Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

my HiGain pickups are weak. trying to decide if I need to switch them or get them rewound
thoughts/ideas?

What kind of amp are you using? Do you use pedals? What other guitars are you using for comparison? What kind of tones are you trying to get?

I don't find the hi-gains in two of my Ricks to be weak, but I use mid-70s Fender amps. You might consider a cleanish boost pedal if you want to push your amp's front-end harder. I would do this before rewinding. You can sell a boost pedal if you don't like it, but I'm not sure what you'd get for over-wound hi-gains.

I use a AC-30, I have a Seymour Duncan pickup boost but I like to switch it on for leads, my multimeter stopped working so I havent been able to check them.

Try adjusting the height of your pickups relative to the strings. You may need to bring them up a tad so you can get a bit more bite when you attack the strings hard.......when you play lead for example .

I have a few amps to choose from but I do use a Vox AC30 VR and my 350 has "toasterized" high gains. I can get some great tones and lots of sustain with that guitar and amp. Just a few millimeters can make a huge difference.

If that doesn't work, just stick another bar magnet on the underside of the p/up; it will boost output, and it's prolly a lot cheaper than a rewind!

The first thing is to get a new multi meter to check if the pickup is to spec..
If they are 70s-80s they should be 7.5kish if they are about 1990 onwards they should be 12kish
If they are not in the ballpark then you need further investigation to see what has gone wrong...

emac.

yeah Im going to buy a new mutlimeter, will adding another bar mag really add more output? where can you buy a bar magnet and would I need a ceramic (I assume?) or alnico?
If that doesnt work I might look into some newer higains when did they go to 12K? , I really DO NOT want to retro fit GFS Ive youtubed those an I dont hear much difference
thanks for the help

my 90s higains are strong, i have to back them down away from the strings. you can also bypass the tone control and/or volume controls, that adds more welly to the pickups

Um, with due respect to the above posters, hi-gains from any era can be almost anything. I've seen them as low as 6.1kohms, and as high as 14kohms. One cause of a weak pickup is if there is something preventing the bar magnet on the bottom making good clean contact with the polepieces. That happened to me when I cracked a high gain magnet. I had to be very careful with the epoxy to make sure a film did not get between the magnet and the poles.

Also, as stated above, output in relation to distance from the strings varies as the square of the distance from the strings, so a little bit closer should make a significant difference in perceived output.

interesting...

What year guitar are your pickups from?

Greg