will be.

And – a handy hint – view the resonant peak and Q factor in relation to the  lower frequencies (0-2kHz) – a pickup producing 10dbU at 1kHz, and 30dbU at a resonant peak of 5kHz might seem bright in graph form, but its all relative – its bright, but its also very bass rich, so it wont seem that bright in reality)

Sets vs. Singles

Right then – I’ll concede that this is a bit confusing, but, there is some logic to it – its just a little bit involved, so this is worth a read.

So, right off the bat, when we speak about “a matched set” – in this instance, that means 2 pickups, hotter bridge, cooler neck, but both hotter then your current Mustang® pickups! A set of Texas Blues? They’re all going spicy 6.5K bridge, and then a slightly cooler, but, frankly, quite peppery neck at 6.2K, Alnico 5. Simple!

With our Mustang pickups, we’re offering them as a matched set with a reverse wound BRIDGE, and a standard wound neck, or the pickups as separates, because, nowadays, that’s what you’d expect to find on a Mustang – a reverse wound neck pickup.

Single and ready to mingle

I do, secretly, like making up little nonsense puns for the headers of these write ups, but this ones quite apt!

If your buying a single pickup, that’s fantastic, I’m all for mixing and matching different pickups together to really personalise a guitar and get it working for you – so, rather then brow beat anyone who dare suggest putting an Axesrus pickup next to a Seymour Duncan or a DiMarzio – how about I actually tell you how to ensure that your going to match the things up properly?
Wind Direction
So, with our single coils – as “standard” (aka, “Not Reverse Wound”) – all models are wound clockwise, South polarity.

And all reverse wound pickups, are counter clockwise, north polarity.

And what that means is, if you hold the pickup in the palm of your hand, with the bottom fibre board down, with the hookup wires facing you, the “start” of the coil (the black wire!) is on the LEFT (and the white wire, is on the right)

That, is clockwise wind! Easy right.

If you’ve got a middle pickup that’s the opposite of that (black on the right, white or yellow on the left), that means your middles reverse wound (in relation to an Axesrus pickup) – but remember, not everyone follows the same standard (even Fender® have been known to wander!) so it’s worth checking.
Polarity
Polarity is a little more complicated/confusing so, to spell it out as straight forward as I can. Our standard is South Top (reverse would be North Top)

Again, not everyone follows the same standard, so its worth checking.

The problem is – when you check, that’s what’ll confuse the life out of you, so heres the way to do it.

1. Get yourself a magnetic compass, identify which is the north needle (and which is the south).
2. Hold the compass so the edge is facing the top of the poles of the pickup – either the North or south needle will point directly at the pole.

If it NORTH needle is pointing towards the pole, that means the pole is SOUTH top (confusing right? North literally means south (weirdly, the earths north pole? That’s south polarity too!)

Alternatively, you can download a pole checker on your smart phone – it’s a free download. If that says “north” when you offer it up to a magnets pole, that’s true – North = North!

Once you know the polarity of your other pickups, your going to know what you need from your new one.

Remember, we wind these to our standard (and it’s a very widely used standard outside of Axesrus too) but, if you do find yourself needing a pickup that’s clockwise wound, north polarity, or something way out – just give us a ring, and we can do it, no problems at all.

Humbucker compatibility!

And one of the times where you ARE going to find weird and wonderful situations where you need weird phasings, is with a HSS guitar.

A much more widely enforced standard, is the polarity and phase of humbucker coils – the slug coil is ALWAYS Counter Clockwise, North Polarity. Always (the screw coil is always clockwise/south)

So, when coil splitting a humbucker, so it behaves correctly in pos 2 on a HS Mustang®, you will, normally, be tapping down to the slug coil. That leaves you with a Counter clockwise/North pickup live.

Our Mustang® Necks, being reverse wound, are also counter clockwise/north – and, technically speaking, that’d be wrong by the modern standard. So – HS Mustangs, your better off getting a NOT REVERSE Neck pickup, that way, pos 2/split isn’t out of phase. (unless you want it to be, then go for a RWRP middle!) – again, if in doubt, drop us an email and we’ll discuss it further.