Matched sets! Now, this turned into a long one… but its an interesting read if you like this stuff.

“The idea of a matched set of humbuckers, is a myth!”

There. I’ve said it.

The idea that your bridge pickup should be 0.3K “hotter” then your neck pickup, that you’re going to get a “better” sound out of it, or that its going to be more suitable for “lead” work… it’s just not true.

So – lets get into it!

Pole spacing history

If we look at the great grand daddy of humbucking guitars, Gibson®, to start with – once the humbuckers came out in 1957 or whenever it was, Gibson® settled on a 49.2mm string spacing (no idea why it’s such a weird number) and they wound “a humbucker” – just the one spec, one size, one shape – and in it went! Stick one in the bridge, spin the other round so the screw poles face the other way, and that went in the neck. Swap em round if your bored? Same pickups! Sound the same! Lovely – the strings didn’t quite line up with the pickups poles, but it didn’t matter.

And so it went for 20 years – until around the 1970s (and I can’t be exact with date or manufacturers here, because its so badly recorded!) when you start seeing “clones” of Les Paul® style guitars (and other Gibson® guitars) coming out of Japan – the “lawsuit” era – we start to see something magical happening! The first humbuckers guitars where the strings “almost” matched the poles.

Predictably with this stuff, you get a rounding error too – 49.2mm changed to 50mm and they invented 52mm bridge pickups. I have absolutely no idea why they did it, but I can’t say I’m complaining. It looks nice!

Gibson® weren’t having that, they were getting hammered and, it was, in fairness, a blatant trademark breech, so the law suits begun, and Gibson® came out of it winning, and I believe, working with one of the manufacturers – That was sort of the predecessor to Gibson® setting up Epiphone® to fill the void of these “cheaper but good” Gibson® style guitars, and meant Gibson® still got paid!

And, unsurprisingly, Gibson® kept some of the ideas from the Lawsuit guitars too – Epiphone® guitars, from day one, came with those narrower spaced neck pickups and wider spaced bridge pickups– not because it sounded better, but purely because it looked nicer!

Why is this “wrong”?

Now, the problem with making two different sized pickups – is that the bobbins used to make them are different, and because humbuckers use pretty much all of their internal space for the coils, that meant the internal “space” had to remain pretty much the same too.

So – a 52.5mm humbuckers bobbin had to be larger to account for the 2mm “increase” in the length internally – as such, 52mm humbuckers are 68mm long, whilst 49.2s are 66mm (50s are a bit odd – some are 66, because they’ve been cloned and tweaked from Gibsons bobbins, others are 68mm) – but the number that matters in all this is the internal “length”

49.2mm bobbins have 56mm of plastic inside then – 10mm of “coil space”

52.5mm bobbins have 58mm of plastic inside them – 10mm of “coil space”

But, heres where things get “wrong” – a length of copper (lets say it’s 42 AWG) 56mm long has a LOWER resistance then a 58mm long length.

And because the law suit era/Epiphone® pickups weren’t so much designed as “cloned” – we can assume that its simply a case of “shove 5000” winds on each bobbin! That’s what Gibson® do!”

So when the 52.5mm pickup is done, it’s actually got more copper on there – 2mm more per turn right? It’s hotter! Not by much, but just a bit that you’ll see it if you run a meter over them.

And this is still true now – if you buy a set of Axesrus pickups (with a couple of exceptions… Bourbon Cities!!) or DiMarzio®, or Seymour Duncan®, or whatever – the 52.5mm version has the same winds as the 50mm and 49.2mm versions, but it will resist slightly higher (and it’ll induce slightly higher, have a slightly lower resonant peak… blah blah blah) AND… if you’ve got the ears of a bat? You might even be able to tell the difference if you A/B them.

So that’s “the ideal” right? You’ve got poles that match up with your strings, it doesn’t make a difference tonally on its own, but your bridge pickup is a couple of ohms hotter than your neck. It’s a miniscule difference, you likely won’t ever taste it, but it’s nice to know. That’s “the norm” – a set of 50/52s or 49/52.5s? You’ve getting a set of pickups where the bridge is slightly hotter! “A matched set” – but completely be accident. Chance over design!

So a set of pickups in different spacings sound different?

Now – in real terms, consider this. To make a pickup noticeably different to “the next” it’s got to be about 5% higher/lower resistance then the next (assuming everything else is equal) – because that’s generally the tolerance for winding (most companies state this as 10%, but 5%, give or take, is about true – 10% just covers out back sides!) – It accounts for variation in the wire thickness, the way they’ve been wound, ambient temperature (heat causes the copper to expand, increasing its length, and as such its resistance)

If we wound a Bourbon city at 8K instead of 8.2K on a freezing December morning, or I saw one coming in at 8.4k on a summer scorcher? I’m not batting an eye lid – its well within tolerance – it might be hotter, but it’s still a Bourbon city (There are some pickup manufacturers to do offer some ludicrous options – a 8.2K pickup vs. and 8.22K? A medium sized breeze is going to make that impossible to hit)

So, if you’re buying any pickup? Expect a bit of leeway in the actual resistance of the thing – it’s the nature of the beast – seeing a 52.5mm pickup coming in at 0.2k over the 49.2mm version isn’t going to be noticeable at all.

In short – your bridge will be slightly hotter if its 52.5mm compared to a 49.2mm or 50mm, but they’re both the same pickups.

The marketing men have a lot of answer for!

However – this bred the idea with aftermarket pickups that you could lean into this thinking and make (and I’m not sure I’ve got enough quote marks for this) “Matched “Matched” sets” – leaning into the idea that bridge pickups with a wider spacing are hotter, and making a big song and dance that it’s been designed that way from the off!

It hasn’t – it’s a fluke of the design (even when the idea was been ported onto pickups with the same spacing, although, that’s slightly more “honest” I suppose, at least the bridge has intentionally, a little more wire on there), and generally speaking? The differences are so minimal, that functionally? They’re the same pickup. It’s a marketing “thing” and nothing more – if you go buy a set of 49.2mm pickups for your Gibson where the bridge pickup has been wound 0.2k hotter, and it’s been described as being “just a bit over wound”, trust me, they’ll behave the same – it’s too small a difference to taste.

Realistically, a matched set of pickups is simply just two pickups that sound good together – and that’s never truer then when they’re the same pickup. They’re both producing frequencies that have very similar characteristics; they’re going to play well together on the same amp settings – it’s just ones under the strings further towards the neck, and ones closer to the bridge! And that’s a good little rule to live by – get pickups that are within about 5-10% of each other in terms of resistance (leaving you plenty of options in terms of magnets and pole styles) OR, if you’re feeling saucy, about 2 Henrys in inductance (they might not like the same amp settings, but they’ll be close enough for rock and roll in terms of volume!)

So, that’s the truth behind “matched sets” – they exist when you’re using different spaced pickup, which is fine, but tonally? Most of the time, it’s exactly the same as using a pair of identical pickups, at least to your ears.

“Matched sets” that are just completely different?

There does, exist, a darker side to this story! The side that boils my *blood* a little bit.

I present to you “The Wildly Mismatched “Matched” Set”! – we’ve all seen them, chances are we’ve all sold them if your into this side of things, and I bet 99% of us have at least played them! I won’t drag anyone through the mud here, so, for the sake of transparency, when Axesrus was a younger thing (before it sucked my soul dry!) we made a “matched set of Hot Irons” and they sum up this idea perfectly.

A 14.5K Alnico 5 Bridge pickup (inducing 7H wound with 43 AWG) and an 8K Alnico 5 Neck (inducing 4.5H, wound with 42 AWG)

I can tell you now, that the bridge pickup did not want to be on the same amp as the neck – it was (and is – the bridge pickup survived the switch from OEM winding to UK hand winding… with a few updates!) an absolutely monster – it was gain for days, and the neck was essentially a vintage humbuckers. It didn’t want to be playing through a dimed Mesa Boogie® – it turned to a thick, hearty soup! (And visa versa – that obvious metal pickup would push a clean amp so heavily into break up that it was like having a distortion pedal)

Essentially, it was like having two guitars in one – one metal monster and one vintage. Sounds a great idea on paper!

And the idea took off – mid to late 90s, it was everywhere! Gibson even jumped on it – guitars with super high output bridge pickups (500T!) and “normal” necks – and its an awful idea (ruined many a good SG® in my opinion!), because ultimately, 2 wildly different pickups have got to go into the same amplifier – and your man looking for a bit of sultry blues rock doesn’t really want his bridge pickup to suddenly turn into Swedish black metal.

And the after market pickup manufacturers also started to claim this idea as “matched sets”, which is utter nonsense. (It’s still happening too!) They are completely different pickups doing completely different jobs. It may be versatile, but remember, you’ve only got one amp! Its novel for a while, but eventually? Guitars sound better when they’re designed to do one job – versatility is more guitars sadly! Not guitars with multiple personalities.

So, if you are shopping for pickups, or your winding pickups – take the idea of a matched set with a pinch of salt eh? It’s more likely, best case scenario, a pair of pickups so close in spec that they’re identical either way, and it’s just marketing hype – just remember “unmatched matched sets” – if they look too good to be true? They are!

Which Axesrus Pickups play well together?

Now, I know I sound like I’m dead against the idea of mixing and matching pickups! I promise you, I’m not! Honest! Do what makes you happy – BUT – I will say, generally speaking – if your wanting something “truly great” – go for 2 pickups with the same name. Be that a 50/52.5mm set, or a pair of 49.2mms! A pair of Bourbon cities will always blow your socks off once you’ve got the amp dialled in, a pair of True 50s is always going to give you the best “warts and all” vintage experience!

However, there are some pickups that even I would struggle to say “yeah, you cant live without the neck version!”

So – as a rough and ready guide, and “pairs of the same pickup, regardless of spacing” not withstanding – heres a list of pickups that work well together.

Bourbon City Bridge & Classic 50s Neck.

Bourbon City Bridge & True 50s Neck.
Model 24 Bridge & Bourbon City Neck.

Wraith Bridge & Ethereal Neck

Hot Iron Bridge & Model 24 Neck.

Ethereal Bridge and Model 24 Neck